The Meme Machine

146 THE MEME MACHINE
possible and, combined with the creation of headless and brainless clones, raises
the prospect of maintaining genetically identical spare parts for rich people to
ensure that they assay: have a heart or liver ready if they need one. Other
predictions for the future of ‘reprogenetics’ include babies born with the genes
from two mothers, the insertion of genes for AIDS resistance into embryos, or
the creation of whole suites of synthetic genes to provide designer embryos for
people rich enough to afford them (Silver 1998).
Note that I said ‘the memes are busy devising’. This translates into the more
accurate statement that memes for DNA testing, sequencing the human genome,
and genetic engineering are successfully replicating in today’s world. Why?
Because many memetic factors come together to make them successful. Enough
people are sufficiently well educated; there are laboratories full of the necessary
equipment; there are clever people around who manage to combine the existing
memes and come up with new inventions; there is sufficient wealth to educate
and fund those people to do it – and, of course, there is the human desire to have
healthy, happy and successful children, and human greed that will always want
more and better food, and promises of a better and easier life.
So are we just unalterably selfish creatures, driven by the competing forces of
two replicators to live lives of mindless greed? Not at all. Rather surprisingly
one of the consequences of memetic evolution is that humans can be more
altruistic than their genes alone would dictate.