**************************************************************************************************************************** I opened up the Netscape browser window yesterday, and a little popup window brought me this "news" that maneuvered itself over the day's headlines:

Why Dominant, Alpha Men Are Appealing

Mathematics Proves Christ's Resurrection?

10 Easy Ways to Cut Down on Fat

What Causes Morning Breath?

The No. 1 Song That Changed the World

Eat Up: One Food May Stop Cancer Cold

Many of you might recall the 80's-era sci-fi TV show "Max Headroom." The premiere episode's storyline was about a new kind of advertising which delivered information at such a rapid-fire pace that the viewers' heads would explode.While the show might have been somewhat prophetic in one aspect, it seems the opposite effect might actually be more the case: viewers' info-intake is more likely to shut down and implode under the avalanche of information we're currently inundated with on a daily basis.

The problem with today's fast-paced, info-age lifestyle is the danger that we're becoming *so* harried and bombarded with information that we lose the time and the patience required to actually slow down and be a bit more analytical in our thoughts. This of course creates an ideal atmosphere for the purveyors of McMemes. We lead such busy lives that we tend to grab our information on the fly -- often without double-checking or second-guessing.

McMemes (or McInfo, if you don't care for memetics jargon) are kind of a bastard child of Mach's principle of economy of thought. Metaphorically speaking, they're like overprocessed, fast-food, "pieces-parts" nuggets of information -- often aimed right at the gut. They aren't always the best kind of "brain food" because they aren't always accurate, don't always encourage you to think, and a lot of them tend to have staying power simply because they push the right buttons. They tend to encourage and reinforce lazy thinking such as false dichotomies, stereotyping, conflating issues and subject matter, and other emotion-based reasoni reactioning.

Journalists, preachers, lawyers, politicians and entertainers can be quite skilled in serving up McMemes because they love to utilize the kind of language that tugs at the emotions, pushes buttons and win converts/customers.

Thanks to them, we are now familiar with McMemes such as "Men are From Mars; Women are From Venus"; various urban legends; the idea that Iraq was somehow connected to the 9/11 terrorist attacks; that Republicans or Democrats allegedly represent certain values; that people from different states are either "red" or "blue" according to the 2004 election results; etc. etc.

Predictably, with so much competition in this Age of Information, and audiences' attention spans becoming ever shorter like an ADD child, McMeme purveyors have resorted to grabbing the audiences' attention through such time-honored advertising techniques as flashy presentation, shouting, simplistic "good guys vs bad guys" dichotomies, and becoming virtual cartoon characters.

Additional reading: Lazy Thinking Is Hard-Wired

Ernst Mach and Daniel Dennett: Two Evolutionary Models of Cognition