What do people have wrong?

[Undertoad]

The whole concept of "memes" fascinates me.

A meme (pronounced "meem") is any idea, but the term refers to the state of ideas as viruses. Ideas and thoughts and concepts get spread from brain to brain. If they are seen as important, maybe even critical to survival, they are spread more rapidly.

Of course, some ideas are true and some false. Some are stated as hypothesis and eventually get taken as true. Some eventually get written into books as truth.

We need a new word for "false memes": ideas being spread that are provably false. Or if not objectively false, at least have some fictional grounding. The strength of the false meme could be stated as the percent of people in a culture who believe the idea even though it is wrong.

What popular ideas are false? There are a ton of them, obviously. Political, cultural, scientific, social, could be just about anything.

How about "Being shown on TV makes you special." Probably 90% believe this to be true, and this accounts for the ridiculous hand waving and "hi mom" behavior whenever a TV camera is pointed at a crowd. The camera leaves, everyone there feels like something important just happened, but anyone actually seeing their face on TV will not remember them as anything but another moronic hand-waver.

"Half of marriages end in divorce." Probably 95% believe it. The divorce rate is actually much lower. Sorry I don't have a cite.

"Cell phones cause cancer." Well no. But this idea may fade away, just as "Green magic marker around the edge of a CD makes it sound better" was widely believed only for about 6 months or so.

What else do people have wrong?

[elSicomoro]

The first two are actually sayings...

"Sweating like a pig"--Pigs don't have sweat glands.

"Eating like a bird"--Birds eat up to 10 times their weight in food.

Now the "Cell phones cause cancer" is still incomplete. It's one of those "We can't prove that they do, but we can't prove that they don't" things.

E=mc2: Shown to be wrong a long time ago.

The marriage rate is 8.4 per 1000 population. The divorce rate is 4.2 per 1000. (SOURCE: National Center for Health Statistics) But you can't necessarily correlate that into "Half of all marriages end in divorce."

"All men are created equal"--Depends on how you interpret this statement

[jaguar]

Tis interesting but

a:"Half of marriages end in divorce." Probably 95% believe it. The divorce rate is actually much lower. Sorry I don't have a cite.

I many countires that is the case, in the Uk its 53, in sweden its 64%. THe US is 49%. These are from 1996.Dicorce Magazine Stats

b: E=mc2: Shown to be wrong a long time ago
ummmmm when? coz they're still teaching it and only hell of alot of engineering and physics is based on it.........are we talking a minor flaw or a complete stuffup???

[elSicomoro]

If I recall my high school physics teacher correctly, one of the variables was off.
In researching it further, it would appear that constant motion is needed (Special Theory of Relativity). Hence, the General Theory of Relativity, which takes gravity into account.

I am not overly versed on matters of physics...I hated it. But for some reason, this always stuck out to me...along with the score of 9% that got me a D on my physics final.

[Undertoad]

Fine, if all you want to do is show that I'm wrong about what people are wrong about, I will bring out the big guns.

"Government can improve the health care system."

"DARE helps keep kids off drugs."

"If you don't eat a high-cholesterol diet you will not have problems with cholesterol."

"If children see nudity it will ruin them for life."

"Professional athletes and entertainers are all rich."

"E.T. was an excellent film."

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by Tony Shepps
Fine, if all you want to do is show that I'm wrong about what people are wrong about, I will bring out the big guns.

Now now Tony. There are probably millions of false memes out there...you only scratched the surface. But you have to admit that the last one is not as much a meme as it is an opinion.

But here are some more:

"Everything was better in the good old days"

"If you work hard, you can achieve anything."

"Everyone is on equal footing in America."

[alphageek31337]

I saw the most blatant, grand high poobah of false memes today....on the back of a police car, it said 'to serve and protect."

[vsp]

"Regulation of [TV/video games/music/movies/the Internet/etc.] is needed to _protect our children_."

"Watching violent programming/playing violent games makes people more violent in real life."

"If you are a celebrity, your opinion is worth listening to." (The principle upon which the existence of Entertainment Tonight rests.)

"There's more to NASCAR than a bunch of rednecks turning left at intervals."

jeff. Okay, the last one was mine...

[lisa]

Originally posted by alphageek31337
I saw the most blatant, grand high poobah of false memes today....on the back of a police car, it said 'to serve and protect."

Hmmm... reminds me of what I always heard was an oxymoron: "Philadelphia's Finest"

[jet_silver]

The careers of G. B. Shaw and H. L. Mencken were both made by false memes. In the case of Shaw, he said what everyone knew (once they'd thought it over) but were embarrassed to believe. Mencken spoke the truth, on important topics that people didn't want to think about.

Mencken's arguments on the US experiment with prohibition of alcohol are as vital today as they were in 1930. Substitute 'drugs' for 'alcohol' and there you have it.

If you would like to see the deconstruction of a false meme, there is a good one on the income tax 'rebate' right here on this board (Current Events). The false meme (the government is giving you money back from your previously paid taxes) was deliberately set up by the collusion of IRS and GOP - with the connivance of US news media - and it worked.

[Whit]

What about the fact that the winners write history? Isn't that where alot of this comes from?

For example, if WWII ended differently then the superiority of aryan's would be in the text book instead part of redneck delusions. As a matter of fact that is something that WAS taught in public schools in this country in the not-so-distant past.

Here's another, what is the point of having a society? Most know that it beats anarchy by protecting us from violent neighbors but haven't thought about it beyond that point. I've actually heard a few good answers but that's not the point. If the necessity of society is not understood by most, so does that mean it's either false or unimportant?

Ol' Ben Kenobi was right, our beliefs do depend on our point of veiw.

[Undertoad]

Awesome question. I think the answer must lie somewhere in the fact that we are inherently gregarious (there's a high-falutin' phrase if ever there was one). We're so inclined to build societies that we never really think about why we do it, whether it's a good idea, etc.

When things are universal even amongst remote tribes, I have to think it's because some behaviors are hard-wired into our brains.

[jaguar]

An illusion shared by everyone becomes a reality. -Erich Fromm

Why we have societys?
like most belifs (paedophilia is wrong or ask half hte G8 protesters exactly what they are protesting baout) people are hard pressed to find exact reasons and thier logical basis when asked. Its easy to support somthing when you feel warm and fuzzy i nthe middle of a big group, you don't have to fully udnerstand it jsut go along, hitlers germany for example.

Why do we have society? big question, many answers, ill try a few.

First of all, define 'soceity' otherwise i'm shooting at a moving target, ill go for a basic level here.

a: we are social animals, we like being roudn other humans, tlak to them etcetc

b: Recent science has shown that collective darwinisim is beter than pure darwinisim ie: groups of ogranisims survive better than individual ones, mabye there were relly 'unfirendly' humans, they jsut died out.

Grousp work well, that way each person can do one or two things and they can all benifit from collective talents, woodworkers, farmers, builders etc rather than each person having to do everything. THen you have disputes and you need someone to sort them out a 'leader', this used to be the strongest or most popular. Cue history.

[Griff]

One little bone to pick. We are misusing the language here IMHO. Anarchy and society, at least theoretically, are not mutually exclusive. Government is part of our society but society can exist without it. Would society be more violent without government or would voluntary organizations florish? My guess is that folks who need to control others would patch together these voluntary organizations and increase their power until we ended up with a government. Its an interesting conundrum, we need government on some level to keep the kind of people who work in government in check.

[jaguar]

very true griff, it comes down to how you define society.
Like any good debate you need to define the structure first otherwise you can't.