Take male strategies for success in the world. If you've got all the advantages, if you're attractive and clever and all of that, you will generally go for very high quality females.

Certainly almost everything we do and think is colored in some way by memes, but it is important to realize that not everything we experience is a meme. If I walk down the street and see a tree, the basic perception that's going on is not memetic.

All things considered, I can see no reason to adopt the afterlife hypothesis. I am sure I shall remain in a minority for a long time to come, especially among experiencers, but for me the evidence and the arguments are overwhelming ... We are biological organisms, evolved in fascinating ways for no purpose at all and with no end in mind. We are simply here and this is how it is. I have no self and "I" own nothing. There is no one to die. There is just this moment, and now this, and now this.

For the planet's sake, I hope we have bird flu or some other thing that will reduce the population, because otherwise we're doomed.

All other species on this planet are gene machines only. They don't imitate at all well; we alone are gene machines and meme machines as well.

You start by copying other people's paintings or music or whatever. You get all of those skills before you branch out. Really creative people have a fantastic ability to copy things and then combine them in new ways. And whether we're talking about genes or memes, recombination is the real heart of creativity.

If everyone understood evolution, then the tyranny of religious memes would be weakened, and we little humans might find a better way to live in this pointless universe.