Weaken host immune system by creating a diversion

I have a previous article about cultural immune deficiency disorders. I've also written about cultural opportunistic infections - the cultural version of the well knnown phenomena, opportunistic infections.

I've long recognised the possibility that infections could attack the host immune system to create a hole to penetrate host defenses - and that such a hole could then let in other parasites. Clearly these dynamics apply in cultural evolution as well - as is seen in cultural immune deficiency disorders.

This article is about a related set of strategies involving diverting host immune system resources elsewhere. Rather than directly attacking the immune system parasites may be able to create a diversion. One strategy would be to absorb host immune resources via deliberate immune stimulation using expendible, fake targets. Another strategy might be to liberate suppressed persistent infections already present within the host by making holes in the immune system for them.

The former strategy has some well-studied examples. Some parasites release what are known as superantigens - which act to stimulate the immune system, sapping its resources.

A couple of analogies illustrate the proposed effects. Invaders sometimes liberate prisoners from the territories they are invading. The reason is not always clear - but they may be creating a diversion which saps the resources of the defenders. They may also engage in arson. Causing chaos can help them to achieve their own goals. Another analogy involves the saying that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". It is widely recognised that uniting against a common enemy can result in strength gains. Orwell wrote about this in the book "1984". Unrelated parasites may effectively gang up on their hosts - since they have a shared interest in a weakened host immune system.

I don't have much in the way of concrete evidence or examples in the cultural domain to offer in this post. However the possibility that these dynamics might also apply to cultural evolution seems intriguing.

Heightened immunity in ultrasocial creatures

In the symbiont hypothesis of eusociality, symbionts manipulate their hosts into coming into close contact in toder to facilitate their own reproduction - which often depends on hosts coming into contact with one another. In turn, hosts coming into close contact with one another creates opportunities for other symbionts to spread between hosts. This creates a positive feedback loop - where more and more symbionts of different types join with their hosts, creating an ecological web of interactions which pulls the whole system into a deeper and deeper symbiosis - resulting in eusociality. This idea is intended to complement - rather than compete with - more conventional explanations of eusociality which invoke kin selection. Kin selection is obviously important, but the symbiont hypothesis likely also has a role to play.

Of course, some of the symbionts will be parasites. While also playing a role in pulling their hosts together, too many parasites are bad, and eusocial creatures often go to considerable lengths to eliminate them - with antibiotic compounds, grooming rituals, hairlessness, and highly-active immune systems. It seems likely that opposing selection pressures from parasites will form part of the "overcrowding" forces that eventually halt the progress towards greater levels of sociality.

Humans can hardly be classifed as being eusocial yet. As Matt Ridley sometimes jests, even the English don't let the Queen do all their reproducing for them. However humans are ultrasocial and seem to be headed towards full-blown eusociality with functional "individuals" forming at higher levels than human individuals - such as companies and organizations. We also have cultural eusociality. We may not be genetically eusocual but parts of our cultural heritage is memetically eusocial. Indeed some of it consists of multiple identical clones produced in factories (for example, think dollar bills or mobile phones).

Because they live in close quarters with one another ultrasocial creatures are vulnerable to parasite transmission. As a result they often have highly active immune systems to compensate. Humans exhibit one prominent trait associate with parasite defense - they are hairless. Over time, our hairlessness has been the topic of much speculation, but it seems fairly clear that a significant part of the story is that being hairless allows us to pick parasites off ourselves and each other, and denies the parasites shelter. Of course, parasites can still shelter in clothes and bedding - but those can be discarded.

My purpose in this post is to draw attention to the corresponding memetic phenomenon. Memes are drawing us together to promote their own reproductive ends - and as we grow closer, memetic parasites are likely to become a bigger problem - as the most virulent strains of memes from all over the planet reach the most vulnerable humans in each society. As a resut, fertility has already plummeted in places like Japan and South Korea. It seems likely that humans will respond with heightened immune responses - both genetic and memetic. Memetic defenses include education, skepticism and memetic vaccines targeted against specific problems, such as pyramid schemes. Memetic probiotics can be used to fight bad memes with good memes. We have hospitals to help fight organic diseases, and there will probably be an upswing of simiar rehab facilities designed to treat cultural infections. In the past exorcisms heped to serve the function of casting out bad memes, though these days we have more secular versions - such as weight watchers, alcoholics anonymous, smoking rehab, drug rehab, gymnasiums and the samaritans. Quarrantine is smetimes used to fight organic diseases - and there are similar cultural ohenomena - including "gag" orders, DCMA take-down notices and imprisonment.

Memetic immunity

I have a whole chapter about memetic immunity in my 2011 book on memetics. There's a brief summary on my meme therapy article but otherwise, but I don't have much in the way of public web pages on the topic. It's a very important subject area, so perhaps I should have a public resource on the topic.

Memes are the genes of cultural symbionts. They can be mutualists or parasites. Avoiding memetic parasites is what memetic immunity is all about. In my book, I classify ways in which memetic immune systems can be boosted. My classification goes something like this:

• Memetic vaccinations;
• Probiotic 'good' memes;
• Behavioural meme avoidance and prophylactic meme barriers;
• Immunity from past infections;
• Immunity from existing infections by rival memes;

To give some examples, mantras block out memes, affirmations replace bad memes with good ones and scepticism attempts to selectively target bad memes by strengthening the memetic immune system.

Boosting memetic immunity is an important aspect of meme therapy. It is a type of memetic preventative medicine.

Memeticists have previously proposed the terms "memune" and "vaccime" to refer to concepts associated with memetic immunity. These days I find these terms to be too irregular and too cutesy.

References

• Tyler, Tim (2013) Meme therapy
• Tyler, Tim (2012) Necrotrophic memes
• Tyler, Tim (2014) Addictive memes

Cultural opportunistic infections

Until recently I had considered the obesity epidemic to be primarily a cultural epidemic - an epidemic of memes. Fast food companies spread their obesity-promoting memes throughout the population using advertising (which consists of more memes) - and so manipulate people into eating more of their food, thus making the companies richer and financing the production of more obesity-promoting memes.

Obesity isn't just down to memes. Genes in foods are also involved - and humans are breeding fatter, tastier and sweeter produce to better cater to the human palate.

However, it is becoming clear that another source of genes is also involved - genes inside microbes in our intestinal flora. A variety of microbes have been fingered as obesity-promoting strains. One famous one is Candida albicans.

This suggests the disturbing picture of obese individuals as folks whose bodies have been hijacked by malevolvent microbes and turned into production factories that leave a trail of infection behind them. The microbes eat their hosts' food for them and in return pump hunger-promoting substances into their bloodstream.

This more complex picture of a swarm of obesity-promoting memes and genes makes it harder to blame the obesity epidemic on memes. However, it creates an interesting and unusual situation - where humans are being manipulated both by a swarm of memes and by a swarm of genes inside microorganisms. Can scientists learn anything from this simultaneous attempt to manipulate the same trait by both memes and microbial genes?

It may provide an interesting opportunity to compare organic and cultural evolution. For example, consider the question of whether genes or memes adapt faster. Most previous attempts to study this question have compared memes with human genes. However human genes reproduce at a very slow rate - and this is obviously an unfair comparison and a walk-over for the memes. Comparing memes and gut bacteria seems like a fairer comparison between the organic and the cultural.

Another related topic is cultural opportunistic infections when a host is infected by one parasite, that sometimes opens the door to other parasites. A classic example is Hepatitis D - which only attacks those already infected with Hepatitis B. In general, it is common for an overworked immune system to divert resources from one area to concentrate on an existing attacking force - leaving some areas less well protected. Learened immune deficiency can result if invaders attack the immune system.

In the case of obesity, it is easy to imagine fast food memes promoting Candida infections. Probably hungry Candida sufferers are also more susceptible to fast food memes. Cross-domain opportunistic infections seem likely to be a real thing - but memeticists need to study this topic to better understand it.

Addictive memes

Memes - on average - have historically been good for their human hosts.

We can be fairly sure of that because of the evidence that the capacity for cultural transmission has a genetic basis.

However, memetics originally distinguished itself as a theory of cultural evolution by proposing that bad memes are out there as well - and that we should be cautious in dealing with them.

On type of meme that is often bad are addictive memes. Addictions aren't always negative - but they often are.

There's a recent book that deals with engineering addictive memes - Hooked: A Guide to Building Habit-Forming Products.

Enginnering addiction illustrates the dark side of memetics - rather like propaganda, indoctrination and brainwashing.

While a few work on engineering addiction we must all deal with the consequences of their work. We need strong and selective memetic immune systems. As part of this, resisting memetic addictions is a topic we should all be studying.

Tim Tyler: Pagel, Wired for Culture (review)

Transcript:

Hi. I'm Tim Tyler, and this is a review of this book:

Wired for Culture by Mark Pagel.

The book says it is about how and why humans have evolved so that they were able to rapidly build today's large-scale, complex societies. It discusses cooperation, deception, religion, altruism, kin selection, reciprocity, reputations and language. This is an interesting set of topics and the book offers a unique perspective on them.

The book is largely about origins - so a hefty chunk of it is about things that happened thousands or millions of years ago. It is written more as a popular science book than a science book. The book was definitely a good read, but alas, I often found myself irritated, frustrated or in disagreement with the author while reading it. I'll start with some of the negative points, and then get on to what I liked.

The book is saturated with human exceptionalism. We hear that only humans have proper culture and a proper language. Mark discusses cultures and languages in non-human animals, but is ultimately dismissive of them, since non-human cultures are insufficiently cumulative, and non-human languages are insufficiently symbolic. I tend to emphasize the opposite perspective. I think it is important to see the close links between human and non-human animal cultures and languages and use comparative ethology to illuminate these features of human social life.

Next: cultural evolution. Mark is aware of cultural evolution, and it plays an significant role in his narrative. At the very start of the book, he discusses the subject in terms of memes, gives Richard Dawkins credit for the idea and then lays out his understanding of the topic. Mark cites Dennet, discusses brain flukes, rabies, and the Cordyceps fungus. Wilson's idea of genes holding "culture on a leash" is discussed and Mark invokes the Terminator, and HAL (from 2001) to illustrate how Wilson might turn out to be completely wrong about that. He discusses memes that produce suicidal behaviour, compares such negative memes to viruses and then discusses the idea of a cognitive immune system with its own internal Darwinian mechanisms whose function is to reject bad memes. This part of the book is quite good.

However, cultural evolution is not really the topic of the book. Indeed, it receives only occasional attention in the rest of the book. Instead, the book is all about human evolution in terms of DNA genes. Mark emphasises that culture is generally good for our genes, and generally treats culture as a set of tools that genes have used to get what they want.

Many of those discussing the origins of human ultrasociality invoke gene-meme coevolution, with memes driving and genes being dragged around in their wake. Mark does invoke lactose tolerance as an example of this effect, but this kind of scenario doesn't really feature prominently in his narrative. Indeed, in most cases, where I would invoke benefits to memes, Mark instead talks about benefit to genes - sometimes mentioning the idea that culture is generally good for us, or we wouldn't have it. There's quite a large literature on how genes and memes coevolved to produce the human social mind, and Mark hardly cites any of it. There are a few jabs at "strong reciprocity" and "group selection", but that's about it. Mark obviously has a strong scientific background, and he does have some understanding of cultural evolution - but I was left with the impression that he hadn't finished thinking through its implications, and hadn't read much of the literature on the topic.

The story of human evolution is really the story of the rise of memes. That story is far more interesting than the tale of the bigger brain and the modified vocal chords. By concentrating so much on DNA genes, Mark misses out most of this story. Cultural evolution is actually very important to understanding how human DNA evolved, due to meme-gene coevolution. For example, once people start to consider cultural evolution properly their story about why humans have big brains typically starts to look very different from the "Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis" that Mark advocates in this book. For me, the emphasis on DNA genes was the single biggest problem with the book.

Mark discusses the idea of "cultural survival vehicles" - using terminology that Richard Dawkins once attempted to bury. The idea of what counts as a cultural "vehicle" broadly corresponds to the idea of what a cultural 'organism' is. Organisms have poorly delimited boundaries in the organic realm - what with ant colonies, slime molds, and symbiotic unions - such as the Portugese man'o'war. However, the situation in cultural evolution is even muddier, with transient coalitions between memes arising on many different scales. CDs, MP3s, PDFs are examples of things that many would treat as cultural organisms. However, Mark doesn't really discuss the whole issue of what counts as a cultural "vehicle". Instead he defines "cultural survival vehicles" to be the cultures associated with tribes of humans, and then uses this definition consistently throughout the book. My assessment is that Mark's approach to the topic of what counts as a "vehicle" in cultural evolution was narrow, dogmagtic and poorly thought through.

Next Mark's treatment of group selection. Mark devotes a few pages to criticism of group selection in the book. However, he doesn't seem to me to have tracked the recent literature on group selection very well. For many years group selection enthusiasts believed that they had a new theory that acted as a superset of kin selection. However after many attempts to say exactly what it was that group selection predicted which kin selection did not, the group selection enthusiasts mostly seem to have given up on this, and now largely recognise that modern group selection and kin selection theories make the same predictions - and so represent different ways of looking at the same process. Mark embraces kin selection, but is sceptical of group selection - a position that doesn't make sense if these are ideas that make the same set of predictions - as most modern group selection advocates now agree is true. I expect modern group selection advocates won't be too impressed by Mark's criticisms. They will just say that he failed to understand their position. As far as I can see, they will be correct.

On page 81, Mark attempts to explain patriotism and nationalism in terms of a "special" and "limited" form of nepotism by which a single gene for altruism recognises itself in other individuals and then helps them. Mark's explanation of this phenomenon appears to be unorthodox to me. He offers no references to supporting scientific literature. I don't think the explanation Mark offers for the existence of patriotism and nationalism is correct.

Mark also offers an explanation of how individual cells in slime mold populations can help each other despite being unrelated to one another. However Mark's explanation seems largely unnecessary to me - since cells in slime mold populations which exhibit multicellular stages are almost always close relatives - a fact which Mark fails to mention.

I thought that there quite a few of these dud explanations in the book. The lack of references to supporting material and uniform authoratative style made it hard to distinguish to good explanations from the bad ones. I wound up not entirely trusting a lot of what Mark was saying, and making mental notes to check up on his facts in cases where he was presenting material I was not familiar with. That is not a great relationship for a science writer to have with the reader.

Much of the book is about the reasons why humans cooperate. However, this material is distributed over many chapters and covered in a rather rambling way. The book really needs a summary of this material, saying which mechanisms are important.

Mark's most frequent answer to the puzzle of cooperation is that it pays. This is true of reciprocity and reputations, and it's true with the forms of byproduct mutualism which are frequently mentioned in the book. The coverage of cooperation in the book deals reasonably well with the theories of kin selection, reciprocity and reputations - though the cultural versions of these theories receive rather cursory treatment. However the book had little coverage of the important topic of cooperation due to manipulation. I remember one section on the subject - about how people used religion to manipulate each other. Memes manipulate humans into interacting with one another because contact between humans facilitates their own spread - but Mark doesn't discuss such possibilities.

Towards the end the book has some rather rambling digressions. Genomic impriniting may be fascinating, but it doesn't seem to have a lot to do with the main topic of the book. Mark also discusses his research on human hairlessness as an anti-parasite adaptation. An interesting topic no doubt - but again, not a whole lot to do with the main theme.

While it refers to the relevant science there are very few citations of actual papers. Instead the work of scientists is spun into a narrative. It's a narrative that is pretty well written. The lack of references in the body of the text probably helps a little with the flow, but at some expense to the science. There are references for each chapter at the end, but inconveniently, there are no footnotes or endnotes to explain how they relate to the chapter.

Enough about the dubious aspects of the book. There's also a fair amount of good material in it:

The book contains a pioneering section on cultural kin selection. Mark offers an explanation for altruism in humans that invokes the green beard effect - and makes it clear that he thinks that the explanation applies to both genes and memes. He uses terms such as "cultural relatedness" and "cultural nepotism". He also correctly explains that the green beard effect is just kin selection applied to individual genes or memes. This material is good. However, there are no references and no attempt to place this theory in its historical context. Nor is it a very comprehensive treatment of the subject. I would have preferred this section of the book to be longer. I'm rather sceptical that the green beard effect is the best way of describing cultural kin selection. We don't describe organic kin selection in terms of the net effect of a bunch of green beard genes - and I don't see any terribly good reason for describing cultural kin selection in those terms.

Mark offers a fairly withering critique of use of the ultimatum game by some researchers to illustrate how humans cooperate in anonymous one shot interactions where reputations and reciprocity can't possibly be involved - and so therefore the observed cooperation must be down to group selection. Mark offers what seems to me to be the obvious refutation - that subjects tend to play it safe in case they are not really anonymous in the laboratory environment - an explanation which had been previously given by Andrew Delton in 2011. As Mark says, the ultimatum game represents poor quality evidence for kin or group selection.

In summary, this book is rather patchy, with some good bits and some bad bits. The good bits are good enough to make the book worth reading, though. It's certainly nice to have a professor of evolutionary biology using memetics and cultural kin selection.

Enjoy,

Necrotrophic memes

Some memes are "necrotrophic" - meaning that they kill their hosts. Keith Henson once called the carriers of necrotrophic memes "memeoids".

Patriotic fervour and suicide bombing are examples of memes which are "to die for" - memes which have the potential to kill.

A common complaint about the possibility of necrotrophic memes is: "but surely the hosts would evolve defenses".

Peter Turchin expresses this complaint - in connection with deaths of volunteers in warfare - as follows:

Yes, “memes made me do it” is one possible response from Richard Dawkins and his followers. It’s a variant of what might be called the “great deception” hypothesis, e.g. Marxist explanations how people are fooled to fight and die for the sake of the ruling class’ interests. The problem is that fighting in war has very significant fitness consequences (roughly one-quarter of male deaths in small-scale societies is due to warfare). So by the “selfish gene” logic such fierce selection should result in the evolution of very effective resistance to such lethal memes.

There are a number of reasons why, in fact, such defenses do not arise that frequently in practice:

• Rapid cultural evolution - As with lethal diseases, deleterious memes typically have a shorter generation time and evolve more quickly than their hosts.

• Greater investment - Most lethal memes are memetically engineered by powerful agents. The memes responsible for the obesity epidemic are engineered by large corporations. The memes responsible for patriotic fervour are engineered by governments. The memes responsible for suicide bombing are the products of powerful and ancient religions. However, all these types of meme target individuals - who cannot afford comparable expenditure on defenses.

• Frequency-dependent selection - Memes that kill humans are not that common.

• Antagonistic pleiotropy - An "obey authority meme" might be useful most of the time - except when the authority happens to be sending you off to war.

• Only one chance - Fatal memes sometimes offer restricted opportunities to learn about their hazards. If they kill their hosts reliably, then conventional trial-and-error learning mechanisms may offer relatively little protection against them.

• Embryological tangles - Some of the memetic immune system is probably innate. That component has difficulty in identifying specific memes, since it must work through embryology. A "obey authority meme" might be generally positive while an "obey the general" meme might be generally negative - but it may be difficult to distinguish between them for a system which must manipulate its products via the tangles of embryology.

However, I don't mean to criticize the memetic immune system too much. Those with suppressed memetic immunity probably die from necrotrophic meme infections quite a bit more often.