Google Cache (main site appears to be down)
Mirror site
First of all, please note that there is not a giant miniature space hamster holding a hammer gun to your head and squeaking "YOU MUST PARTICIPATE IN THIS THREAD!".
So thank you in advance from refraining from making such comments as
Cleric said:
Second, set an aside an hour for this. It's a long paper. I don't expect rapid replies to this thread.
Here are some quotes from the paper.
Abstract
This paper presents a self-replicating, homeostatic phenomenon called M0. M0 runs parasitically on populations of humans. It is remarkable in that although its anatomy is distributed across all phenomenological layers from neurological to paradigmattic, its causal sequences are robust and (once exposed) readily traceable and hence vulnerable to counterattack.
The anatomy and lifecycle of the parasite are described, together with several secondary effects which are often of primary importance to the host population. An alternative interpretation of the role of dopamine in controlling mood and awareness is proposed, and how the "security breach" thus exposed is exploited by M0 is shown. A disturbing model of the variability of human consciousness is proposed.
Driver
The driver organ is a positive feedback loop operating between the Neurological(1) and Behavioural(3) layers of individual humans. It is the motor that keeps a flow of energy directed into maintaining the existence of M0. It does this by exploiting what in systems engineering would be termed a "security breach" inadvertently provided by an existing safety mechanism. Since understanding the breach requires a reappraisal of the existing understanding of the function of dopamine, we should first consider an analogous security breach exploited by the opium poppy.
Pain is a natural safety mechanism that prevents an injured animal sustaining further damage to the injured area. It is a safety mechanism which generally enhances the animal's survivability, but which would be counter-survival if the animal were unable to escape the cause of the injury because of the pain. Therefore a second safety mechanism has evolved that protects against problems caused by the first. For a while after injury, endorphins block the pain signals so that the animal can escape. But there are no further safety mechanisms, so if an animal performs a behaviour such as smoking opium (which simulates endorphins) for too long, it can get trapped in a situation not probed by evolution. Its brain chemistry strikes a new balance in the presence of the opium and the animal cannot stop smoking opium without experiencing distress due to withdrawal. It is therefore obliged to fund the cultivation of opium poppies.
We propose that the subjective experience of boredom is a first level safety mechanism analogous to pain, that has evolved to keep humans moving about so that they can discover and exploit their environment. This safety mechanism could itself prove fatal in siege situations, such as having to hide quietly up a tree until a predator leaves. So a second safety mechanism has evolved to place a human into a partially conscious standby mode after the human has been bored long enough that it would have moved on if it possibly could. 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 but sufficiently conscious to notice when it is safe to move, by deactivating an entire layer of cognition, functionally described below as the "Exploitation of Feedback in Cognition".
There is an important difference with respect to the endorphin case. Excess dopamine is secreted after a period of boredom, not for an initial period. While an human cannot manufacture more endorphins without subjecting itself to stress of some sort, excess dopamine can be produced by simply continuing to do nothing interesting! Therefore a human that is kept in a bored state for long enough to rebalance its brain chemistry will become hooked on its own dopamine and be able to feed its own habit by simply boring itself! While tolerance may ease some of the debilitating consequences of being in standby mode, it does not even begin to compensate for the lost faculties.
The driver organ is therefore a positive feedback loop whereby a human hooked on its own dopamine (Secretion) will perform boring behaviours to stimulate dopamine production (Constraint). As with other addictive situations, the higher the usage, the greater the craving, such that the positive feedback loop will always tend to increase boring behaviour and levels within the bounds of the possible.
Clamp
Although it is primitive, M0 is a loathsome parasite. The purpose of the clamp organ is to hold the host's mind in check while it uses his or her entire life to the maximum possible extent. By exploiting the standby mode security breach from Neurological(1), M0 maintains the host in a state that omits the higher value Cognitive(2) functions altogether (Suppression). This alone makes the host unable to perform the self-criticism necessary to notice that his or her actions do not correlate with their stated objectives. Worse, the self-absorbed state evolved to keep the host happy but still in sieges increases self-confidence as it progressively erodes the remaining awareness. Eventually, the host's confidence in his or her total mastery of the situation is justified (in their own eyes) by the brilliance of the strategies they create. Such as resetting the clocks and telling themselves they are more productive. Chronic cases appear criminally cynical because the mix of fatuous comments and patronising attitude seems to tally with the characteristic motor impairment symptoms of very high dopamine - rearward lolling head and a peculiar smirking expression. Sadly, the more authority a person acquires, the less practicalities intervene to moderate their self-addiction. The boom transfers the motor impairment to Cultural(5) - "airs and graces" (Projection).
Hosts do not realise they are compelled to ritual fix, and supported by an action oriented culture cannot conceive of anything more reasonable than repeating the same behaviours over and over again. It becomes an end in itself, an inherent good. In extreme cases highly ritualised workers such as nurses will replay previous life threatening behaviour caused by unawareness, including the "arguments".
This state of mind is supported (Confirmation) from Paradigmattic(6). The universe thus perceived is a shallow, chaotic one. When things work it is because they have been constrained to rigid behavioural tramlines. Otherwise, the clamped mind believes everything will slide into chaos. There is no deep structure (algorithmic redundancy) to base one's understanding on, so understanding does not take place. All learning is therefore by rote, and without structure usually forgotten very quickly. The ability to imagine themselves ever understanding anything is stripped from most people. Therefore they do not even try, and if ever circumstances do cause them to try to use their full awareness, the experience of trying to use faculties that are unavailable is unconsciously distressing and the host is effectively conditioned by aversion techniques to avoid thought!
Meanwhile the high dopamine levels numb the host, removing awareness of the state of their own metabolism, and the simplest forms of metabolic control. Most people cannot exert any influence at all over their own heart rate!
In this state of mind, the host controls nothing, understands nothing, and he or she may do terrible things while always returning to the junkie's first priority - the next fix. The only over-riding priority, as in other forms of addiction, is fear. The host becomes completely reactive, and in the absence of an immediate cause of fear his or her biggest concern after ritual fixing is to avoid blame, a second order fear of the rituals being interrupted by fear. Such is the dimming of the host's faculties that the simultaneous subjective experience of self-important superiority and craven terror does not seem contradictory. Yet to all of this incredible contradiction and confusion in their own minds, the hosts and their co-hosting friends and relations, will be oblivious.
The rest goes on to describe the effects of
dopamine as exploited by M0, who's affected, some people who are naturally immune, what should be done about it, and a whole host of other related topics.
In short, most of humanity suffers from high dopamine levels imposed by M0, as described in the bolded quote above. The makes them addicts to rituals, less perceptive, less focused. Those with low dopamine levels (the herein considered natural state) will question the existing ruleset and rebel against the system that M0 has imposed. This causes the M0-hosts to shun them, act contemptuously towards them, and otherwise justify themselves to them.
Examples of these 'rituals' range from unwritten social codes that one is expected/demanded to follow, to school systems where are all pupils are made to learn the same material in the same way from the same teacher. (I have an ugly anecdote - my English teacher once told me to
stop giving so many right answers because I was making the other students feel embarassed.)
Minor administrative officials - rightly called 'droids' by hackers - also exhibit this behavior. They will refuse to think for themselves, refuse to do anything outside their field of {knowledge, competence, authority}, refuse to connect you to a person that they think you shouldn't be connected to, and expend immense effort preventing you from circumventing the system -
preventing you from destroying their rituals, which they are addicted to.
M0 article said:
Consider the UK Government. One dynamic person should be able to handle logistics efficiently for about ten productive workers, and yet when a group of just eight scientific workers recently left a government research centre, a staggering 116 administrators were left without a reason for employment. Since the loss of eight people from the headcount did not significantly reduce the administrative workload, the administrators simply continued to self-administrate, and to date, no-one seems to have noticed.
As El_Machinae is my witness, this is not my paper. (BTW, El, the Slashdot article you posted had no relation to this. It concerned Toxoplasma, not M0.)
Helminth - a parasitic worm.
