
The Phenomenologically Distributed Human Parasite M0 (1998) - snailletters
https://www.datapacrat.com/Opinion/Reciprocality/r1/index.html
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taneq
So the dullness of the daily grind is a memetic parasite? This feels like
haha-only-serious quasi-satire.

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AnimalMuppet
Thanks for saving me the 30 seconds to look...

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hrolfgar
I think the mechanistic argument that this paper tries to make about dopamine
unfortunately falls into the trap that much of popular science writing dealing
with neurotransmitters makes, by using hand-waving, oversimplified
explanations of how our brain works to somehow justify its sociological or
cultural thesis as being based on "science". I will probably get downvoted for
saying this, but Jordan Peterson's writings on serotonin comes to mind here.

This piece can somewhat be forgiven, because it takes the view on dopamine
that almost all pop-sci writing takes, which is that it's "the pleasure
chemical", i.e "The level of the neuroinhibitor dopamine in the human's brain
rises. This induces a subjective experience of self-absorbed well being, while
rendering the human quiescent". A more accurate view of dopamine's function is
that it controls incentive salience or "wanting", and that wanting vs. liking
are distinct attributes of our reward system [1][2]. Dopamine causes the
seeking of pleasure. Pleasure itself is caused by something else. This view
that the high dopamine state is associated with quiescence and satiety are in
direct contradiction with observations. It is well known that amphetamines
raise extracellular dopamine in the brain. Folks who take amphetamines become
highly motivated, active, aroused, excited, etc. Conversely, there is a class
of drugs (dopamine antagonists) which block the action of dopamine. Side
effects of these include sedation and lack of sex drive.

I would have to agree with the authors in the conclusion section that "this
reinterpretation hangs on the specific assertions as to the function of
dopamine..", and unfortunately, these assertions don't seem to be evidence
based.

I feel bad for ragging on this paper so harshly, but it struck me that their
starting point was that "hackers" in the HN sense, and a select few other
small groups of folks on Earth, are special, different, and enlightened, and
that the vast majority of other humans are defective and afflicted with a sort
of mind-virus. This is such a dark worldview, and it reeks of the kind of
silicon valley exceptionalism that is spoken about on this site often.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivational_salience](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivational_salience)
[2]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5171207/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5171207/)

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mistersquid
Thank you for your outline and response. The OP is fascinating, if flawed,
blending as it does the domains of humanistic analysis (what you identify as
"popular science writing dealing with neurotransmitters"), theoretical
neurobiology, and (what I would call) cyborg ontology.

For me, its value lies in its efforts to articulate an "object" (M0) that
exists across the boundaries of well-understood ontologies by combining
empirical science, phenomenological analysis, and cultural theory (this last
is not apparent and may be something I'm furnishing myself).

Your "ragging on this paper so harshly" is to my eyes a serious engaging of
the article and its conclusions and helps triangulate its value.

So thank you.

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emmelaich
I had some memory of this from slashdot, a long time ago. It became a curious
little online mini-cult.

Found it:

[https://news.slashdot.org/story/99/09/29/0914253/the-
program...](https://news.slashdot.org/story/99/09/29/0914253/the-programmers-
stone)

[https://news.slashdot.org/story/99/10/26/137207/beyond-
the-p...](https://news.slashdot.org/story/99/10/26/137207/beyond-the-
programmers-stone)

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daneel_w
M0 = laziness, dejection, lack of motivation etc.

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DangitBobby
I thought it was an on-the-nose encoding of MO (modus operandi).

