Memetic Desire
May 27, 2025
None of my desires are my own. We pick up desires from our surrounding people and initially we don’t have any taste in doing so. We could end up picking relatively harmless but non-productive desires.
This is deeply ingrained in our DNA and what makes us human and it is hard to overcome this tendency to copy other people’s desire. But there are some serious (and interesting) implications of copying others.
Infinite vs Finite Games
There are two types of games that someone can play. Wealth game or status game. The memetic desire is the latter cause if you desire something, getting it will make you superior to someone who doesn’t have it - in a way it is a zero sum game.
According to Naval Ravikant, it is better to play the wealth game as it is inherently non-zero game. You end up creating more value for all the people involved.
Pursuing wealth tends to increase the size of pie itself whenever one achieves a breakthrough.
You can’t avoid memetic desire completely, since sometimes these advancements come while one is pursuing his memetic desire.
Heirarchies
This problem has plagued humanity since the beginning. As soon as you increase the size of the society, the interactions of people naturally caused this memetic desire to emerge. Status games have this inherent property of forming hierarchical structures since the resource that everyone is going after is limited.
People tend to be not happy in a hierarchy. This is because status resides at the top and getting to the top is not a fair game in the real world. Some have a head start, some cheat. But since everyone desires to be at the top, it is bound to create clashes.
Now is there a way to solve this tension? Maybe have something so valuable that everyone desires it and make it ultimately unreachable in a lifetime. This is what religion tries to do. Historically, religion has been something that has kept the bottom half of the pyramid peaceful by given them a higher purpose.
Social Hierarchy Simulation
Watch how different systems affect social harmony and value creation
Population Metrics
Social Tensions
Total Value Created
Observations:
- • Pure status competition creates inequality
- • Lower-status individuals become unhappy
- • Tensions rise as desires increase
- • Limited value creation occurs
Solution for the time being
Till we resolve this problem, what we can do is try to pursue higher, more wealth oriented desires. This at least ensures that fulfillment of your desire will ensure that value has been provided to someone.