The first two cases of the coronavirus were confirmed in the UK today. As a memeticist, I have an interest in the isomorphism between mind and biological viruses and have been following the patterns closely.
The actual spread of the outbreak is concerning, but even more so is the handling of information and news. I think I’ve seen just about every pandemic and zombie apocalypse film made; I see these as narrative thought experiments with a ranging from actual insights down to outrageous ketchup-fests.
Perhaps a simple yet profound point comes across from the strapline for the film Contagion: “Nothing spreads like fear”. This is a reference to mass hysteria in the face of some perceived existential threat to humanity. It would appear to be a deep instinct, possibly akin to the stotting of gazelles, whereby a wave of panic propagates faster than the pathogen. That the social wave moves quickly is evolutionary wise quite prudent, it is an advanced warning call that stems the spread of the contagion. It is also possibly the reason why vampire and zombie narrative resonate so deeply in our collective psyche.
In the modern hyperconnected world, international transport has increased the capacity for a pathogen to become a global pandemic. Digital communications have, at the same time, enhanced the spread of information, whether fact or fake-news. Fear now spreads as fast as the internet connection speeds. The tabloids, as ever, peddle their spectacular fear-mongering headlines. The authorities, on the flip side, are desperate to quell the mass panic that could easily emerge as the resulting apocalyptic social breakdown would significantly hinder efforts to curb the primary disease. But the “keep calm and carry on” propaganda is cliched cold comfort at best – sanitised newsfeeds attempting to maintain social order, belie the real extent of how much we should be worried, or how terrified those in the know truly are. We have heard the pacifying broadcasts too many times, and fully understand they are primarily intended to impede the inevitable stampede.
So, we now have two problems – two contagions, one genetic and the other memetic, both of which are highly hazardous. My calling is to see how the genetic contagion might inform the memetic.
There is an old saying that “birds of a feather flock together”, which is a social metaphor meaning that people with similar characteristics tend to spend time with each other. These could be communities of interest or practice or whatever and can be geographically proximate or, given the internet, disperse; often they are a mixture of both. I have adopted the term “deme” which denotes a sub-population, or sub-cultural, category as determined by the memetic characteristics adherents share in common. A deme then is a tightly linked cluster, possibly a clique, in a social information network. But it is not just a saying, it is based on the fact that our feathered friends agglomerate according to species. This fact became important in containing Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, the killer H7N9 bird flu virus in 2016. While thought to spread to humans through intensive poultry farming and movement in China, the risk of international transmission came from wild migratory birds. Understanding the migratory patterns, seasonality, and flyways of potentially contaminated species, gave some insight into that vector from east to west and assisted with the tracking an interruption of the diseases spread.
The metaphorical meaning stops being idle when we consider that people with similar characteristic often come into the proximity of each other: clubs, churches, workplace. Such gatherings are where people communicate both information and their germs. The internet has meant that many individuals of certain interests may never meet directly, but still, there is a raised probability, given small world theory, that the level of information sharing is proportional to social distance, shared characteristics to the degree of contact, and memetic communication to viral communication. We could consider that “birds of a feather”, memetically might be used as a predictor of epidemics among demes. Indeed Nicholas Christakis has shown that patterns of social networks are a predictor of infection and has given a two-week advanced warning, although he did not employ the viral metaphor inherent in memetics.
It may be true that nothing spreads like fear, but waiting for mass blind panic to take hold is not an ideal situation. No, it would be better to find more benign indicators that not only predict the spread of disease but also predict the spread of fear – that way intervention and interruption could be attempted. Being of a feather suggest proximity among a deme arising through a common interest: there will be memetic information slushing around that deme. A viral agent infecting that deme would have some dynamics in common with the “mind viruses” such that the memes preempt the patterns of disease spread. Could it be then, that tracking memes would allow forecasting of disease? Perhaps some parallel to of a die or isotopic label might be conceived, whereby we could monitor the information flyways for incoming memes and biological pathogens.
Foreshadowing memes would enable a state of readiness for making prompt intervention. However, much intervention can be seen in memetic terms and public health messages are sound examples. Basic hygiene awareness, incentives to vaccinate, use of condoms, and so on are kinds of memetic inoculation in advance of diseases – the head the virus off at the pass, as it were. They can be seen not so much as mind “viruses” but rather probiotic contagions carrying a kind of negative Case Fatality Rate.
The realtime map of 2019-nCoV cases has a few more red dots on it tonight – it looks as if it has a dose of the measles. It is a little late to track the memes as this plague has already hit our shores. The whole thing could go a few ways but whatever happens in the next few weeks we can be sure that strains will continue to mutate, spread and kill.
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