Measles is the Winner by TKO

Measles is so powerful that after we defeated it with vaccines, it came back even stronger to infect our minds!

We might think of vaccines as a meta-defense, a meta-immune system, which could also be called Public Health or even just modern medicine. Measles has found a way to penetrate this defense.

The anti-vax meme is, perhaps, the first example of a disease making the transition from the biosphere to the noosphere, so that we now, in order to fight measles, we need to inoculate our minds in addition to our bodies. (A mental vaccine, that is.)

Via Dawkins' Selfish Gene, we don't get measles, measles gets us. And in 2018-2019, it's doing a damn good job.

Here's a few newsbits on the subject:

Antivaxxers turn to homeschooling to avoid protecting their kids’ health
July 2019, Ars Technica

Analyzing a Facebook-fueled anti-vaccination attack - 'It's not all about autism'
Mar 2019, phys.org

An analysis of Facebook profiles for people who posted anti-vaccination sentiments reveals four key subgroups that are interconnected by various themes. Credit: Elsevier

...anti-vaccination arguments are not "all about autism" and center on four distinct themes that can appeal to diverse audiences in four distinct subgroups:

• "trust," which emphasized suspicion of the scientific community and concerns about personal liberty;
• "alternatives," which focused on chemicals in vaccines and the use of homeopathic remedies instead of vaccination;
• "safety," which focused on perceived risks and concerns about vaccination being immoral; and
• "conspiracy," which suggested that the government and other entities hide information that this subgroup believes to be facts, including that the polio virus does not exist.

Beth L. Hoffman et al, It's not all about autism: The emerging landscape of anti-vaccination sentiment on Facebook, Vaccine (2019). DOI: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2019.03.003


Facebook Takes Steps to Curb Sensational Health Claims
Molly Schuetz, Bloomberg, July 2, 2019

Deprioritizing sensationalist health posts that make misleading claims or tout “miracle cures,” and posts that use health-related claims to promote products or services, such as weight-loss pills.

On Deceptive Language:
April Fools hoax stories could offer clues to help identify 'fake news'
Mar 2019, phys.org

"April Fools hoaxes are very useful because they provide us with a verifiable body of deceptive texts that give us an opportunity to find out about the linguistic techniques used when an author writes something fictitious disguised as a factual account," said Edward Dearden from Lancaster University, and lead-author of the research. "By looking at the language used in April Fools and comparing them with fake news stories we can get a better picture of the kinds of language used by authors of disinformation."

The researchers found that April fools hoax stories, when compared to genuine news:

• Are generally shorter in length
• Use more unique words
• Use longer sentences
• Are easier to read
• Refer to vague events in the future
• Contain more references to the present
• Are less interested in past events
• Contain fewer proper nouns
• Use more first person pronouns

Fake news stories, when compared to genuine news:

• Are shorter in length
• Are easier to read
• Use simplistic language
• Contain fewer punctuation marks
• Contain more proper nouns
• Are generally less formal—use more first names such as 'Hillary' and contain more profanity and spelling mistakes
• Contain very few dates
• Use more first person pronouns

Post Script
Study busts myths about gossip
May 2019, phys.org

"There is a surprising dearth of information about who gossips and how, given public interest and opinion on the subject," said Megan Robbins, an assistant psychology professor who led the study along with Alexander Karan, a graduate student in her lab.

If you're going to look at gossip like an academic, remove the value judgment we assign to the word. Gossip, in the academic's view, is not bad. It's simply talking about someone who isn't present. That talk could be positive, neutral, or negative.

"With that definition, it would be hard to think of a person who never gossips because that would mean the only time they mention someone is in their presence," Robbins said. "They could never talk about a celebrity unless the celebrity was present for the conversation; they would only mention any detail about anyone else if they are present."

• Younger people engage in more negative gossip than older adults. There was no correlation with overall frequency of gossip when all three categories were combined.
• About 14 percent of participants' conversations were gossip, or just under an hour in 16 waking hours
• Almost three-fourths of gossip was neutral. Negative gossip (604 instances) was twice as prevalent as positive (376)
• Gossip overwhelmingly was about an acquaintance and not a celebrity, with a comparison of 3,292 samples vs. 369
• Extraverts gossip far more frequently than introverts, across all three types of gossip
• Women gossip more than men, but only in neutral, information-sharing, gossip
• Poorer, less education people don't gossip more than wealthier, better-educated people.

Catch Em All

There's a lot about fake news and viral memes lately. That is exciting over here, because it's been a central theme at Network Address forever.

But wait...as I search the interwebs for a good image to go with this post, I am hit with an opportune eureka moment.

Viruses, memetic infection, etc., I'm looking for a picture of a kid getting vaccinated, or just jabbed with a needle. I knew I would have to contend with tempting distractions from both pro- and anti- vaccination data-bowels (just came up w that one, aka shit-spewing websites). And so, just one, I click on this chart which lists the characteristics of folks who do not vaccinate their kids. And, despite what you would think (unless everyone already knows this), those people tend to be wealthy and educated. I only point this out because it seems counter-intuitive that educated people would do something kinda stupid, like neglect the benefits of lifesaving medical treatment in lieu of the statistically benign chance of getting a totally pathologically-unknown condition of autism.

Anyway, the point is that the whole vaccines-thing is a meme, for sure, and memes are powerful, and they can even kill you. (Dan Dennett so eloquently points out in his talk about Dangerous Memes.) This meme has been spreading among a particular segment of the population. What is it that makes one person susceptible to one meme? How did this thing become a thing? Turns out there are some things happening like this. I want to know about how anti-vaccines became a thing, but in the meantime, we have this --

Researchers test 'social contagion' in laboratory setting

Apr 2017, phys.org

The results don't sound as interesting as the title, but I guess we should be happy nonetheless that these experiments are being done in a lab setting, instead of just observing any available social media data...

***

And here we have a good look at the effects of a viral campaign, what makes them work or not work; they're looking at the ALS ice bucket challenge, you remember that I'm sure --

Viral charity campaigns have a psychological 'recipe' and all-too-brief lifespan
Feb 2017, phys.org

This is just a clip, there's a better explanation in the article:
"Just as a flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long, so a rapid social consensus spike reaches an equally rapid saturation point.

"Once the social tipping point of a campaign has passed, momentum can decay quickly and the purpose can get diluted. Once the ALS campaign had reached peak virality, many people were just pouring cold water over their heads without necessarily referencing the charity."
-Dr Sander van der Linden, from Cambridge's Department of Psychology

image source: link

Making Memetics Work

After being thoroughly schooled on this topic of the transmission of cultural products (see the book linked below), I realize that memetics may never be the science of mind control that I think it is. However,  I think the name, the origin of the idea, and the 'stickiness' of the memtics narrative, that is, the ease with which we can explain the idea to other people, all these things make memetics the best representative of this nebulous subject of thought propagation.

As a reminder then, the meme of the meme comes from Richard Dawkins in his 1982 book, The Extended Phenotype (sequel to The Selfish Gene), where he uses likens the meme to a gene but for ideas.

Anyway, we are truly living in an age where the behavior of thoughts have become independent of their thinkers.

Viral charity campaigns have a psychological 'recipe' and all-too-brief lifespan
Feb 2017, phys.org

*Cultural Evolution: Society, Technology, Language, and Religion
(Strüngmann Forum Reports), 2013. PJ Richerson, CH Morten.