Question: Do we even want memes?

A little story..

I was listening to a famous doctor interviewed on 60 Minutes last night.

The subject was smallpox. The doctor is an expert on smallpox.

He explained, in clear terms that any educated person could understand, what
smallpox is and our defenses against it, and how it's different from
anthrax, etc.

I felt after listening that I understood at a high level what was going on
in his field.

Now here's why I, as a software developer, don't like memes.

They don't add real knowledge to the world about the work that I do.

I respect my field as much as that doctor respects his.

And while there's an emergency in his area, and we're all listening and want
to understand, it's not so far-fetched that we could have a similar
emergency in worldwide computer networking, a subject which I am quite
immersed in.

I care that the truth gets out about what we do.

If that takes a few words to explain, and doesn't neatly line up behind
buzz-phrases that's fine with me.

We have the power of language -- we can say what's really happening -- in a
way that any educated person could understand.

Dave



----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Caudron" <tom_caudron@...>
To: <decentralization@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2001 8:37 AM
Subject: Re: [decentralization] suggested meme: "emergent network"


> Zooko suggested, "I suggest that we use the word "emergent network"
instead
> of "p2p" where appropriate."
>
> I thought the descriptor 'Decentralization' /was/ an attempt to step away
> from the marketing hype of 'P2P'. Has 'Decentralization' also become
> polluted memespace? I was kinda hoping it had too many syllables to catch
> on publicly.
>
> Heck, if nothing else, decentralization so closely describes what's really
> happening that I figured the marketing types would just avoid it. Mundus
> Vult Decipi and all that....
>
> -Tom Caudron
>
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