On the topic of cultural drift not being analogous to genetic drift, it sounded like in the last zoom session that cultural drift is more analogous to genetic mutation. So maybe you could call it cultural mutation. I think you believe we are accumulating a "cultural mutational load".
That meaning that you claim to be using has the implication of not being acted on by external forces - and going with the flow. In the case of cultural changes those are hardly meandering and undirected. Instead there are large scale historical trends - progress.
In the particular case of fertility, sterilizing their hosts is a common interest of many memes, since then reproductive resources can be redirected from DNA gene propagation to meme propagation. History shows that this is not a meandering, drift-like process, but a large-scale directional change that is getting systematically worse over time. Calling it "cultural drift" is not only misleading by comparison with genetic drift.
...but then if you are interested in the location of the leaf your attention should turn of where the stream is flowing or where the wind is blowing - and the "drift"-like changes become more like a source of noise.
I don't think this is only a terminology dispute. If your model of somewhat-random changes from an adapted ancestral state leading to culture becoming progressively maladaptive due to the somewhat-random changes being deleterious on average is accurate, then it would seem reasonable to me to call it "drift". I think the issue is whether that model is particularly accurate.
I am NOT saying that all maladaptive changes have mean zero. Some maladaptive changes have predictable trends, where those changes would not have happened given sufficient selection pressures.
I think it would be better to respect the consensus of population and quantitative geneticists over the consensus of humanities people, the issue of the latter consensus existing aside
Re: "cultural mutational load": remember that we are dealing with a "dual inheritance" situation here. It's not necessarily that the culture is under mutational load. It is rather that the culture is not helping the DNA genes to fulfill their reproductive ends any more. Culture could still be doing a great job of adapting to the host and reproducing itself.
By analogy, consider the ebola virus. It is not that the virus is not well adapted to its host, or is under mutational load. The issue is that its strategy is to liquify the tissues of the host and then deposit them into unfiltered water systems - which does not help the host DNA very much.
Under this view, the idea that the host could have "cultural mutations" would be a mixing up of different lineages. It is true that some theorists are OK with treating culture and DNA genes as one big melting pot of inheritance - but IMO, it is better to keep host genomes and symbiont genomes conceptually separate. They often have separate lineages and reproduce separately.
If you're hosting, I would recommend familiarizing yourself with kicking people out of a Zoom meeting. "Zoom bombing" is a thing, but it is easily fixed if you know how to do kick people out.
I am reminded of this essay proposing a way to start a pro-natalist group: https://www.mythpilot.com/p/great-house-plan-ii
On the topic of cultural drift not being analogous to genetic drift, it sounded like in the last zoom session that cultural drift is more analogous to genetic mutation. So maybe you could call it cultural mutation. I think you believe we are accumulating a "cultural mutational load".
"Drift" has a widely accepted meaning outside of the context of DNA, and that's the meaning I'm using.
That meaning that you claim to be using has the implication of not being acted on by external forces - and going with the flow. In the case of cultural changes those are hardly meandering and undirected. Instead there are large scale historical trends - progress.
In the particular case of fertility, sterilizing their hosts is a common interest of many memes, since then reproductive resources can be redirected from DNA gene propagation to meme propagation. History shows that this is not a meandering, drift-like process, but a large-scale directional change that is getting systematically worse over time. Calling it "cultural drift" is not only misleading by comparison with genetic drift.
When a leaf "drifts" in the wind or a stream, it does not have mean zero changes.
...but then if you are interested in the location of the leaf your attention should turn of where the stream is flowing or where the wind is blowing - and the "drift"-like changes become more like a source of noise.
I don't think this is only a terminology dispute. If your model of somewhat-random changes from an adapted ancestral state leading to culture becoming progressively maladaptive due to the somewhat-random changes being deleterious on average is accurate, then it would seem reasonable to me to call it "drift". I think the issue is whether that model is particularly accurate.
I am NOT saying that all maladaptive changes have mean zero. Some maladaptive changes have predictable trends, where those changes would not have happened given sufficient selection pressures.
I think it would be better to respect the consensus of population and quantitative geneticists over the consensus of humanities people, the issue of the latter consensus existing aside
Re: "cultural mutational load": remember that we are dealing with a "dual inheritance" situation here. It's not necessarily that the culture is under mutational load. It is rather that the culture is not helping the DNA genes to fulfill their reproductive ends any more. Culture could still be doing a great job of adapting to the host and reproducing itself.
By analogy, consider the ebola virus. It is not that the virus is not well adapted to its host, or is under mutational load. The issue is that its strategy is to liquify the tissues of the host and then deposit them into unfiltered water systems - which does not help the host DNA very much.
Under this view, the idea that the host could have "cultural mutations" would be a mixing up of different lineages. It is true that some theorists are OK with treating culture and DNA genes as one big melting pot of inheritance - but IMO, it is better to keep host genomes and symbiont genomes conceptually separate. They often have separate lineages and reproduce separately.
If you're hosting, I would recommend familiarizing yourself with kicking people out of a Zoom meeting. "Zoom bombing" is a thing, but it is easily fixed if you know how to do kick people out.
Done