The Meme Machine

174 THE MEME MACHINE
now like Janet more than if she does not. In other words, Meg likes Janet not
only because she was kind to Meg, but because Meg has paid off her debt by
agreeing and so need no longer feel under any obligation to Janet.
This is an extremely artificial situation but I have tried to keep it simple.
More realistic ways of taking on someone’s memes might be to copy their
actions in some more concrete way, to agree to pass on information to someone
else, to write down what they say, to join a group they belong to, and so on, but I
hope the principle is clear – that liking for a generous model would be increased
if the subject were given the chance to imitate her, because the sense of
obligation was reduced. This is, I suggest, a counter-intuitive outcome that
could not readily be predicted or explained on any other theory.
If these predictions are correct they suggest that memes and resources can be
bartered against each other in all sorts of ways. We should be able to pay people
to accept our ideas, agree with people to pay off debts, and force people into
agreement by what appear to be generous actions. There are interesting
implications here for the power of money to coerce people into agreement.
Some of the predictions are fundamental to the processes underlying memedriven
altruism and therefore, if they do not work out, my theory is wrong.