Capitalism, memetics and religion

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Capitalism, memetics and religion

...So I was shooting tequila the other day, and a thought dawned on me. I'll see how well I can translate it into text here:

During WWII, the pride of the American bomber force was the B-17 Flying Fortress.

 

 

This was a ponderous, gun-bristled and heavily armored aircraft, touted as a strategic weapon and becoming an eventual icon for American military superiority. These aircraft became so highly prized and saw such high use that nearly a third of all the bombs dropped on Germany during the war were carried by B-17s.

 

Curiously, however, the Flying Fortress was strictly inferior to the B-24 Liberator in terms of both payload and flight performance. The only area in which the former aircraft excelled was in mythic stories (most total fabrications) told among airmen of it's ability to withstand battle damage.

'The 109s sheared-off the whole left wing, but wouldn't you know it: the bird just wouldn't fall come down unless you you told her to!'

As the meme of the rugged invulnerability of the B-17 spread, the stories - far more than the aircraft's actual performance - became the most prominent deciding factor in producing and crewing the plane (and, as highlighted by disastrous campaigns like Operation Point Blank, actually effected even the command structure's ability to make sound decisions).

 

This trend of myth > performance is actually quite rampant throughout Western capitalist economies. Inferior MP3 players like the iPod, inferior gaming conoles (N64 / Playstation vs the DreamCast, anyone?), inferior cellular phone technology (GSM vs CDMA)... there are countless examples where the worse product is actually the most successful (and by a huge margin). This is curious, as it is not what natural selection would predict... in a rational system.

And this is where memes come in.

what's more cost-effective: to make a better product, or to convince someone who is not a critical thinker that your product is better? The answer is reflected n our market.

 

I wonder, then - does capitalism simply trend towards religiousness? I mean, the structure clearly breeds memes, as they are the the simplest way to push your products for profit. If the market is in symbiosis with a process that essentially dampens the consumer's ability to apply critical thought, is it the market that is primarily at fault for creating the conditions that religion thrives in?

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"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."

- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940


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Innately yes. Promoted

Innately yes, like religion. Promoted radical consumerism. So much capitalism is counter productive, like over production of throw away and low quality products. It does create jobs, but at the cost of raping the environment and creating an one going slavery tread mill to no where for the working masses. "Eat the Rich" !


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Quote:This trend of myth >

Quote:
This trend of myth > performance is actually quite rampant throughout Western capitalist economies. Inferior MP3 players like the iPod, inferior gaming conoles (N64 / Playstation vs the DreamCast, anyone?), inferior cellular phone technology (GSM vs CDMA)... there are countless examples where the worse product is actually the most successful (and by a huge margin). This is curious, as it is not what natural selection would predict... in a rational system.

Careful here.  Natural selection predicts that the best survivors will proliferate while the worst survivors will not.  The Ipod may be inferior in its technology, but it is superior in its advertising.  If we're including memes as part of the "creature" then you have to consider this.  external value judgments are not part of natural selection.  Humans really suck at running compared to tigers.  We're really terrible at bringing down antelope with our claws.  We are terrible at surviving naked in blizzards, while polar bears excel at it.  Likewise, tigers really suck at calculus, and they make a terrible iced latte.  For Starbucks employees, you generally want to hire a human.  The point is, survival fitness is the only value that matters in natural selection.  If Ipods survive better than Sandisks, we must say that Ipods are superior -- IF we're using the language of natural selection.

Quote:
I wonder, then - does capitalism simply trend towards religiousness? I mean, the structure clearly breeds memes, as they are the the simplest way to push your products for profit. If the market is in symbiosis with a process that essentially dampens the consumer's ability to apply critical thought, is it the market that is primarily at fault for creating the conditions that religion thrives in?

I don't think it's necessarily so.  There are memes that survive perfectly well and are also externally true.  In other words, there are products that are high quality and have good advertising.  I think the marketing that will work in a particular culture is dependent on the intelligence and critical thinking ability of the audience.  It's not the other way around.

Now, to throw a monkey wrench into the whole thing, I think the size of a capitalist economy has a lot to do with it.  As an audience gets larger and larger, the benefit of lowering quality becomes greater and greater.  For a single restaurant, the effect of lowering quality can be devastating, but for McDonalds, it would be almost unnoticed.   The profit from dropping food costs by 1% for McDonalds is enormous while the same decrease in a small restaurant might only be a couple thousand dollars a year, which could easily be made up by increasing volume slightly.

So I guess I think that when a society is generally bad at critical thinking, capitalism favors reduction of quality and tons of flashy advertising.  The better a society is at critical thinking, the less effect flashy advertising will have and the more shoppers will demand high quality.  Good critical thinkers are usually smart shoppers.

 

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

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Quote:So I guess I think

Quote:

So I guess I think that when a society is generally bad at critical thinking, capitalism favors reduction of quality and tons of flashy advertising.  The better a society is at critical thinking, the less effect flashy advertising will have and the more shoppers will demand high quality.  Good critical thinkers are usually smart shoppers.

This explains why critical thought seems to be discouraged and almost even taboo among today's youth. I suppose all I can offer as proof for the moment is my classmate's general hatred of reading and sounding smart (these both make people "antisocial" at my school), but all the same, I believe it.

The point is, I don't think we're supposed to be critical thinkers and therefore smart shoppers. There's too much money to be made if we're not.

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Kevin R Brown wrote:I

Kevin R Brown wrote:
I wonder, then - does capitalism simply trend towards religiousness? I mean, the structure clearly breeds memes, as they are the the simplest way to push your products for profit. If the market is in symbiosis with a process that essentially dampens the consumer's ability to apply critical thought, is it the market that is primarily at fault for creating the conditions that religion thrives in?

Hmm, good question for sparking new thoughts. Actually, I don't think so, but it did connect a couple ideas in my head, which may interest you:

First, I don't think so, because before markets, there was religion galore. The Dark Ages were not the fault of free market capitalism. I tend to think that the 'trend towards religiousness' as you put it so well is much more general than that.

As a computer programmer, there's a curious tendency toward 'wars' between computer languages (and other technologies) that are often likened to 'religious wars'. "C# is the best!" "It's a poor clone of Java!" "They both suck, Lisp is the one true language!" Etc.

I wouldn't say that the crappiest language always wins out. Certainly it cannot be said that there are only zealots for the crappiest language. Each language/technology has its zealots and evangelists. Same with the tech you're talking about. While there is always the iPod zealots, there is also the iRiver camp, and doubtless others.

Which brings me to my somewhat specialized knowledge of marketing (I don't know much about marketing, but this I do know). There is a sub-field of marketing that deals with technology. And in this field there are a few interesting ideas that are relevant here. First, there is the idea of the 800-pound gorilla. This idea was put into a coherent and useful form by Geoffrey Moore in his book Inside the Tornado (he also wrote the very interesting Crossing the Chasm). Essentially the idea is that in any emerging market (there is always some emerging market in the broad area of technology) out of the various small and numerous competitors, one will arise, almost overnight, to become huge and dominant in the market. Usually they get more than 50% of the market share. They get the juiciest customers. They get rich and leave the leaner scraps to the rest of the competitors.

Along with the Gorilla, there are usually 2 or 3 smaller competitors known as Chimps. These competitors use their greater adaptability and intelligence to produce a better basic product than the Gorilla. However, they do not gain the majority of the market, and they remain smaller competitors. Once the Gorilla is the Gorilla, it is nearly impossible to remove him from his throne. (There is a way to do it, but that's perhaps for a different post.)

After the smart and adaptable Chimps, there are dozens, if not hundreds of much smaller competitors known as Monkeys. Monkeys try to copy the Gorilla, except their products aren't quite as good. Instead, they provide their product for a much cheaper price than the Gorilla. These are the 'clones' or 'knockoffs' you see in various markets.

Examples: Microsoft is a Gorilla in Operating Systems, Mac is a chimp. Apple is a gorilla in mp3 players, iRiver is a chimp. The B-17 is the gorilla, the B-24 is the chimp.

You'll see this pattern in virtually every developed tech market. It's not a hard and fast rule, but is surprisingly general and useful.

There's a lot more to be said about this, but I wanted to tie it into another concept, which is the older idea of the Technology Adoption Curve (or technology adoption lifecycle, or diffusion of innovation model).

The idea here is that whenever there's a new technology or innovation, it gets adopted in a bell-curve fashion, over time. At first, on the left-hand side of the curve, there are only a few Innovators using the idea. Then, they get it to work properly and the Early Adopters start to catch on. They develop it somewhat, and if the idea is palatable to the mainstream, it moves on to the Early Majority. After that comes the Late Majority. And finally (or never!) come the Laggards, who don't want your idea and will only go along with it if they absolutely have to.

This is the explanation for how there come to be Gorillas, Chimps, and Monkeys.

First you have the Early Adopter Market. This is where the tech is new and not all the warts have been removed. But it serves a useful purpose and those who are willing to risk it go for it. A lot of ideas die without ever making it past this stage (this is the idea behind the book Crossing the Chasm). But then you get the *first* product which becomes palatable to the risk-averse mainstream. This product experiences a rapid uptake in adoption, as the mainstream suddenly becomes aware of 'the next big thing'. And so they all glom on to this one.

Even if it's not the best one, it's the one that they understand and can use without too much fuss. Hence, the iPod, Windows, Ford Model T, IBM PC, whatever.

After this happens, suddenly it is possible to move into the mainstream, and the other competitors who have good products can manage to get some mainstream love too. Mainstream loves to have alternatives, for those who want the gorilla, but it's just not quite right for what they need. So they choose the chimp instead. Minor risk for some benefit. Thus you get your Chimp products.

So, how does this all fit together?

For me, this idea applies to all memes, not just 'technology' or 'innovations'. Any idea that catches on, if it catches on, will probably follow a similar pattern of adoption.

I think this idea applied in the ancient world, in the time of early Christianity, when the various forms of Christianity gave way to the gorilla of the Catholic church (and later the Monkeys of the thousands of variations of Protestantism).

Now, what intrigued me about your question was the idea of a 'trend towards religiousness'. There's a kind of 'stickiness' to memes. Once you've got a meme, you tend to hold on to it. In fact you tend to 'own' it, in the sense that you make it a part of your identity.

Are all memes this way? I doubt it, but I bet that most successful memes are.

I think your point about the market reinforcing irrationality is just one way that memes mutate to naturally take advantage of the fact that humans are innately irrational. It takes a lot of effort to overcome your own irrationality, and no one ever completely achieves perfect rationality. Memes will adapt, via natural selection to both a) take advantage of irrational minds, and b) reinforce the irrationality that they try to exploit.

The ultimate irrational meme is faith. It makes a virtue out of irrationality. But I don't think it takes a capitalist market to generate this irrationality. I think it's a general characteristic of technology/memetic adoption.

Those memes that appeal to the mainstream, who are overwhelmingly irrational, will latch on to that and start to exploit it as much as they can. This can be purposeful, as in the case of marketing, or 'accidental' as in the case of myth-making that you cited for the B-17. They are the ones that will become the Gorillas, and they will dominate their 'market' and be very hard to overthrow. (Did I mention there *is* a way to overthrow a gorilla? If you beg and plead Eye-wink , maybe I'll write a post on that idea. The relevant gorilla here being theism.)

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natural, that was

natural, that was fascinating. I'm all ears; please do continue.

 

Hamby: Yeah, I knew I'd screw that up. I'm throwing-out ideas that aren't entirely coherent in my head just for the sake of creating discourse I thought would be interesting. Hey, look - it worked! Sticking out tongue

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"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."

- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940


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Kevin R Brown wrote:This was

Kevin R Brown wrote:

This was a ponderous, gun-bristled and heavily armored aircraft, touted as a strategic weapon and becoming an eventual icon for American military superiority. These aircraft became so highly prized and saw such high use that nearly a third of all the bombs dropped on Germany during the war were carried by B-17s.

 

Curiously, however, the Flying Fortress was strictly inferior to the B-24 Liberator in terms of both payload and flight performance. The only area in which the former aircraft excelled was in mythic stories (most total fabrications) told among airmen of it's ability to withstand battle damage.

'The 109s sheared-off the whole left wing, but wouldn't you know it: the bird just wouldn't fall come down unless you you told her to!'

As the meme of the rugged invulnerability of the B-17 spread, the stories - far more than the aircraft's actual performance - became the most prominent deciding factor in producing and crewing the plane (and, as highlighted by disastrous campaigns like Operation Point Blank, actually effected even the command structure's ability to make sound decisions).

 

This trend of myth > performance is actually quite rampant throughout Western capitalist economies. Inferior MP3 players like the iPod, inferior gaming conoles (N64 / Playstation vs the DreamCast, anyone?), inferior cellular phone technology (GSM vs CDMA)... there are countless examples where the worse product is actually the most successful (and by a huge margin). This is curious, as it is not what natural selection would predict... in a rational system.

And this is where memes come in.

what's more cost-effective: to make a better product, or to convince someone who is not a critical thinker that your product is better? The answer is reflected n our market.

 

I wonder, then - does capitalism simply trend towards religiousness? I mean, the structure clearly breeds memes, as they are the the simplest way to push your products for profit. If the market is in symbiosis with a process that essentially dampens the consumer's ability to apply critical thought, is it the market that is primarily at fault for creating the conditions that religion thrives in?

Believe it or not, I don't go around trying to troll peoples threads by missing the point, but what I got out of your post is that "superior" and "inferior" are not so simple black and white terms.

The Ipods may not always have the best storage or signal to noise ratios in class, but something is keeping them afloat, and to me it looks like simple established familiarity.  Listen in on some teenagers talking about music and you'll realize that Apple has made its product into the Coke, Bandaid, and Kleenex of the music player market.  I think there's an appeal to knowing that half your friends can show you exactly how to use your music player straight out of the box.

The Playstation while lacking the power (and billinear filtering) of the N64, had a substancial head start, and therefore had an established list of classic titles by the time project reality launched.  Also, Nintendo made some questionable decisions such as the use of cartriges as the media of choice.  While cartrige games had the advantage of shorter or even no load times, the media was very expensive and severely lacking in storage space.

If you judge a console on hardware, then the DC as would be expected for a next gen console was vastly superior to its predecesors, but what if you judge your gaming machine by the games available?  The DC was shunned by mass mainstream regurgitator Electronic Arts, and once in a while blockbuster provider Square Enix.

Quote:
I wonder, then - does capitalism simply trend towards religiousness? I mean, the structure clearly breeds memes, as they are the the simplest way to push your products for profit. If the market is in symbiosis with a process that essentially dampens the consumer's ability to apply critical thought, is it the market that is primarily at fault for creating the conditions that religion thrives in?
Sorry, back on topic...  Some consumers do make a religion out of shopping.  We all know the Chevy vs Ford people and the Ati vs Nvidia people, but in the end, I think most products that 'win' do so for a logical reason even if I don't always agree with the majority of consumers.

 

"I've yet to witness circumstance successfully manipulated through the babbling of ritualistic nonsense to an imaginary deity." -- me (josh)

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AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*Rips out his hair*

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahem... the use of 'memetics' now drives me slightly crazy.

And no, I don't really have anything to add to the discussion.  Sorry, Kevin.  I guess I shouldn't have click on the link in the first place.  But now I have an idea...

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i'm getting pretty fucking

i'm getting pretty fucking sick of memetics too, as i never encountered the theory until i came on this site and it's starting to appear very vague and almost quasi-mystical, like jung's collective unconscious.  you can blame any fucking thing on it, it seems.

as for the ipod, the ps, and the n64, my choice to go with these devices was more due to range of options than the "superiority" of the product.  dreamcast just had very few games compared to the ps, and those few pretty much sucked.  as for the n64, i would have bought that fucker for mario 64, ocarina of time, and majora's mask alone.  come to think of it, that's basically what i did.  as for the ipod, it's the device most compatible with itunes, and the itunes store just has way more available music than any other.  i mean, i'm an early american music enthusiast and sometimes i can find out of print records in the itunes store.  i love it!  so if it has something to do with a fucking "meme," like i've been duped or something, i don't give a shit.  i just don't think i'm missing anything without the zune or the dreamcast.

here's something else for your fucking memetics: i will never buy a goddamn iphone.

period.

"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson


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iwbiek, I feel for you. 

iwbiek, I feel for you.  Let's pray.


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Kevin R Brown wrote:...So I

Kevin R Brown wrote:

...So I was shooting tequila the other day, and a thought dawned on me. I'll see how well I can translate it into text here:

During WWII, the pride of the American bomber force was the B-17 Flying Fortress.

 

 

This was a ponderous, gun-bristled and heavily armored aircraft, touted as a strategic weapon and becoming an eventual icon for American military superiority. These aircraft became so highly prized and saw such high use that nearly a third of all the bombs dropped on Germany during the war were carried by B-17s.

 

Curiously, however, the Flying Fortress was strictly inferior to the B-24 Liberator in terms of both payload and flight performance. The only area in which the former aircraft excelled was in mythic stories (most total fabrications) told among airmen of it's ability to withstand battle damage.

'The 109s sheared-off the whole left wing, but wouldn't you know it: the bird just wouldn't fall come down unless you you told her to!'

As the meme of the rugged invulnerability of the B-17 spread, the stories - far more than the aircraft's actual performance - became the most prominent deciding factor in producing and crewing the plane (and, as highlighted by disastrous campaigns like Operation Point Blank, actually effected even the command structure's ability to make sound decisions).

 

This trend of myth > performance is actually quite rampant throughout Western capitalist economies. Inferior MP3 players like the iPod, inferior gaming conoles (N64 / Playstation vs the DreamCast, anyone?), inferior cellular phone technology (GSM vs CDMA)... there are countless examples where the worse product is actually the most successful (and by a huge margin). This is curious, as it is not what natural selection would predict... in a rational system.

And this is where memes come in.

what's more cost-effective: to make a better product, or to convince someone who is not a critical thinker that your product is better? The answer is reflected n our market.

 

I wonder, then - does capitalism simply trend towards religiousness? I mean, the structure clearly breeds memes, as they are the the simplest way to push your products for profit. If the market is in symbiosis with a process that essentially dampens the consumer's ability to apply critical thought, is it the market that is primarily at fault for creating the conditions that religion thrives in?

Because I'm a hardcore gamer, I take significant issue with one line. The Dreamcast was not in competition with either the N64 or the PlayStation. It was in competition with the PlayStation2, and the GameCube, and the XBox. It was the most expensive of these systems(yet not the most powerful), and the most prone to failure. It had the smallest number of games available. It was the weakest system of the generation, hot on the heels of Sega America and Sega Japan working at cross purposes which ended up being a significant factor in the future death of the company as far as console production goes. It cannot in any way be considered superior to the other consoles of its generation. It was dead before two of its competitors within the generation even existed. Comparing it to the previous generation is as pointless as comparing the PlayStation 3 to the XBox. The systems from Sega that competed with the original PlayStation and the Nintendo 64 were the Saturn and a bunch of additions for the Genesis console(such as Sega CD and 32X systems) that confused gamers more than made sales for Sega. The superior systems of both of these generations were owned by Sony, and I note that in neither case was the Sony console the weakest in power or software or any other factor of the generation. 

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


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Vastet wrote:Because I'm a

Vastet wrote:

Because I'm a hardcore gamer, I take significant issue with one line. The Dreamcast was not in competition with either the N64 or the PlayStation. It was in competition with the PlayStation2, and the GameCube, and the XBox. It was the most expensive of these systems(yet not the most powerful), and the most prone to failure. It had the smallest number of games available. It was the weakest system of the generation, hot on the heels of Sega America and Sega Japan working at cross purposes which ended up being a significant factor in the future death of the company as far as console production goes. It cannot in any way be considered superior to the other consoles of its generation. It was dead before two of its competitors within the generation even existed. Comparing it to the previous generation is as pointless as comparing the PlayStation 3 to the XBox. The systems from Sega that competed with the original PlayStation and the Nintendo 64 were the Saturn and a bunch of additions for the Genesis console(such as Sega CD and 32X systems) that confused gamers more than made sales for Sega. The superior systems of both of these generations were owned by Sony, and I note that in neither case was the Sony console the weakest in power or software or any other factor of the generation. 

cheers, sir.  as an ex-harcore gamer (i stopped with the ps2), i should have realized that.  both the ps1 and the ps2 were incredible, groundbreaking consoles.  the big problems with the n64 were, 1. continuing with cartridges instead of swotching to discs, and 2. no company except nintendo was willing to make games that utilized the n64's full potential.  mario 64, mario kart 64, ocarina of time, majora's mask, and even paper mario were all fantastic games, but every other outing looked like a super nintendo game with slightly smoother graphics.  remember the travesty that was doom 64?  so much potential!  it really could've been almost as good as doom 3 is now, if id software had really tried.  there was absolutely no excuse for bitmapped creatures when mario 64 had already shown us full 3D models, and quake had already done the same on the pc.  duke nukem 64 made the same mistake, although for some reason only the final boss in that game had been remade into a 3D creature.  also hexen for the n64.  so many pc first-person shooters just wanted to make a quick buck off console users.

then again, n64 gave us what for many, many years i always referred to as the greatest game ever made: golden eye!

sorry for the rant.  so many high school memories just came flooding back.

"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson


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Quote:Because I'm a hardcore

Quote:
Because I'm a hardcore gamer, I take significant issue with one line. The Dreamcast was not in competition with either the N64 or the PlayStation. It was in competition with the PlayStation2, and the GameCube, and the XBox.

That's a tough sell.

The PS2 was the closest of the sixth-generation consoles to launching near the DC, and it was still a year and some away when the DC was released (it wasn't even unveiled for, I think, about six months after the DC made it's debut). The XBox and GameCube weren't even close; 3 years away at best.

 

So, for a year and some, the DC - a sixth generation console - competed with two highly inferior fifth generation consoles. And it lost, miserably. Why?
 

Quote:
...and [it was] the most prone to failure

...Largely because of this completely fabricated myth that developers like Electronic Arts spread around the market.

'Oh, don't buy a DreamCast - it will melt your CDs!'

'Oh, man; did you hear? The DreamCast sets itself on fire if you play it for more than 'X' hours!'

I won't use this space to boast, but I do know a few faces in the industry and more than a few local store owners, and there isn't a single one of these 'prone to failure!' claims that holds any weight. Someone (Hi, EA!) started the rumors, and gamers fuelled them along by suddenly 'remembering' things that happened to friends of friends who bought DreamCasts (Meme propagation).

The XBox 360 has had far more problems than the DreamCast, and the complaints about it aren't nearly as loud or vicious.

Quote:
It had the smallest number of games available.

This is a little off-topic, but (since I have a seething hatred for the two entities about to be named):

The DreamCast has such a small library because EA and Square decided they didn't like Sega's attitude. Back then, Sega actually decided to have some balls and told the publishing giants that they didn't give a shit how big and important anyone thought they were - they were still going to allow smaller independent publishers to release games on their system.

EA decided it needed to teach them a lesson about how business is done in the console world and did so. Nowadays, Sega  just tows the line with everyone else (and, of course, has largely forgotten about their glory days of console competition).

Quote:
"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."

- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940


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Kevin R Brown

Kevin R Brown wrote:

Curiously, however, the Flying Fortress was strictly inferior to the B-24 Liberator in terms of both payload and flight performance. The only area in which the former aircraft excelled was in mythic stories (most total fabrications) told among airmen of it's ability to withstand battle damage.

I'm having trouble taking you seriously. You really think that the B-24 was superior? Just last night on the military channel they had a documentary on the Flying Fortress. The pilots liked to trash talk the B-24; they found its controls to be terrible. The Flying Fortress's main draw for pilots was that it was easy to fly. I think you are wrong when you say that the B-24 has better flight performance. You are pretending as though pilots irrationally favored the Flying Fortress, when in reality they had good reasons for not liking the B-24. The needless difficulty of piloting a B-24 was just one reason they didn't like it: the Flying Fortress also had a superior arrangements of guns on it. Flight formations of Flying Fortresses could effectively cover every direction around then in machine gun fire; unlike the B-24. There were good, rational reasons for favoring the Flying Fortress. Also, as in all things in life, there are a few clearly fabricated stories about it.

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India


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iwbiek wrote:i'm getting

iwbiek wrote:
i'm getting pretty fucking sick of memetics too, as i never encountered the theory until i came on this site and it's starting to appear very vague and almost quasi-mystical, like jung's collective unconscious.  you can blame any fucking thing on it, it seems.

You got a better idea that explains cultural evolution? Let's hear it.

Nobody here is claiming memetics is science. We are using it as a metaphor for speculating and wondering about culture. It is not a theory, it is a hypothesis. There's nothing wrong with speculation. And no, it's not quasi-mystical, like Jung's collective unconsciousness and archetypes. It is a falsifiable hypothesis that doesn't require any unexplainable or supernatural ideas behind it. In fact, if you like I can describe a laboratory experiment that could potentially prove the existence of memes (as evolving information that can be interpreted by humans to predictably influence their behaviour).

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natural wrote:iwbiek

natural wrote:

iwbiek wrote:
i'm getting pretty fucking sick of memetics too, as i never encountered the theory until i came on this site and it's starting to appear very vague and almost quasi-mystical, like jung's collective unconscious.  you can blame any fucking thing on it, it seems.

You got a better idea that explains cultural evolution? Let's hear it.

Nobody here is claiming memetics is science. We are using it as a metaphor for speculating and wondering about culture. It is not a theory, it is a hypothesis. There's nothing wrong with speculation. And no, it's not quasi-mystical, like Jung's collective unconsciousness and archetypes. It is a falsifiable hypothesis that doesn't require any unexplainable or supernatural ideas behind it. In fact, if you like I can describe a laboratory experiment that could potentially prove the existence of memes (as evolving information that can be interpreted by humans to predictably influence their behaviour).

Yeah, there are better theories that explain cultural evolution.  I'm really sick of hearing this.  Semiotics.  Communication theory.  Cultural anthropology.  Linguistics.  Pragmatics.  Syntactics.  I could go on.  The fact is that there are bodies of knowledge and active study into how information is propagated and changes that are more exhaustive, comprehensive and holistic than memetics.  Memetics is none of those things and if it's only a hypothesis it's a fucking bad one.  People, however, claim that memetics has legitimacy that it just doesn't.  I for one am tired of this.  It's not a science, it's not strictly falsifiable and it's a horrible analogy.

 

 

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"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."


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Kevin R Brown wrote:natural,

Kevin R Brown wrote:

natural, that was fascinating. I'm all ears; please do continue.

Okay, to explain this idea, I have to introduce another idea from technology marketing, which is the idea of disruptive innovation. As a contrast, there is the more familiar idea of a continuous (or sustaining) innovation, such as cars with better gas mileage, better safety records, better speed and handling, etc. etc. A continuous innovation makes a good idea a little bit better for the majority of its market constituents (e.g. the people who buy cars).

A disruptive innovation (or disruptive technology, or discontinuous innovation), which was most coherently described by Clayton Christensen (who happens to be Mormon, but don't hold it against him) in his incredibly fascinating book The Innovator's Dilemma, is an idea that the mainstream market initially rejects because it requires a change in behaviour or offers poorer performance in desired characteristics than the existing mainstream technology. It is disruptive to the mainstream, so they initially say, "Why would I want THAT?!"

However, a disruptive innovation has two things going for it. First, it is useful in a different context than the competing mainstream tech. It is valuable in a different way. And so, certain small groups of people, who work in this different way or different context, desire this disruptive idea over the mainstream idea.

Second, the disruptive innovation is somehow more adaptable than the mainstream idea. It is not weighed down by 'the old way of doing things'. It is usually simpler in some aspects, and so can be used in more varied contexts and configurations. In essence, it can evolve *faster* than the mainstream tech. This is a key idea.

So, for some examples. The primary example Christensen uses in his book is the hard-drive industry. Early hard drives were big, like 14 inches (I forget the exact sizes, you can read his book for the details). They were used on mainframe computers. The market that bought them were big companies, banks, universities, governments. As the needs of the market changed, they wanted 14 inch drives with more capacity, more speed, etc. They didn't care that the drives were 14 inches. So, when 8.5 inch drives came along, these customers were all like, "Why would I want THAT? It's smaller, so it has less capacity. It's newer tech, so it is less reliable, etc. I want a better 14 inch drive, not some wimpy 8.5 inch drive."

But the 8.5 inch drive appealed to a *different* market. A smaller market, to be sure. This is the market of the mini computers. They are not as powerful as mainframes, but they were cheaper and could be used by different groups, like engineers, for example. This market didn't care that the minicomputers weren't quite as powerful as a mainframe, because a mainframe was frankly too much for them. Too expensive, too hard to maintain, too big to fit into the department, etc. They were happy with *any* powerful computer, so they were happy with a mini computer (NB: the name is misleading. Mini computers are mini compared to mainframes, but they are still very big computers, maybe the size of a filing cabinet or something.)

So, the companies that started manufacturing 8.5 inch drives had a small market, but they were happy. They were typically entrepreneurial engineers who left their jobs at the big 14 inch drive manufacturers to try to start their own business. As such, they brought along with them the best principles of hard drive design, and an innovative spirit.

As the demand for minicomputers grew, the big 14 inch manufacturers had a choice to make. They could try to cater to both the mainframe market and the mini-computer market. But the big money was in the mainframe market. All the juicy big customers were there. In order to introduce a smaller, cheaper 8.5 inch drive of their own, they would basically be investing in a) a technology that has lower profit margins, and b) something their big customers don't really want anyway! So, invariably, the big 14 inch manufacturers made a *rational* decision (given the information they had) to surrender these low-end minicomputer markets to the new upstarts who made 8.5 inch drives. Their shareholders were happy, because the more they focused on high-end mainframe markets, the greater their profits soared.

And at the same time, the 8.5 inch manufacturers were also exceedingly happy, because their previously small markets kept getting bigger and bigger, as demand for minicomputers rose, and as the big companies ceded the market to them without competition. Of course, the 8.5 inch manufacturers had competition from the other 8.5 inch manufacturers, but that was manageable. they simply continued to make better and better 8.5 inch drives.

But a funny thing happened. Because of the rapid innovation in 8.5 inch drive technology, the 8.5 inch drives actually increased in performance *faster* than the 14 inch drives. Exponentially faster, as is the nature of high-tech innovation. And soon, the 8.5 inch drives were so good, that they could start to compete with the lower end of the 14 inch drive market.

Essentially, some of the lower-end 14 inch drive market started to change its tune. It started to say, "Well, we could buy this 14 inch drive which is way more than we need, or we could opt for this cheaper 8.5 inch drive, which is not the best, but which is good enough for our purposes." So, the smaller banks and businesses and universities start switching to smaller drives (and minicomputers instead of mainframes).

Suddenly, the big 14 inch, mainframe market is starting to shrink, while the originally small 8.5 inch minicomputer market is growing rapidly.

But the big companies still look at the situation: "We could make our own 8.5 inch drive, but it would still be lower profit, and our biggest most profitable customers don't want an 8.5 inch drive. They want an even better 14 inch drive." So, they continue to develop better and better 14 inch drives.

But their rate of improvement is not as good as the rate of the 8.5 inchers, and so over time, more and more of the low-end mainframe market switches to minicomputers with 8.5 inch drives. All the while, the 14 inch manufacturers hear from their biggest and juiciest customers "We want better 14 inch drives", and so they make a *rational* decision to cede the low-end market to the 8.5 inch drive makers.

And so it goes. Eventually, the 14 inch drive market shrinks to nothing, and by the time it makes sense for the 14 inch manufacturers to make their own 8.5 inch drive, there are already well-established manufacturers of 8.5 inch drives who now control that market.

And the story repeats, almost word for word, from 8.5 inch to 5 inch, to 3.5 inch. Each time, the big-time companies make rational decisions to give up their markets to the little-guy companies who have disruptive technologies. This is the essence of The Innovator's Dilemma.

Other disruptive technologies include: Steel minimills (vs. big steel mills), hydraulic excavators (vs. cable driven excavators), digital photography (vs. film), telephone (vs. telegraph), etc. etc. etc.

There are tonnes of examples, and if you think about it and look around, you'll start to see this pattern all over the place.

So, when there's a gorilla in the market, it will be nearly impossible to out-gorilla the gorilla. You can't even out-chimp the gorilla, because chimp innovations are typically sustaining or continuous innovations. They are innovations that make sense for the gorilla to copy and include in its portfolio.

But if the innovation is disruptive, where it doesn't make sense for the gorilla, and at the same time a) the innovation is useful in a different way, and b) the innovation evolves faster than the gorilla evolves, then you've got a recipe for disruptive take-over.

How could 'atheism', or rather rational thinking, be made to displace theism? Well, science already evolves a heck of a lot faster than theology. But hold on, I've noticed that religion overall is evolving pretty quickly in certain ways. Politically, and 'spiritually' (for lack of a better word), theism has been evolving pretty fast. There's all sorts of new kinds of fundamentalism. Intelligent Design is more of a political innovation than a scientific one. It is spreading to the UK, Australia, and Europe. It is even cross-pollinating with Islam, and you get Islamic creationists who borrow ideas from Intelligent Design. You've got the 'prosperity gospel' that feeds off of the latent greediness of American culture. You've got all sorts of New Agey ideas mixing in with Christian born-again movements. This is pretty fertile ground for evolution of ideas.

So, it's not clear to me that we are actually evolving our ideas faster than theism is. I certainly think that we *could* make great progress there, and develop a better system of evolution of ideas. But theists have a head start. They are already organized. They have churches and congregations, and organizations, and donations. They are aware of the 'new atheist' threat and are making the first stabs at evolving their memes to defeat ours. Look at the dozens of books written in response to the half-dozen or so books by the new atheists.

Like it or not, American Christianity is a meme making machine. That's something we have to address.

Also, we need to explicitly identify the benefits of rational thinking and start trumpeting those. It's not enough to respond to "Why should I be an atheist?" with the correct, but uninspiring, idea that "We don't believe things because we think they'll bring us comfort, but because they are true."

For the disruptive idea to break through to the mainstream, it needs to continually improve its performance and also its packaging. It needs to become palatable to the mainstream. Instead of asking "Why would I want THAT?!", they need to start thinking, "Well, I could keep my comforting theism, or I could try out this idea that X". It is the X that we need to define. We need to fill in that blank.

I do have many ideas about this. For one thing, I think we should leverage the scientific philosophy. First, science is by far the fastest evolving meme machine we have. If we can tap into that evolution and use it to fuel our rational philosophy, we've got a major piece of the puzzle solved.

My main idea is to shift from marketing 'rational thinking' and 'atheism' to marketing a complete philosophy/worldview based on scientific understanding. It needs to be able to start targeting that 'low end market' of theists. Not the evangelicals and fundamentalists, who are the high-end of the theist market. But the moderates and liberals and libertarians, and the new agey types, and the average joe types. The kind of people who cling to religion and superstition because they think it is useful to them, rather than because it is crucial to their identity.

When people ask, "Well, atheism may be true, but what are you going to replace religion/Christianity with? People aren't just going to give up their beliefs and believe in nothing." There is some truth to that. The *perceived* alternative to religion is nihilism, communism, fascism, etc. What is our alternative? Saying, "Just think for yourself" isn't enough, nor is "Just live to be happy." These are not complete, coherent philosophies.

The skeptical auto-didact's approach is to question everything, but learn as much as possible. Frankly, while this is my approach, it is not the approach of billions of actual people, who would rather go to a trusted source to get their 'truth' from. I don't think a successful strategy is to advocate everyone becoming a skeptical auto-didact. It just won't work on a practical scale.

A better approach, IMHO, is to become meme-making machines of our own. What I mean is, to generate memes that inspire and ignite curiosity and cause people to think and to question. To generate books, articles, videos, movies, songs, political manifestos, speeches, everything. Promoting not just skepticism, but a positive and complete philosophy with a foundation based in scientific fact and theory.

This is not such a bizarre idea as it might sound at first. It is not to start a dogmatic religion of some kind, to replace the current dogmatic religion. It is more to become like Carl Sagan, who passionately fought for the popularization of science. It is to become more like Joseph Campbell, who understood the power of myth and metaphor without claiming it had to be true. Like Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Douglas Adams. Like Thomas Jefferson, Paine, and heck, even Obama. (I personally think Obama's a closet agnostic/atheist who has figured out how to turn religious language back on the theists.)

We need to generate a disruptive innovation of our own, and sustain it, and slowly but surely eat away at the theistic 'market'. I don't think it's as difficult as it sounds. It's really just a shift in thinking and attitude. Like giving up racism. For a long while, I was in a kind of mode where I thought of myself as 'white' and others as 'black', and 'asian' and whatnot, but I maintained a stance that 'none of that matters'. Thus, I tried to correct my racism by counteracting any biases I found in myself. But then, when it finally clicked in my head that, "Wait a minute. There's actually no evidence that there even *is* such a thing as sub-races within humans. Different populations, yes, but not in any way distinctly different at a genetic level, only on a superficial level. Nothing justifying calling a particular population a 'race'. Different cultures? Yes, but that's not so strange, and has nothing to do with genetics." At that point, I realized that my whole concept of race was meaningless in the first place. And that tension just disappeared. There are no longer 'white' people and 'black' people and 'asian' people. There are just people who happen to have less melanin or more melanin, just like there are people who have curly hair or straight hair, or blue eyes or brown eyes. I no longer consider myself a 'non-racist white person'. I consider myself a non-racist person, who, if you care, happens to have low levels of melanin. It's a sublte shift in perception, thinking, and attitude. I still behave more or less as I used to, but there is no longer an inner tension of trying to fight my subconscious racist belief. I'm definitely more at ease talking and making friends with all varieties of people now.

Point being that I don't think what I'm proposing is something crazy or radical or what have you. It's just a shift in thinking. It may make you more inspired to talk about certain issues and ideas, or to put more effort into a creative project that you had previously thought, "Well, I'd like to do that, but maybe it would be seen by others as too risque or pretentious." Don't be afraid of metaphor or self-expression. Start putting those pro-science, pro-rational memes out there. The worst that could happen is some theist doesn't get it... yet.

Personally, I'm working on the idea I call wonderism, which is just the idea I've explained here. Wonderism is a complete (at least complete in my head) philosophy based on science, discovery, exploration, etc. Its chief strength against theism is that it knocks the legs out from underneath their last remaining argument: The argument from personal experience of wonder. A.k.a. the argument from religious experience, or the argument from wonder. A good tag line might be: God is imaginary, wonder is real.

Hope that inspires your imagination! Cheers!

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Thomathy wrote:natural

Thomathy wrote:

natural wrote:

iwbiek wrote:
i'm getting pretty fucking sick of memetics too, as i never encountered the theory until i came on this site and it's starting to appear very vague and almost quasi-mystical, like jung's collective unconscious.  you can blame any fucking thing on it, it seems.

You got a better idea that explains cultural evolution? Let's hear it.

Yeah, there are better theories that explain cultural evolution.  I'm really sick of hearing this.  Semiotics.  Communication theory.  Cultural anthropology.  Linguistics.  Pragmatics.  Syntactics.  I could go on.  The fact is that there are bodies of knowledge and active study into how information is propagated and changes that are more exhaustive, comprehensive and holistic than memetics.  Memetics is none of those things and if it's only a hypothesis it's a fucking bad one.  People, however, claim that memetics has legitimacy that it just doesn't.  I for one am tired of this.  It's not a science, it's not strictly falsifiable and it's a horrible analogy.

Not convinced. So far, it's just assertions. Can you give me a quick summary of how any of those theories explain the evolution of religion, especially as it relates to its conflict with scienctific ideas? Can you point me to some article discussing it?

Because, frankly, memetics as a framework generates a satisfying and coherent set of hypotheses for such a question, whereas I've never run across any sensible hypotheses or even tested facts from any other theory. And I've been searching for a good cultural theory that can explain religion for years before I came across the meme idea. Every idea I'd come across had usually either avoided the topic of religion or made such a weak argument that I often wondered, "Is this supposed to be an explanation?"

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I would just like to point

I would just like to point out that these discussions are completely without merit if the example of how VHS overtook Beta, even though Beta was the superior video cassette, is not mentioned.

All fixed now.

You're all welcome.

"The powerful have always created false images of the weak."


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Oops, forgot to mention that

Oops, forgot to mention that I've never come across a theory of cultural evolution besides memetics that explains how science itself generates ideas and why it is able to generate them so effectively compared to non-scientific systems like literature, conversation, religion, etc. No other theory I've heard of explains how the *speed* of evolution can vary from one sub-culture to the next. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Oh, and by the way, you claimed that memetics is *strictly* unfalsifiable. I contest that. In my formulation, it is definitely falsifiable. It could even be tested in a laboratory with 30-50 test subjects. No one's done it yet, but it could easily be done.

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Quote:I wonder, then - does

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I wonder, then - does capitalism simply trend towards religiousness? I mean, the structure clearly breeds memes, as they are the the simplest way to push your products for profit. If the market is in symbiosis with a process that essentially dampens the consumer's ability to apply critical thought, is it the market that is primarily at fault for creating the conditions that religion thrives in?

That's an interesting point, but I would argue the opposite for a different reason. In the past (the era when Marxism was at its peak) people tended to associate capitalism with industry. But, as the world switches from an industry based economy to a technology and service based economy, this is no longer the case. As a commodity, labour (as in primary skills) is diminishing in importance, and talent and education is increasing (as in tertiary skills). Thus, the demand is for educated, talented people who can solve problems and  work in collaborative groups. Every corporation, every industry, every business, every university, every research institution, all say they same thing: Their primary need is to attract talented, educated people. They are all engaged in a talent war. In other words, critical thinking is a marketable skill. Employers know this. In a CV, they will look for what they call "soft skills". They want to know that their new potential employee is useful to them. As the world continues to switch over to this economic style, people who lack these skills, and lack the ability to think critically will have problems securing a job.

At least, that was the impression I got here...it may be different in the US.

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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Kevin R Brown wrote:...So I

Kevin R Brown wrote:

...So I was shooting tequila the other day, and a thought dawned on me. I'll see how well I can translate it into text here:

During WWII, the pride of the American bomber force was the B-17 Flying Fortress.

 

 

This was a ponderous, gun-bristled and heavily armored aircraft, touted as a strategic weapon and becoming an eventual icon for American military superiority. These aircraft became so highly prized and saw such high use that nearly a third of all the bombs dropped on Germany during the war were carried by B-17s.

 

Curiously, however, the Flying Fortress was strictly inferior to the B-24 Liberator in terms of both payload and flight performance. The only area in which the former aircraft excelled was in mythic stories (most total fabrications) told among airmen of it's ability to withstand battle damage.

'The 109s sheared-off the whole left wing, but wouldn't you know it: the bird just wouldn't fall come down unless you you told her to!'

As the meme of the rugged invulnerability of the B-17 spread, the stories - far more than the aircraft's actual performance - became the most prominent deciding factor in producing and crewing the plane (and, as highlighted by disastrous campaigns like Operation Point Blank, actually effected even the command structure's ability to make sound decisions).

 

This trend of myth > performance is actually quite rampant throughout Western capitalist economies. Inferior MP3 players like the iPod, inferior gaming conoles (N64 / Playstation vs the DreamCast, anyone?), inferior cellular phone technology (GSM vs CDMA)... there are countless examples where the worse product is actually the most successful (and by a huge margin). This is curious, as it is not what natural selection would predict... in a rational system.

And this is where memes come in.

what's more cost-effective: to make a better product, or to convince someone who is not a critical thinker that your product is better? The answer is reflected n our market.

 

I wonder, then - does capitalism simply trend towards religiousness? I mean, the structure clearly breeds memes, as they are the the simplest way to push your products for profit. If the market is in symbiosis with a process that essentially dampens the consumer's ability to apply critical thought, is it the market that is primarily at fault for creating the conditions that religion thrives in?

This is why memetics is such a brilliant theory. If we can explain the way culture works in terms of selfish memes, where the survival of such memes is based simply on how good a meme is at survivng, then we can show that some successful memes may have very little value to their hosts at all.

A good atheist friend of mine still believes that religion survives purely on its beneficial value to those who believe in it. Sure, part of how religious belief persists is that it makes people feel good, gives people meaning and purpose (irregardless of how blind that purpose may be). But, ultimately that benefit is just one of the many traits that give religion a good survival value.

So, to the question in hand. Does capitalism create an environment in which religion can survive well. I'd like to suggest from the outset that human beings are not all rational thinking beings, and probably never will be. We all have fundamental intellectual weaknesses and susceptibility to false memes, some more so than others. Our minds are as much part of a meme's environment as the political, economic and social environments that forge us. Furthermore, these environments themselves are in part sculpted by memes. What I'm getting at is that humans will always be susceptible to hearsay and rumours, even when it is false, it would just be impractical for every human to go round analysing everything they hear.

But, our levels of overall susceptibility to memes will vary based upon the environments our minds are raised in; whether we have an education, what kind of education, our social background, our family background, our economic status, our cultural surroundings. I would argue that capitalism naturally will not provide an education to the people that live within the system. There are several important reasons for this:

- That unless the markets demand it, there is very little need for critical thinking among the bulk of the population.

- That in order to market a product it is desirable that people don't think to much about what they're buying.

- In production especially, a workforce that is uneducated is likely to be more compliant.

- It has been suggested by Marx and others that the longer hours people work and the more strenuous the labour, the less people are inclined to partake in intellectual activities. This is because a) In the time they are out of work they are too tired and would rather sleep or watch tv and b) They have no reason to think critically in their day to day lives. We might infer then that there will be a ratio of average work time/energy/mental stimulation levels to average intellectual ability within a population.

(It is important to note in regard to the first three points that there is NO CONSPIRACY here, it is just natural selection taking its course).

Now, there are vast differences between Europe and America in the history that have shaped our political and economic systems differently. America was founded upon the immigration of individuals after a 'better life' in the new world. The "American Dream" of making a life for oneself and entrepreneurialism still exists and is popularised today. This meme is in essence the ideology of the free market, and gave extra speed to the historical process that shaped it. This meme has become so prominent that free market capitalism has been let loose upon America and as I already hopefully pointed out, it does not need to educate people well, only enough to meet the demands of the market. Yes, I am going to say it: the American Dream is exactly what Marx would call the opiate of the masses, a meme that plays on people's emotions and survives as long as it keeps the capitalism going.

Across the Atlantic capitalism has also developed, very much based upon imports from the Americas and our wider empires. When slavery and the empires ended capitalism continued because it is an effective (if dangerous) system that was already in full steam. But there is a difference. In Europe the entrepreneurial spirit does not exist to the same extent. We didn't have a whole new world to discover and make better lives for ourselves in, the bulk of what became the free-marketeering bourgeoisie were merchants and aristocrats, the old classes began to morph and merge into new ones. The working classes didn't have a dream of a bright new future as in America, and this has allowed for the rise of socialism in counter to the free market doctrine. It is this socialist memeplex (no matter how subtle, or even subconsciously) that has meant the gradual extension of good education to all children. It is only recently that the markets have started demanding an educated workforce, and the education system has been turned from educating children for the purpose of educating them into creating more skilled workers for the machine. The UK has (or rather did have) a welfare state, free healthcare, a comparatively good education system etc etc, the US has never had these things, precisely because it was built on capitalism.

 


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Quote:I would just like to

Quote:
I would just like to point out that these discussions are completely without merit if the example of how VHS overtook Beta, even though Beta was the superior video cassette, is not mentioned.

Oh, good call! I forgot about this one.

 

Err... does anyone remember why VHS swept the field, here?

Quote:
"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."

- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940


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Quote:You really think that

Quote:
You really think that the B-24 was superior?

I do. However, since I don't want to hijack my own thread with this tangent, and you would need to understand certain terms in order for us to take this further in a meaningful way, I ask you the following:

 

 - Do you know what the '3/9 line' is on an aircraft?

 - Do you know what it means for a pilot to execute a lead offensive turn?

 - Do you know what 'BFM' stands for in air combat jargon?

 - Do you know what 'corner velocity' is for an aircraft?

 - Do you know what a lift vector is?

 

This is not an arbitrary quiz, by the by. If we're going to discuss this with your arguments resting on the grounds of mounted machine gun coverage, you need to at least understand the concepts related to the phasing-out of gun emplacements before we can hold a debate on their merits / lack thereof.

Quote:
"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."

- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940


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Quote:It could even be

Quote:
It could even be tested in a laboratory with 30-50 test subjects. No one's done it yet, but it could easily be done.

Natural: How would you test this? What method would you use?

 

If we can agree on a testing method, we should run this experiment. I'm dead serious. Thom, given that you're unconvinced (and fair enough), surely you'd agree this would be a great idea?

Set-up some controls and lay-out a method that we reach a vast consensus on being reasonable, and we should be able to run the test right here (or, if not, perhaps a few people who live close together can run it?). Afterwards, we can submit it to a journal for review.

 

Who's interested?

Quote:
"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."

- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940


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Memes are just an obvious

Memes are just an obvious deduction newish word of what we we think and rumor. The completed experiment is us, as is what is common thought, as memes as a virus of behavior, as to like why supporting war, as like kill to save us. ETC.

A meme, to save us the good fortunate , ignore and jail them the bad poor unfortunate ... so the meme , "the poor are bad" ... Memes, like the spread of prophecy.

  Meme, Rumor, Imitation .... as social evolution of group concepts are not always rational.

        Better to ask Dawkins who coined the word memes.

Ask god, google,   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme


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Kevin R Brown

Kevin R Brown wrote:

Quote:
Because I'm a hardcore gamer, I take significant issue with one line. The Dreamcast was not in competition with either the N64 or the PlayStation. It was in competition with the PlayStation2, and the GameCube, and the XBox.

That's a tough sell.

The PS2 was the closest of the sixth-generation consoles to launching near the DC, and it was still a year and some away when the DC was released (it wasn't even unveiled for, I think, about six months after the DC made it's debut). The XBox and GameCube weren't even close; 3 years away at best.

I can easily understand how someone not as integrated with the industry as myself would think so. However, if there is one thing that all developers, gamers, console designers, and fanboys agree on, it is the generations of consoles. The Dreamcast was the first system in the 6th generation, with the XBox being the last system in the generation. It is much like how the XBox 360 was first out of the gate for the 7th generation, while Sony and Nintendo were late comers arriving a couple years later. They're all still in the same generation.

 

Kevin R Brown wrote:

So, for a year and some, the DC - a sixth generation console - competed with two highly inferior fifth generation consoles. And it lost, miserably. Why?

Economics of the industry. In general, only the rich and the fanboys pick up consoles at launch. The games are few and far between at any system's launch, and said games don't come close to taking advantage of the consoles actual power for at least year or two(except in very rare cases). In addition to the lack of software, and often confusing hardware issues(such as PS2 memory cards not being available for 3-4 months after the launch of the PS2 unless you were very very lucky), a launch console costs up to 4 or 5 times the price of an old gen console, which is generally still launching games since Sony brought the idea into the industry. Why pay $500-$700 for a new console that only has 10 games(each of which cost $80 on average for a recently launched console), when you can pay $100 for a slightly older console which has hundreds of games that cost as little as $20?

If you look at current sales numbers and don't consider generations, the Wii is actually not in the lead. The PS2 is, with the PS1 right behind it(though the PS1 was discontinued in 2006 if I remember correctly, it is the second highest selling console of all time; and the PS2 is still selling faster than any console today, though the PS3 will start taking over the PS2's monthly sales in the latter half of 2009 or mid 2010).
 

Kevin R Brown wrote:
Quote:
...and [it was] the most prone to failure

...Largely because of this completely fabricated myth that developers like Electronic Arts spread around the market.

'Oh, don't buy a DreamCast - it will melt your CDs!'

'Oh, man; did you hear? The DreamCast sets itself on fire if you play it for more than 'X' hours!'

I'll perhaps allow that many problems were fictional, but my personal experience involved no fewer than 6 seperate consoles that all had the same bug. After about 3 or 4 hours of gameplay(sometimes less, sometimes more), the system would reset itself due to faulty heat dissipation. That's the reason I never bothered to get into the Dreamcast. Well, one big reason at least.

Kevin R Brown wrote:
I won't use this space to boast, but I do know a few faces in the industry and more than a few local store owners, and there isn't a single one of these 'prone to failure!' claims that holds any weight. Someone (Hi, EA!) started the rumors, and gamers fuelled them along by suddenly 'remembering' things that happened to friends of friends who bought DreamCasts (Meme propagation).

I must disagree to an extent. There were indeed faulty systems. It may very well be that it was a fluke that every console I played on had this problem, but I doubt it very much.

Kevin R Brown wrote:
The XBox 360 has had far more problems than the DreamCast, and the complaints about it aren't nearly as loud or vicious.

Yes, the 360 did have far more problems. But Microsoft learned from their XBox problems in the previous generation, and had wonderful customer support this time around. Therefore there was little reason to complain. If your system failed, they gave you a new one. The only problem was waiting for it to arrive.

Kevin R Brown wrote:

Quote:
It had the smallest number of games available.

This is a little off-topic, but (since I have a seething hatred for the two entities about to be named):

The DreamCast has such a small library because EA and Square decided they didn't like Sega's attitude. Back then, Sega actually decided to have some balls and told the publishing giants that they didn't give a shit how big and important anyone thought they were - they were still going to allow smaller independent publishers to release games on their system.

EA, while a factor, wasn't sufficiently huge enough at the time to decide the fate of a console. Sega had already decided their own fate by alienating their fans. And while Squaresoft did have a major impact on the industry(the largest impact software has ever made), it had little effect on Sega. It destroyed Nintendo, which Sega could have taken advantage of if they'd been smart. They were not smart, and let the opportunity pass them by. Though to be fair, it was probably too late anyway.

Kevin R Brown wrote:
EA decided it needed to teach them a lesson about how business is done in the console world and did so. Nowadays, Sega  just tows the line with everyone else (and, of course, has largely forgotten about their glory days of console competition).

Sega wasn't the system that got killed by the developers. They were killed by their fans deserting them in the face of 3 console launches in about 7 years. It was Nintendo that was owned by developers. Sticking with cartridges pissed every third party developer off. Not only did it cost a good $40 per game just to buy a cartridge for each game, but the memory space on a cartridge was pathetically small. Most of the developers simply abandoned Nintendo(Konami, Capcom, Squaresoft, etc). They might have gone to Sega, but Sega's licensing department was nearly as viscious as Nintendo's. Sony, in contrast, was cheap as hell to develop for. CD's cost pennies, and licensing fees were miniscule. Not to mention the Final Fantasy series heading to Sony(specifically due to cartridges) cemented an installed base to work with.

Roisin Dubh wrote:

I would just like to point out that these discussions are completely without merit if the example of how VHS overtook Beta, even though Beta was the superior video cassette, is not mentioned.

All fixed now.

You're all welcome.

Actually, Beta won that war, from a certain point of view. VHS only took the home video market. Beta was used in almost every cam-corder on the planet, as well as by media industries. No television station used VHS, it was all Beta.

Edit: Fixed quotes.

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deludedgod wrote:At least,

deludedgod wrote:
At least, that was the impression I got here...it may be different in the US.

Briefly, I think the trend has been different in the U.S. for a couple of decades, and it has been a reflection of the political climate.  Many companies have (almost inexplicably) decided that what they want is unquestioning sycophants who will toe the company line without causing waves.  Of course, much of the time, it's been because the top end of the company was incredibly corrupt (Enron, e.g.) and too many good critical thinkers would have blown the whistle before the CEO could get his huge bailout offer.

As I've said before, I think that the demand for critical thinking in the business sector is a reflection of the culture, not the other way around.   While everything you say is certainly one way that things can work, I just don't think it's necessarily the way things will work.  I've heard many, many stories about how a person was fired for thinking too much about the way a business was being run.

 

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

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Quote:Economics of the

Quote:
Economics of the industry. In general, only the rich and the fanboys pick up consoles at launch.

...And this is why every console (with the possible exception of the PS3) has been completely sold-out across North America at launch?

Quote:
If you look at current sales numbers and don't consider generations, the Wii is actually not in the lead. The PS2 is, with the PS1 right behind it(though the PS1 was discontinued in 2006 if I remember correctly, it is the second highest selling console of all time; and the PS2 is still selling faster than any console today, though the PS3 will start taking over the PS2's monthly sales in the latter half of 2009 or mid 2010).

Sony has the dubious distinction of owning the pet platform for Square Enix to release games on. So while we're talking about memes:

Promo graphics for Final Fantasy VIII

 

In-Game Graphics for Final Fantasy VIII

 

Know anyone that swears up and down that the Sony machines have always had way higher-end image processing than anything else on the market?

I sure do.

 

In reality, of course, the XBox was a much more advanced machine than the PS2 and the N64 was just outright better (from the consumer's perspective) than the PS1. Yet the Sony machines are the ones that are still selling.

This doesn't strike you as interesting?

Quote:
I'll perhaps allow that many problems were fictional, but my personal experience involved no fewer than 6 seperate consoles that all had the same bug.

This is what's known as 'stretching your credibility'.

Quote:
Sticking with cartridges pissed every third party developer off. Not only did it cost a good $40 per game just to buy a cartridge for each game, but the memory space on a cartridge was pathetically small.

Uh. Vs the memory capacity of a CD? Sticking out tongue

The '64 had memory sticks you could buy (in fact, had to buy for the really good games like Conkers and Perfect Dark. Man, Rare - you used to be so awesome...).

And actually, given that developers didn't have to deal with licensing for copy-protection software on cartridges, a very sound argument can be made that the difference in price between a CD and a cartridge was insignificant at best. The thing is... I suppose you remember ROMs?

Quote:
Most of the developers simply abandoned Nintendo(Konami, Capcom, Squaresoft, etc).

Ah. Clearly you must, since you just listed every developer that ditched Nintendo over Nintendo's lack of cooperation in installing vicious copy-protection / load times into their hardware (at their expense, of course; no the developers). The notion that 3rd-part developers were hurt by Nintendo is a joke. Remember Rare, by chance?

Curiously, your argument doesn't address the fact that no developer came back to Nintendo after the GameCube came out, complete with ultra-compact discs that were cheap as dirt to buy and publish on. But, here again, Nintendo refused to treat it's customers like crooks and didn't install copy-protection (so, once again, no load times) - and developers wouldn't budge on this issue. 'Cube was a brilliant system - I was really sad to see it fail.

 

 

Quote:
"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."

- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940


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Kevin R Brown wrote:Sony has

Kevin R Brown wrote:

Sony has the dubious distinction of owning the pet platform for Square Enix to release games on. So while we're talking about memes:

Promo graphics for Final Fantasy VIII

 

In-Game Graphics for Final Fantasy VIII

 

This has nothing to do with memes.  That is a misrepresentation of the graphics.  One is from a movie sequence (which are almost always better than the graphics in game play and the other is a rather poor quality example of game play graphics.  Did you even play FF8?  Have you ever considered that people bought the systems they did because of the games that were released for them?  Also, consider people's aesthetic desires.  I hated the graphics styles used by games in Nintendo.  I still hate the graphics styles, even on Wii (and I own one despite this).  They always seemed clumsy and blocky.  I absolutely hate Mario64 and the graphics don't appear to be much better.  Your argument here is fairly myopic in that sense.

Below is a more fair representation of the graphics.  The movie sequences are to the right and the game play is to the left.

And now for the N64, with Mario64.

That's still pretty pixle-y, yeah?  And your claim the the N64 was better than the PS1 would seem to be disagreed to by the popularity of the PS1 and direct comparisons don't seem to show off how much better the N64 is supposed to be...

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Thom, I was pointing-out the

Thom, I was pointing-out the disparity in graphics between the promotional material Square used to advertise for Final Fantasy VIII and the actual graphics of the game.

(Uh. As a side note: Are you sure the in-game screen-shots you took were from the PS1 version of the game? Those look like clips from the PC version; the lines on the characters are way too crisp)

 

Mario was one of the earliest N64 games, Thom - and it's graphics were meant to be simple and stylistic. What if we look at Conkers:

 

Or Perfect Dark:

 

We see that Nintendo's technology, while still having a case of the jaggies, could produce far crisper images with much more complex texturing than Sony's technology.

Quote:
Did you even play FF8?  Have you ever considered that people bought the systems they did because of the games that were released for them?

Actually, FF8 was one of the few Final Fantasy games I actually enjoyed.

*Cough*

Yes, sure - some people definately bought systems for logical reasons. What I'm arguing (well, more speculating than arguing, to be fair) is that a lot more people might've bought their consoles (and a lot of things, for that matter) for memetic reasons.

Quote:
"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."

- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940


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((The graphics seem pretty

((The graphics seem pretty similar to me, Kevin and I hope you think so highly of FF7... or else: (Yes, I'll poke you like you're strange.))

To be fair no one has ever done anything for 'memetic' reasons. (read response #2 this thread).  Unless you'll tell me what a 'memetic reason' is and how it relates to memetics?

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Well, yeah. Everyone likes

Well, yeah. Everyone likes Final Fantasy VII.

 

...The only bad thing about Final Fantasy as a whole is, well, the fact that ever Final Fatasy game is basically the same - but with a different avatars for the character archetypes.

Well, excep Vivi.

 

He's the shit.

Quote:
"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."

- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940


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J'agree.

J'agree.


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Kevin R Brown

Kevin R Brown wrote:

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Economics of the industry. In general, only the rich and the fanboys pick up consoles at launch.

...And this is why every console (with the possible exception of the PS3) has been completely sold-out across North America at launch?

Apparently you have no idea how many fanboys there are, or any idea how few systems are available at a launch. And the PS3 was also sold out at launch.

Kevin R Brown wrote:
Quote:
If you look at current sales numbers and don't consider generations, the Wii is actually not in the lead. The PS2 is, with the PS1 right behind it(though the PS1 was discontinued in 2006 if I remember correctly, it is the second highest selling console of all time; and the PS2 is still selling faster than any console today, though the PS3 will start taking over the PS2's monthly sales in the latter half of 2009 or mid 2010).

Sony has the dubious distinction of owning the pet platform for Square Enix to release games on. So while we're talking about memes:

Promo graphics for Final Fantasy VIIIIn-Game Graphics for Final Fantasy VIII

Know anyone that swears up and down that the Sony machines have always had way higher-end image processing than anything else on the market?

I sure do.

I can really hit this from various angles. For one thing, Squaresoft didn't even put a Final Fantasy on the PlayStation until 1997, 3 years into the generation. For another, the 3DO had equally stunning visuals(though you may not remember the system as it didn't last very long, I do). The Saturn also had amazing visuals. The only one of the time that couldn't compete was Nintendo, because they stuck with cartridges. They had greater in game graphics than the other systems, but they couldn't pull off FMV's. And I happen to know a company called Microsoft which has sworn up and down that their systems are the best in every way with every generation, despite reality. Hell, I've even heard Nintendo fanboys try and suggest that the GameCube was the most powerful system of it's gen, which is simply ludicrous. 

Kevin R Brown wrote:
In reality, of course, the XBox was a much more advanced machine than the PS2 and the N64 was just outright better (from the consumer's perspective) than the PS1. Yet the Sony machines are the ones that are still selling.

This doesn't strike you as interesting?

I'm beginning to think that you're a fanboy. The XBox was more advanced. It was NOT much more advanced. The N64 was the crap of the decade, and wasn't better than anything. Regardless of perspective. In comparison to all of its competition: the controller sucked, the games sucked, and the system sucked. Which is not to say that it was incapable of being fun. I personally loved the N64, and still enjoy playing it to this day. But I, and everyone else, enjoyed the PlayStation that much more.

Kevin R Brown wrote:
Quote:
I'll perhaps allow that many problems were fictional, but my personal experience involved no fewer than 6 seperate consoles that all had the same bug.

This is what's known as 'stretching your credibility'.

So you can't argue my point. No surprise there.

Kevin R Brown wrote:
Quote:
Sticking with cartridges pissed every third party developer off. Not only did it cost a good $40 per game just to buy a cartridge for each game, but the memory space on a cartridge was pathetically small.

Uh. Vs the memory capacity of a CD? :P

Yes. Dozens of times over. Please oh please make a fool of yourself and try to argue this with me. It will make me very happy, since I haven't owned someone on this subject in almost 8 years. Most people have figured the reality out by now.

Kevin R Brown wrote:
The '64 had memory sticks you could buy (in fact, had to buy for the really good games like Conkers and Perfect Dark. Man, Rare - you used to be so awesome...).

So what? Those were memory cards, they did nothing for a game. They just let you save your progress. Before that, games used to have batteries in them. Every system had memory cards as of the release of the PlayStation. The only additions the N64 had that directly impacted the performance of the system for games was the expansion pack and the rumble pack. Sure, charge your customers an extra $50+ for them to get the full potential of the system. It's worked so well for everyone who's tried it. Oh....wait.....

Kevin R Brown wrote:

And actually, given that developers didn't have to deal with licensing for copy-protection software on cartridges, a very sound argument can be made that the difference in price between a CD and a cartridge was insignificant at best. The thing is... I suppose you remember ROMs?



Ridiculous. Plenty of companies made knockoffs of cartridges. There was no protection in a cartridge. Even worse for your argument, every cartridge in historty has been emulated. Cartridge cost a company $40 or so per game that they sold. A CD cost literally 17 pennies. There was no difference in protection between them. You do the math.

Kevin R Brown wrote:
Quote:
Most of the developers simply abandoned Nintendo(Konami, Capcom, Squaresoft, etc).

Ah. Clearly you must, since you just listed every developer that ditched Nintendo over Nintendo's lack of cooperation in installing vicious copy-protection / load times into their hardware (at their expense, of course; no the developers). The notion that 3rd-part developers were hurt by Nintendo is a joke. Remember Rare, by chance?

Again, ridiculous. I merely mentioned three of the biggest companies as I didn't feel like writing a book on the droves who abandoned Nintendo. And as for Rare not being hurt, that's the funniest thing you've said so far. If those games had been released on the PS1, they would have had 10 times the sales figures with ease. More than a hundred times the profit. Rare was obliterated by staying with Nintendo. That's why Microsoft so easily bought them out a few years later.

Kevin R Brown wrote:
Curiously, your argument doesn't address the fact that no developer came back to Nintendo after the GameCube came out, complete with ultra-compact discs that were cheap as dirt to buy and publish on.

*Slams head into wall* Just how exactly is a custom made disc made only by Nintendo and Nintendo licensed manufacturers cheaper than a standard default CD that's come off of thousands of assembly lines for a good 15 years? And how exactly is that same disc, which is significantly restricted by its size, comparable to a CD which can have 3 times as much information on it? I'm not even going to bother getting into established bases for consoles. You don't have the slightest clue what you're talking about.

 

Kevin R Brown wrote:
But, here again, Nintendo refused to treat it's customers like crooks and didn't install copy-protection (so, once again, no load times) - and developers wouldn't budge on this issue. 'Cube was a brilliant system - I was really sad to see it fail.

GC was the worst system of the generation. It was significantly underpowered, and its discs didn't hold enough information. Take Two couldn't put GTA on the GC because the system wasn't powerful enough and the discs weren't large enough. Same with Squaresoft and Final Fantasy. Square did make an effort by writing a game specifically for the system, but that one game was nothing compared to the 4 that the PS2 recieved. Even the XBox got a better deal, since it was strong enough to play FFXI, and Sony dropped the ball with online. Again, Nintendo shot themselves in the foot. Three generations strong they have done so, with their only saving grace being that this time they didn't try to compete with their competitors with hardcore gamers, allowing them a foot up. But yet again, Nintendo will never see the best games of the generation. The Wii isn't powerful enough.

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