3min chapter

Decoding the Gurus cover image

Daniel Dennett: It's Evolution Baby

Decoding the Gurus

CHAPTER

The Parallelism of Memetics

Dan O'Brien: I agree with the general principle of memes. They exist for reasons, but they're not necessarily beneficial to the people that host them. But again, here it feels a little bit to me like there is a distinction here to draw because something like a gut worm is different than something like a catchy song. So yeah, I guess I'm agreeing with you. You just have to be careful with analogies, but I don't know if he would.

00:00
Speaker 2
He's been lead singer of the band's Black Flag and Henry Rollins band, Toward the World as a spoken word artist, acted in Sons of Anarchy, published a few books of words and photography. A lot of people probably want to be you, Henry. Is that a bad idea?
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think it'd be better if they were themselves. There's a lot of my life that is like yours and anyone else's incredibly unglamorous, unbelievably boring, and something that one must suffer through. But I have some good days, definitely.
Speaker 2
I saw you once performed many years ago. I was a student at NYU. It might have been 1992, maybe at Limelight.
Speaker 1
1992, we
Speaker 2
did play Limelight. I remember a general wash of awesomeness. I think it was the first time I had a verse seen spoken word in any form anywhere. But the only other thing I remember is something you were saying at the time about dating women your own age. I just remember you kind of extolling the virtues of grown-up women as being a worthy intellectual companion. And combatant. You can be with someone
Speaker 1
who's not going to put up with whatever you're thrown across who just goes, no, no, no, no. You're better than that or I know you too well. Don't even think that you're getting by with that and have someone you respect call you on and go, wow, thanks. Thanks for caring enough to call me out. I live in Los Angeles, Hollywood specifically. I see stuff like that. You see some old guy like me with a 25-year-old girlfriend. I'm 54. Yes, my girlfriend. She lives with me. You're like, okay, wow. I just wondered, what do you all talk about? What's relevant in your lives together? That's the part I'd never be able to understand.

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