• Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Suicide: Self-termination, a person takes his/her own life.

    Memetic suicide: Self-refutation; an idea shooting itself in the foot; sawing off the very branch it sits on.

    Examples of people suicide:

    1. Harakiri/Seppuku (Samurai code)
    2. Sylvia Plath (the Sylvia Plath effect)
    3. Alan Turing
    .
    .
    .

    Examples of memetic suicide

    1. Relativism
    2. Logical positivism
    .
    .
    .

    Some ideas (memes that self-destruct) are like the ouroboros (snake eating itself) or like Marvin Minsky's useless machines.

  • Angelo Cannata
    354
    It depends how you conceive them. Anything can be considered self-destructive from perspectives that, in turn, can be considered self-destructive as well. As a consequence, even your OP can be considered self-destructive. The same way, somebody who is going to commit suicide can think that the real self-destructive ones are those who are going to stay alive. This is relativism, that you considered suicide.
  • javi2541997
    5.9k
    Harakiri/Seppuku (Samurai code)Agent Smith

    While Harakari/Seppuku tend to be poetic and aesthetic. I see "memetic suicide" as unreasonable without any context, like it seems to appear when we are debating and suddenly we accidentally commit a self-refutation
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    :ok:

    From a military strategist's POV, all personnel & equipment must be provided with a self-destruct button/cyanide capsule. Idea Wars!

    While Harakari/Seppuku tend to be poetic and aesthetic. I see "memetic suicide" as unreasonable without any context, like it seems to appear when we are debating and suddenly we accidentally commit a self-refutationjavi2541997

    Thesis & Antithesis cancel each other out and voila! Nuthin'!
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    Why does relativism kill itself?
  • Hillary
    1.9k


    Interesting approach! So actually you commit suicide by staying alive? And by killing yourself you enter new life?
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    I've committed memetic suicide a 1000 times at least. I stick to the last meme though.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    I've committed memetic suicide a 1000 times at least.Hillary

    Join the club mon ami! But I have a feeling I've died more times than you! I'm a pro at commiting suicide, political, philosophical, romantic, it's my schtick! :sad:
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    I'm a pro at commiting suicideAgent Smith

    :lol:

    That's for sure a meme committing suicide...

    What would be the reason for a meme to autodestruct?
  • Angelo Cannata
    354

    I thinkn it shouldn't be difficult to imagine situations perceived this way. Do I need to make examples?
  • Hillary
    1.9k


    You mean serial big bangs? Being born in every one (or less) of them?
  • unenlightened
    9.2k
    Marvin Minsky's useless machines.Agent Smith

    Back in the sixties, we had to make one of those for a physics project. The joy of liberal education!
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    What would be the reason for a meme to autodestruct?Hillary

    "It simply can't bear to exist", from a psychological POV. It must be suffering in extremum.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Back in the sixties, we had to make one of those for a physics project. The joy of liberal education!unenlightened

    Can you teach me how to make one? How good is yer memory? Just some tips & pointers will suffice.
  • Hillary
    1.9k
    Back in the sixties, we had to make one of those for a physics project.unenlightened

    Yeah, I think I read about that school that exploded...
  • unenlightened
    9.2k
    An electric motor and a spring, basically. The difficulty is in getting the forces balanced so that the motor operates the finger with the strength to flick the switch while also tensioning the spring enough to pull it back afterwards. If i remember I had a very small toy motor geared down with a worm thread, and a coil spring from god knows where. But you could use a spiral spring too. The finger is just mounted on an axle that makes a 1/4 turn each time, and the lid works by gravity. Wooden box -easy to fit the bits to; an old cigar box in my case with the top cut in half and hinged.
  • Angelo Cannata
    354

    A suicide like a kamikaze might think that he is going to get the real life, while other ones who are too scared or decide not to sacrifice their life can be considered cowards by the kamikaze, remaining in a kind of life that actually is death. So, in that case, from that perspective, the coward who doesn't sacrifice his life like the kamikaze, is tbe one who is committing the real suicide, which is, depriving himself of the real true life.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Back in the sixties, we had to make one of those for a physics project.
    — unenlightened

    Yeah, I think I read about that school that exploded...
    Hillary

    :rofl:

    An electric motor and a spring, basically. The difficulty is in getting the forces balanced so that the motor operates the finger with the strength to flick the switch while also tensioning the spring enough to pull it back afterwards. If i remember I had a very small toy motor geared down with a worm thread, and a coil spring from god knows where. But you could use a spiral spring too. The finger is just mounted on an axle that makes a 1/4 turn each time, and the lid works by gravity. Wooden box -easy to fit the bits to; an old cigar box in my case with the top cut in half and hinged.unenlightened

    Muchas gracias!
  • Hillary
    1.9k


    Not hard to tell which side I'd be on... Rick the rebel!
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