🚀 go-pugleaf

An old thread I know.  I hope I have taken enough time to think it out:-) .
Thus far no one has said that we should not Spread The Meme.  It's really a
question of how and when.

At the end of a Tom McKendree post dated 1 Dec 92 JoSH says:
[My own take on this subject is that nanotechnology is already quite
a popular subject, comparatively.  It's more important at this point
to increase the depth of interest, rather than the breadth.  And that
requires substance, not PR.  The best thing we can do for nanotechnology
right now is to do nanotechnology!
--JoSH]

At some point it will be neccessary for us to seize the memetic high
ground.  When?  As Richard P. Feynman once said:  "I don't know."  
T-Shirts for responsible grad students are fine as long as I get them too. 
I am sure that the National Air and Space Museum,  The National Space
Society, The San Francisco Exploratorium, and the Impressions Five science
museum in Lansing, MI would be interested.  I think the full-color ring
structure in a recent _Science News_ is especially striking.

Another responsible channel might be the online community. 
Alt.binaries.pictures.misc can hold postings in Graphic Interchange Format
(GIF) as well as JPEG.  Postscript and GRASP (an IBM format) are also
possiblities.  The QuickTime video format for the Macintosh computer is not
only digital but *non-linear*.  I once saw a QuickTime file which let you
adjust the X and Y rotations for a robotic arm.

Meme theory may be subject to something like the "Gresham's Law" of
economics--Bad money drives out good.  Possibly, Virtual Reality has
received such a bad rap by having one Timothy Leary as a self-appointed
spokesman.  IMHO Dr. Leary is basicly a nice guy but a pretty poor
spokesman.  The fuse here is short.  Terrence McKenna (a so-called "Leary
of the 90's) is quoted in _Unbounding the Future_ and nanotechnology
receives a mention in McKenna's latest _Archaic Revival_.  Eventually Leary
will hear of nanotech, and then we must be prepared to seize the memetic
high ground.  

Some things must be done immediatly.  I would like to spread the Bioarchive
Project meme so that we can preserve DNA samples in liquid Nitrogen *while
they are still around*.  John Perry Barlow is no flake (he has written for
the _Communications of the ACM_ and _NeXTWorld_).  I hope that he could use
his connection to the Grateful Dead to get the message out to the
rainforest crowd.  One Deadhead friend heard my description and said: "You
mean like _Jurrasic Park_?"  

Just for the record I did not suggest that nanotechnology be part of the
plot or text of a rock video--just another background image amidst a welter
of others.  Possibly response:  "What are those weird looking things back
there?"  Of course Peter Gabriel is a part of Global Business Network....

Happy Holidays
SunCat    kamchar@ibm.cl.msu.edu