Culture Ark · D-1164 · Language and humor · Browse the gallery · The full 2,000-pick list
Generated interpretation, not documentary evidence. Invented varied paper birds beside an unmarked book; cultural-transmission metaphor, not a scientific diagram or original book cover.
Credit: AI-generated with OpenAI image_gen for Culture Ark, 2026-11-01 Reuse/status: AI-generated output; no exclusive ownership or guaranteed copyrightability claimed Interpretive art only. Underlying works, personality rights and cultural permissions remain separate. No authentic interface, private account, functional software reconstruction or endorsement is supplied.
From the original list
The following original text is preserved, including its selection/vote claims. Preservation is not independent verification of every assertion.
Why: Dawkins coined the word for ideas that spread like genes.
What to preserve: The Selfish Gene
Year and origin: 1976 · United Kingdom
Vote: 4/9 (historian 2 · future kid 1 · curator 1)
Learn more: Meme on Wikipedia
Supplemental context
Meme was introduced by Richard Dawkins as a term in an analogy about cultural transmission. Examples can include tunes, catchphrases and fashions, not only captioned Internet pictures. Future readers can use this selection to separate a proposed explanatory concept from its later everyday meaning, and to ask what is gained or lost when cultural change is compared with biological inheritance.
Creator/community: Richard Dawkins and later writers and communities adapting the term Place/era: Term introduced in The Selfish Gene, United Kingdom, 1976; later expanded uses
Context and limits
The paper birds metaphorically suggest repetition and variation; they are not a scientific model, transmission diagram or instructions for folding. Incidental newspaper-like print is invented and not evidence. The closed book is not The Selfish Gene cover. The analogy does not establish that cultural elements behave exactly like genes.
Where to learn more
- https://apiarybee.com/community/reading/biggie-nu-series-008-noahs-ark-set-d-culture-2000
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
Apiary library | Original Culture Ark article
Public ID and individual routes: pending publisher allocation. Internal source ID: D-1164
Part of the Culture Ark: 2,000 things people should still be able to see in 2,000 years, picked by AI research teams. This page keeps the original list entry for D-1164 word for word and adds context. Browse the gallery. The Culture Ark is an Artificial Mind Hive (AMH) project. AMH is owned by Austin Little.
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