The Experiment

Attention all would be bloggers/writers/weird factoid finders/yarn spinners and dilettantes of the new and interesting. Highgate is opening its doors to three new contributors. If you are interested in having an outlet for your thoughts, a place to post news, track memes, or rake mud, Highgate might be your new home.

My aim with the expansion is to add more content, to be able to explore more areas of both local and world culture (as well still, personal lives), and to not have to always be worrying about how it's been three days since I last posted.

This blog is an enjoyable past time for me, and thought it originally started as a closed personal blog, it's quickly becoming a bit more than that, and I'd like to continue it's evolution by inviting those of you who have been readers, in the Burlington area and the world, to Join in.

Would be contributors should have an good idea as to the theme and content of Highgate, (that being fairly open to interpretation) an original voice, an interest in writing, culture, local or world, a basic understanding of blogging, memes, and the internet (obviously if your reading this you do.) and enough free time to post a minimum of three times a week, about whatever you want really.

If this sounds like fun, get in touch with me at this address:
tanmccuin(nospam)@gmail.com
Thanks everyone who reads, it's been my pleasure!

Areas Highgate is looking to expand on.
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Burlington Arts/Culture/Music
Net Culture/Memes/Geek
Daily life / Interests / News

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Curtosy of God Wikipedia

The term "meme" (IPA: [miːm]), a theoretical concept introduced in 1976 by Richard Dawkins, refers to any unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice, idea or concept, which one mind transmits (verbally or by demonstration) to another mind. Examples might include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods in addition to concepts such as race. Different definitions of meme generally have in common, very roughly, that a meme consists of some sort of a self-propagating unit of cultural evolution having an analogous resemblance to the gene (the unit of genetic information).

As memes include all or most discrete pieces of information about which humans think, incorporating new memes can alter one's perceptions. Memes in themselves appear morally neutral, not necessarily good nor bad. However, the application of memes can have implications, which may result in either positive or negative results.

Memes have, as their fundamental property, evolution via natural selection in a way very similar to Charles Darwin's ideas concerning biological evolution, on the premise that replication, mutation, survival and competition influence them. For example, while one idea may become extinct, others will survive, spread and mutate — for better or for worse — through modification. Note an important fact, however: not only the memes most beneficial to their hosts will necessarily survive; rather, memes that are the most effective replicators spread best, which allows for the possibility that successful memes might prove detrimental to their hosts.

The "be happy" and "make others happy" memes

Some spiritual practices such as Buddhism clearly promote ecological and moral goals recognizable to most people. For example, the Noble Eightfold Path emphasizes limited consumption, reduced cruelty, no delegation of violence or participation in violent systems, and a withdrawal from sexual and ethical processes that have no clear ecological or moral value to the practitioner — regardless of the value they may have to others.

The Judeo-Christian-Islamic religions focus more on devotion to a transcendent deity and to moral codes of behavior, including social and ethical codes affecting every aspect of life from public behavior to commerce to sexual expression. Such religions strongly encourage people to devote themselves to the needs of others. On the other hand, Christianity and Islam also strongly encourage conversions and active (sometimes even violent) proselytising.

The contrast between "be happy" and "make others happy", although not as stark in practice or theory as the traditional debate suggests, may satisfy constraints of different ecological or sexual norms in some non-obvious way.

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