Memetic Engineer: Interview with author Elizabeth Barrette

"Memetic engineering comes from "meme" (a transmittable idea) and "engineering" (conscious design of structures and processes). I come up with new ideas; I also identify extant ideas that are worthy of promotion; and I devise ways of making them concise, sticky, and leggy. A well-crafted meme is a tiny little gem of a thing, like a gene; it sticks in people's minds and travels far, replicating itself as it goes.



Here's an example of my work as a memetic engineer: I started with the extant idea, "You can't keep spending money like water." There's a shortage of fresh water in the world, and people often fail to be careful and conservative with it. You can blather at them all day and change nobody's mind -- but a meme might do the trick. So I flipped the concepts: "You can't keep spending water like money." It makes the brain go, "Wait -- WHAT?" It's unexpected. But then you start thinking of how water can be "spent," and how very profligate some people are with money. We create money; we can print more of it if the money we have is insufficient for the economy's needs. We can't make more water; if we waste it, we're in trouble. People are used to conserving things that must be "spent" so putting money in that category helps them take it more seriously."

Read the entire interview and Elizabeth's poetry at the Elodrym Library.


http://elodrym. org/elibrary/index. php?option=com_content&task=view&id=72&Itemid=30