>I guess you can call that a "meme" if you want, but that doesn't make it "not education". The kind of memes I'm referring to transmit spontaneously, though no

>I guess you can call that a "meme" if you want, but that doesn't make it "not education". The kind of memes I'm referring to transmit spontaneously, though no doubt intentional cultivation is beneficial in some cases. There's a technical term due to Daniel Dennett: synanthropic memes. These are extremely sticky behaviours/ideas that thrive autonomously in the presence of humans, just as some biological species do, e.g. pigeons, rats, barn swallows. Some are bad. For example, swearing, bullying and perhaps even certain motor tics are memetic and these are considered bad by many. Our ideas about education are pretty messed up and thus we ultimately have some disturbing realities to face, quite apart from the mounting student debt :-/ Hopefully there will be a clearing up if and when we develop AGI and thus gain a better understanding of how the mind works.