From: "William F. Zachmann" 

> Thanks Will, interesting read with some information I hadn't seen yet
> although it's an old topic. I thought it might include some ideas on how
to
> firewall the mind but seems it's mostly covering the research aspect of
how
> to disrupt the mind (not even to the level of hacking it yet).

George,

Try this one:

Application of Memetics


Michael Wilson [5514706{at}mcimail.com] http://www.7pillars.com/
Copyright 1993 by the author. All rights reserved.


"...unless we're all part of the same dream. Only I do hope it's my dream, and
not the Red King's! I don't like belonging to another person's dream..."
--The character of Alice in Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass"

Face it, reality is a consentual hallucination. The only reason why you
know something is the color 'red' is because somebody else told you so. And
how did
they know? Because someone told them. To make reality even more complex,
you really don't have any true perception of reality, you only perceive
your perceptions. If you haven't had to stop reading and think about this
for at least five minutes (and how do you know how long a minute is?), then
you just
don't get the point. What is the point? That your knowledge, behavior, and all
those other fuzzy concepts are learned from what other people tell you and from
mimicking role models. No matter how original you think you may be, no matter
how much life experience you have collected on your own, it all still rests on
the foundations that you borrowed, willy nilly, from others. Now for a little
secret--the part of your brain that does this, without much help from you I
might add, and even when you don't want it to happen, is still at it, is
still
borrowing whole hog from the world around you. How else would you stay current
in language, dress, social customs, and all that jazz? Here's another
secret (notice how you perk up when you think you are going to be let in on
a secret?);
there are people out there who understand how it works a little better than you
do (does that make you nervous?), and actually do something about it. Don't you
think it's time you caught up with the rest of us (isn't it reassuring to
be part of a group?) and found out how to do it too?

Welcome to the wonderful world of memetic engineering, the applied science of
making friends think what you want them to think, and influencing enemies. Some
might apply such a set of techniques to the commercial use of selling things,
while others will see deeper and think of how to influence public opinion. This
document is intended for that deeper thinker (and you do like to think of
yourself as one of those, don't you?), and outlines the basic mechanisms
for treating other peoples' minds as if they were your playground, and
their own private Idaho.

Rule 1: Fix your target and the communication channel that reaches them.
Knowing whom you want targeted is not as easy as it sounds. Given that you
have
clearly framed what your objective is, you have to decide on an approach--do you
want many 'believers' quickly but only for a short term, or do you need a fewer
number but for a longer term? What action or reaction is desired from these
people? Can it realistically be met in the short or medium term? Or does it
require a long term 'paradigm shift' to accomplish? Why will they do this?
Can
you make them think that they have a good motive? Once you have all this figured
out, you can sketch up a rough character profile and research exactly how such
individuals get their 'input.' After all, if you control a person's surroundings
or input, you essentially control the person.

Rule 2: Pretest possible reactions. This is the fine tuning stage. Locate a
potential target and take a test run to
see what really happens when you start pushing their buttons. Take the feedback
to heart and do any reengineering of the target, message, and channel you need
to. Pretest again. Keep this up until you have it right.

Rule 3: Be flexible, and run the operation in place. It helps to be 'in
country' when doing this sort of thing. If you fit, even partially, the
profile for the target, and you are immersed in the same
'signal
saturation' they are, you have a better probability of creating an
effective meme. You also have the chance to make changes or course
corrections on the fly
if you have to. Call this 'sticking with what you know.'

Rule 4: Know your context.
Know as much as possible about the general culture and subculture you targeting.
You have to have everything down--vocabulary, syntax, timing, triggers, etc. to
do this right. Be a cultural anthropologist. Look at those around you as if you
were from Mars, not them. Question your assumptions.

Rule 5: Carefully pick the tone your message will take. You can pitch your
message in a variety of ways: positive, prophylactic, and negative.
Positive memes are ego building messages for the recipient. Prophylactic
memes simply prevent spread or infection by others. Negative memes
are the easiest to craft and have accepted, since they exploit mistakes and
faults that are either really there or at least perceived as being there.
For
example, take Israeli efforts to influence public opinion in the U.S.; they have
not so much successfully implemented such an effort, as much as they are one of
the few voices out there. They have managed to promote a continual media
bombardment of the Arabs as the 'bad guy' in print and film, potent places
for
such a message. The prophylactic side-effects are potent as well--talk of
Israeli propaganda at all can get you labeled as being anti-Semitic, and
talk of
Israeli media influence gets you branded as paranoid; either way, you don't get
listened to. The Israelis have also managed to build a considerable myth around
themselves as 'underdog' (when they have the most advanced force in the region),
as having an unbeatable military (when they are only well trained and far from
infallible), and as having a potent intelligence capability (when MOSSAD
has made some of the biggest blunders in the business). It all boils down
to acting
like the Wizard of Oz--acting powerful, mysterious, all-knowing, beyond judgment
or reproach, when all you really are is a small, ordinary man hiding behind a
threadbare curtain.

Rule 6: Decide on the duration and degree of repetition of your message.
Pavlov had some things wrong, but he also had some things right, such as
"Re-enforce often!" It also helps to have a good amount of
variation with the
reinforcement, so that the message doesn't get ignored (if you hear the
same thing too many times in just the same way, you learn to tune it out).

Rule 7: Use existing channels to move your message. Don't get fancy, and
don't try to move a meme across a newly established channel. Be careful
with the new medium of the Internet (or Usenet)--people there are paranoid,
scared, and skeptical in general, but that can be turned to
your advantage if you understand that. Also, the Net acts as a 'community
memory'--check out the beast known as the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
which
are kept current and accurate by an informal collective that knows the
topic (two good examples are the cryptography FAQ and the exercise FAQs).
Careful with
your facts, and be subtle with your spin.

Rule 8: Carefully construct your content. A meme must be based on a solid
intellectual, emotional, and economic model of
the target population. It should aim at personalities, not issues. The
'mimicry'
mechanism in people is susceptible because we are used to adopting patterns from
other people. Issues just hit the intellectual gestalt and get processed, thus
they have lower contagion; the only way issues can make it is if they imply a
changed self image of the target subject, or are linked to an image of a person
that the target can imagine themselves as.

Rule 9: Do not create new issues, but exploit existing ones. It is easier
to hijack an already 'in progress' meme and apply some spin control,
reinterpretation, shift in perception, and a colorful dash of revisionism.

Rule 10: Aggregate your approach.
Build toward your true purpose over time; start memes out as being totally
reliable to establish trust in the source. This 'collateral confirmation'
gives
credibility, and allows you to progress the future memes to approximate the
target mindset. Be certain that the paradigm created by the meme fits into
the
existing climate, mindset, and general opinion, otherwise it has a low potential
to spread and infect.

Rule 11: Don't make it seem like an attempt to influence them. The hard
sell turns people off; back off and let them come to you. You catch more
people through letting them into the group reluctantly than you do by
having 'press gangs' roving the countryside. People dislike the power trip
of
having to do things.

Rule 12: Keep it simple and emotional. Frame the message to take advantage
of releasers and gestalts; evoke emotions,
since emotions are less susceptible to analysis, particularly in Western cultures.

Rule 13: Don't interfere (and benefit if possible) with Maslow's Hierarchy of
Needs.
These are the basics: physical fulfillment, food, warmth, sleep, safety. They are
also not so basic: positive self-image, esteem in the eyes of their peers, love,
belonging, respect.

Rule 14: Evoke a group identification. Pushing the buttons of your target's
innate superiority, the shared suffering
they have with the group, how they are the 'chosen' people goes a long way to
reducing the maintenance necessary to keep members 'enrolled.' Propaganda
and Memetics
How do these two concepts differ? Propaganda creates a mindset that will accept
or be neutral towards actions undertaken by the generating source. Memetics
creates an active mindset that encourages participation (action, reaction,
proselytizing) and perpetuation of the intent of the generating source. It
depends on whether you want people to be sedate or pro-active.

Conclusions
There are a number of people selling things, and I don't just mean those
info-mercials. Some people are selling religions, others are selling pop
psychotherapy, politicians sell themselves, sometimes literally. Some
concepts
could benefit from the tactics, similar to memetic tactics, that are used
in those obnoxious info-mercials; maybe it is the removal from the abstract
to the
concrete that makes it so much more effective. No longer will you hear "It is
better for the environment," "a united Ireland," or
"democracy is good for you,"
but there will be a well-crafted meme showing you a person, someone you can
identify with, someone you wouldn't mind being, enjoying the benefits of
what
before seemed like empty slogans. It certainly beats using the techniques
to make people want 'buns of steel.'

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