title: Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme
author:  Richard Brodie 
description: If you've ever wondered how and why people become robotically enslaved by advertising, religion, sexual fantasy, and cults, wonder no more. It's all because of "mind viruses," or "memes," and those who understand how to plant them into other's minds. This is the first truly accessible book about memes and how they make the world go 'round.
zlib_text: **Viruses of the Mind**
  
   **Richard Dawkins**
  
   **1991**
  
  The haven all memes depend on reaching is the human mind, but a human mind is
  itself an artifact created when memes restructure a human brain in order to
  make it a better habitat for memes. The avenues for entry and departure are
  modified to suit local conditions, and strengthened by various artificial
  devices that enhance fidelity and prolixity of replication: native Chinese
  minds differ dramatically from native French minds, and literate minds differ
  from illiterate minds. What memes provide in return to the organisms in which
  they reside is an incalculable store of advantages --- with some Trojan horses
  thrown in for good measure. . .
  
  Daniel Dennett, _Consciousness Explained_
  
   **1 Duplication Fodder**
  
  A beautiful child close to me, six and the apple of her father's eye, believes
  that Thomas the Tank Engine really exists. She believes in Father Christmas,
  and when she grows up her ambition is to be a tooth fairy. She and he