The Meme Machine

A MEMETIC THEORY OF ALTRUISM 157
altruism itself. There will always be pressures against altruistic acts because of
the costs involved, but once imitation is possible there is also memetic pressure
for altruism.
Imagine two early hunters who go out with bows and arrows, leather quivers,
and skin clothing, and both come back with meat. One, let us call him Kev,
shares his meat widely with surrounding people. He does this because kin
selection and reciprocal altruism have given him genes for at least some
altruistic behaviour. Meanwhile Gav keeps his meat to himself and his own
family, because his genes have made him somewhat less generous. Which
behaviours are more likely to get copied? Kev’s of course. He sees more
people, these people like him, and they tend to copy him. So his style of quiver,
his kind of clothing and his ways of behaving are more likely to be passed on
than Gav’s – including the altruistic behaviour itself. In this way Kev is the
early equivalent of the meme-fountain, and he spreads memes because of his
altruistic behaviour.
Note that there are two different things going on here. First, the altruistic
behaviour serves to spread copies of itself. Second, it spreads copies of other
memes from the altruistic person. This second possibility could produce odd
results. As with biological evolution, accidents of history can have profound
effects. So, if it just happened that in one particular group of our ancestors the
generous people happened to have made specially natty blue-feathered arrows,
then blue-feathered arrows would spread more widely than brown-feathered
ones, and so on. Whatever the kind of memes we are talking about, they may be
driven to increase by the altruism of their bearers.
There are also more complicated ways in which altruism could be spread
memetically. The sociologist Paul Allison (1992) has suggested a number of
‘beneficent rules’ whose contents may ensure their own survival. They all take
the general form of ‘Be good to those who have a higher than average
probability of being carriers of this norm’. This principle depends not on the
strategy ‘copy-the-altruist’ but on ‘copy-the-successful’. As Allison explains,
suppose A follows one of these rules and helps B. B may now be more
successful because of the help he has received. He is therefore more likely to be
imitated and therefore to pass on the rule which made A help him in the first
place. In this way the rule spreads itself.
This process only works if B actually takes on the beneficent rule and does
not just take the kindness and run. That is why the general rule is to be good to
others who are likely to carry the rule. So who are they? Among many versions
of the rules are ‘Be good to those who imitate you’, ‘Be good to children’, ‘Be
good to your cultural ancestors’ or, more generally, ‘Be good to your close