
Powerful Ideas - duck
http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/powerful_ideas/
======
poet
This scratches the surface of an unmatched essay by Harold Goddard called
Atomic Peace. Both pieces seek a virus (or a chain reaction) that could end
war, but Adams falls short. Indeed, education is not enough and can actually
encourage war. Although I'm hesitant to omit even a piece of Goddard's essay,
I've reproduced excerpts from the beginning below.

 _The Atomic Bomb is the outstanding fact of our time-- not just as a
scientific triumph and military weapon but as a symbol of what our so-called
civilization has brought us to. As Emerson remarked, "Civilization crowed too
soon." How shall we meet the menace of modern scientific war-- not the menace
of atomic attack but the menace of the bomb itself, of the ugly fact of its
existence? The fission of the atom is an intellectual achievement of the first
order.... we can understand what Emerson meant when he declared that "pure
intellect is the pure devil". Over the entrance to Plato's Academy at Athens
was the inscription, "Let none ignorant of geometry enter here." If I could
choose a similar inscription for the entrance of all the colleges and
universities int he world today I would pick that great sentence of
Montaigne's "All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not the science of
honesty and goodness."_

 _WANTED: a force for good as potent as the atom bomb is for evil, a force,
preferably, to complete the analogy, that produces a vast result out of a
chain reaction of little forces each of apparently negligible amount-- a
result, however, not of disintegration and destruction, but of integration and
creation._

 _It its widest manifestation life itself as revealed in the process of
organic growth is such a force and it is not chance that the bomb came into
existence for the express purpose of defeating that process, as if it
recognized in it its natural and opposite enemy. For what is cellular
proliferation but a chain reaction of millions of tiny forces each
contributing to a tremendously disproportionate total result of integration
and creation? This chain reaction of the tiny into the mighty may be observed,
though on a smaller scale, in the mental and spiritual life of man even more
convincingly and often at a more rapid tempo than in his physical
development...._

Goddard goes on to explain this mental and spiritual force in detail. I simply
cannot do his work justice with with excerpts from the rest of the essay.
You'll have to go read it. It may be the most important thing you ever read.

~~~
cglee
I couldn't find much online about this essay. Is the text online anywhere?

~~~
poet
The text is not online as far as I know. It's available here for like $10
shipped:
[http://www.pendlehill.org/bookstore?page=shop.product_detail...](http://www.pendlehill.org/bookstore?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=5679&category_id=21&manufacturer_id=100&keyword=atomic+peace).
That's where I got my copy.

It was republished in a collection of essays in 1971, so imagine it's still
under copyright. Hrm.... I'll take a look at what the collection says when I
get home.

------
pdx
He didn't actually take the metaphor this far, but as I was reading his essay,
what I wanted it to be about is this.

If the corollary to virus is meme, than what is the corollary to t-cell?

We can't engineer real t-cells, but wouldn't it be fun to engineer their idea-
space equivalents?

Snopes.com, for example, is sort of a t-cell that can attack and kill a lot of
memes, if the infected person is vaccinated with snopes after exposure.

~~~
khafra
There's a theory that religion, as well as being a parasitic meme, is also an
inoculation against newer and more damaging memes:
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/18b/reason_as_memetic_immune_disorde...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/18b/reason_as_memetic_immune_disorder/)

~~~
theoj
I wanted to say the same thing as soon as I saw the article. You can look at
religions as memes or viruses that propagate from person to person.

------
kabuks
_A wanted truth is always stronger than an evidenced truth_

Ouch. That one hit me hard. What I would give to switch that around in myself.

~~~
jhen095
Reminds me of Terry Goodkinds 'Wizards First Rule'

"Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to
believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true."

Although the wording from the book is quite strong, essentially 'people are
more likely to believe things if they want them to be true, or if they are
afraid of them being true'.

So far I have found it an important and practical lesson for many situations.

~~~
yters
Why's that a problem? People might have good instincts, in which case they
should trust their instincts as well as their reason, especially if they are
stupid.

------
cperciva
I wouldn't say that education is the _antidote_ to war; rather, I'd say that
education is the _vaccine_ for war.

~~~
yters
I'd say Christianity has been the most successful large scale war restraining
ideology. Not that it is perfect, but name a better large scale ideology.

~~~
dboyd
> ...name a better large scale ideology.

OK. Civil rights.

Have two countries that grant full legal equality to both men _and_ women ever
gone to war?

~~~
nzmsv
Wikipedia: women could vote in the USA since 1920, and in the USSR since 1917.
Though the Cold War was more of a series of proxy wars and an arms race.

But the argument in the grandparent post is not supported by history either.
The military monk orders of the Crusades are just one example.

~~~
yters
The crusades were a defensive battle in response to Islam militantly taking
over previously Christianized Africa and eastern Europe.

------
giberson
I think Scott needs to re-engineer his idea virus, it's not quite on the mark.
Ultimately, it will only ever (at best) end up as a famous quote like "Give
peace a chance" for similar mentioned reasons, but also because the virus
doesn't offer immediacy. It's not something that an individual whose been
infected with the virus can act on, rather it's something that will ultimately
require collective action on. To be more power, Scott should revise the idea
virus such that the transfered idea is something simple, and can be taken on
by an individual that will ultimately lead to the end of war.

I'll leave the revision to Scott himself, but I will offer an example.

For instance, if my goal is to ultimately solve cancer: A simple catchy saying
"Donate $1 today, Write it off Tomorrow -IRS.".

The idea is catchy because it implies personal benefit as a direct
compensation. "Writing it off", hell every one wants a way to reduce how much
money gets sucked up by taxes every year. To imply that being generous, we can
alleviate some of our tax woes, the idea gains traction with people. Of
course, the truth is you need a certain net amount of donations to really
write it off, and even if you do, you don't gain any money you simply choose
where it is spent--the over all net result is still a loss. But that simple
matter isn't caught by those rational filters.

Obviously, the idea doesn't constrain what is donated to and as such could be
donated to some opensource project not even related to cancer research. Nor
would a single dollar donation likely benefit any cause, much less cancer
research. However the net effect of the idea, is an overall increase in
charitable giving. More money is given, by more people, as the idea spread.
The best part about the idea is the immediate positive feedback. Unlike
Scott's initial "Education is the antidote of war", an idea like "Donate $1
today, write it off tomorrow" is more likely to spread and achieve it's
ultimate goal.

I think Scott should revise his approach by simply adding a fourth trait: An
idea virus must be actionable on the individual level.

------
MrDunham
Reading through the comments at the end of his entry, it is sad to see how
many people missed the point entirely.

Everyone got so caught up on his meme that they didn't see the power in memes.
Evidenced by everyone discussing the meme and forgetting the point.

------
m0th87
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_McDonald...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_McDonalds_franchises#Golden_Arches_Theory_of_Conflict_Prevention)

~~~
bugsy
Yes.

Also, Yugoslavia had McDonald's franchises since 1988 and was subsequently
attacked by the United States and several other countries, acting under UN
pretenses.

A more interesting point on war and business would be that no country which
has decided not to sell oil it controls to the US in US dollars has NOT been
subjected to war.

------
stretchwithme
Reason, logic, science, requiring evidence before one believes something.
These are what prevent conflict.

Education is way to vague and seems to me to imply wisdom imparted from a
position of authority to those who internalize it, which is not something that
necessarily promotes reason or logic.

------
theoj
This reminded me of this summer's blockbuster movie Inception. Much like this
article, it examined how ideas are planted in our minds and what effects those
ideas have once they take over the mind and become impossible to eradicate.

~~~
bfung
From the movie:

    
    
      Cobb: What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? 
      An idea. Resilient... highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain 
      it's almost impossible to eradicate.  An idea that is fully formed - 
      fully understood - that sticks; right in there somewhere.

------
yters
The most effective way to put an end to all war is nuclear apocalypse or viral
pandemic. Maybe both at once.

As long as people want stuff and stuff is finite there will always be war.

------
jcfrei
why stop at ideas / eg. catchy phrases? I think the bigger topic Scott Adams
actually adresses is subversion. Manipulating peoples behaviour and ideals has
long been practiced by many governments. Just take a look at old war posters:
They're actually quite catchy.

------
rbanffy
The folks at laptop.org even have a shipping product that could be used for
that.

