Love your writing (however infrequent, it's that much more of a treat when I see a post here), ordered a digital since it's such a limited supply right now and hard copy isn't such a huge priority. I've been very interested in discourses around attention and the flow of ideas, so this sounds amazing. Thank you!
Thank you for writing this. It has helped to clarify my thinking about the propagation of ideas and how that relates to my own experiences over the last 30+ years in online communities (starting with Usenet newsgroups). I feel like I need to let these ideas percolate a bit and then maybe read the book again. I will also be recommending it to a lot of folks.
I encountered a discussion of this book and its ideas in a New Yorker article. Although I haven't had the pleasure of reading it yet, I found its central idea, that there are some ideas that are highly resistant to spreading or being retained, very interesting. After some thought, it occurred to me that perhaps the most fundamental and powerful anti-mimetic idea is the one identified by existentialist philosophy: the reality of one's own death, which, these thinkers say, is constantly being pushed out of one's own sight and reduced in public settings to a kind of bland, obstructive generality. Yet to keep this fact in view may have a transformative, even transcendent effect on one's life - transcendent, that is, of the mass culture that threatens to swallow us up.
I don't know if the book deals with this idea at all or if it is really relevant. Perhaps it is just a different line of thought. But I thought I would share it.
I do talk a bit about death in the book! Love your extension of its implications here. Thanks for sharing and I hope you enjoy the book when it comes out.
I am so happy there are people taking these ideas seriously and pushing these lines of inquiry further. Very good work, definitely gonna read your book, keep it up.
Congratulations — you’ve managed the antimemetic trick of writing a book about things that resist being written about. That’s either heroic or masochistic, but in any case, impressive. I like the recursive joke that the manuscript itself was an antimeme until it finally decided to toddle into print. The metaphor of your son learning to walk alongside your manuscript is also hard to forget — which, ironically, makes it the opposite of an antimeme.
You’re right that group chats and private corners of the web are reshaping how ideas circulate, but the real coup here is putting a name to the unease so many of us feel: that the best ideas are often the ones least able to survive the public square. Maybe “Working in Private” was the real title all along.
In any case, your book sounds like the rare antimeme destined to spread.
i mean, like, yes, pre-ordered immediately
Love your writing (however infrequent, it's that much more of a treat when I see a post here), ordered a digital since it's such a limited supply right now and hard copy isn't such a huge priority. I've been very interested in discourses around attention and the flow of ideas, so this sounds amazing. Thank you!
Thank you! I try to prioritize quality over quantity of writing :)
Thank you
Just order 10 books, I know my friend will request this !
Looking forward to read this.
Magda
Thank you for writing this. It has helped to clarify my thinking about the propagation of ideas and how that relates to my own experiences over the last 30+ years in online communities (starting with Usenet newsgroups). I feel like I need to let these ideas percolate a bit and then maybe read the book again. I will also be recommending it to a lot of folks.
Yes!! I haven't thought about "There Is No Antimemetics Division" in YEARS. I can't believe it became a novel! Buying your book literally right now.
I encountered a discussion of this book and its ideas in a New Yorker article. Although I haven't had the pleasure of reading it yet, I found its central idea, that there are some ideas that are highly resistant to spreading or being retained, very interesting. After some thought, it occurred to me that perhaps the most fundamental and powerful anti-mimetic idea is the one identified by existentialist philosophy: the reality of one's own death, which, these thinkers say, is constantly being pushed out of one's own sight and reduced in public settings to a kind of bland, obstructive generality. Yet to keep this fact in view may have a transformative, even transcendent effect on one's life - transcendent, that is, of the mass culture that threatens to swallow us up.
I don't know if the book deals with this idea at all or if it is really relevant. Perhaps it is just a different line of thought. But I thought I would share it.
Congratulations on the book and take care.
I do talk a bit about death in the book! Love your extension of its implications here. Thanks for sharing and I hope you enjoy the book when it comes out.
i’m gonna buy a hard copy in a few months from now and read it. i really like underground sleeper hits… im excited
I am so happy there are people taking these ideas seriously and pushing these lines of inquiry further. Very good work, definitely gonna read your book, keep it up.
Omgggggg so excited for this. Just ordered three. PUMPED
Fanstatic domain!!! Pre-oredered!
congratulations - looking forward to reading :)
Really looking forward to it! Just ordered :)!
Congratulations, the project sound very interesting! I’m hooked. And just ordered the book.
🐝🍄🌏🎶
Congratulations — you’ve managed the antimemetic trick of writing a book about things that resist being written about. That’s either heroic or masochistic, but in any case, impressive. I like the recursive joke that the manuscript itself was an antimeme until it finally decided to toddle into print. The metaphor of your son learning to walk alongside your manuscript is also hard to forget — which, ironically, makes it the opposite of an antimeme.
You’re right that group chats and private corners of the web are reshaping how ideas circulate, but the real coup here is putting a name to the unease so many of us feel: that the best ideas are often the ones least able to survive the public square. Maybe “Working in Private” was the real title all along.
In any case, your book sounds like the rare antimeme destined to spread.