Selections From a Memetic Lexicon

Auto-toxic Dangerous to itself. Highly auto-toxic memes are usually self-limiting because they promote the destruction of their hosts (such as the Jim Jones meme; any military indoctrination meme-complex; any "martyrdom" meme). (GMG) (See exo-toxic.) bait The part of a meme-complex that promises to benefit the host (usually in return for replicating the complex). The bait usually justifies, but does not explicitly urge, the replication of a meme-complex. (Donald Going, quoted by Hofstadte...

 Memetic Sex

There are many similarities between genes and memes. Just as genes transmitted during sexual intercourse in the biosphere, so are ideas trans¬ mitted during social intercourse in the mental realm, or ideosphere. [...] The memetic realm also hahas some important differences from the genetic realm. Memes combine, recombine, mutate, and reproduce much more flexly and rapidly than genes do. This is one way that genetic sex does not map completely to memetic sex. For example, the memetic count...