Theory of the day: Meetings as Dawkinsian replicators

I hereby introduce to the world Petter’s theory of meetings as replicators. I propose that meetings, like genes in RNA or DNA, and like memes in culture, may qualify as replicators according to the criteria first described by Dr. Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene. I freely admit that the theory is not all worked out yet (perhaps I should more accurately describe it as a hypothesis, but the word lacks oomph). For now, I must leave my readers with some hasty notes which, however, should substantiate my claim that meetings qualify as Dawkinsian replicators.

1. (Definition) A replicator is an entity which tends to perpetuate itself. It requires the ability to copy itself (perhaps directly, perhaps through intermediates); and it requires a certain degree of fidelity (copies must resemble their parents) and fecundity (there must be enough copies that the lineage does not go extinct). See here for a quick introduction to replicators.

   The prototypical examples are genes and memes.

2. Meetings tend to perpetuate themselves. In fact, just as it is productive to think of the function of genes to produce copies of themselves (cf Dawkins, The Selfish Gene), so I propose that it is the function of meetings to produce more meetings similar to themselves.

3. The fecundity of replicators meets no obstacle in the realm of meetings. Anyone who has worked in an office environment knows from personal experience that meetings occur in great numbers. In fact, I propose that we may even observe the same type of bounded/geometric growth that we observe in natural populations of organisms.

   The process is, roughly, as follows: Every meeting during which new ideas are discussed requires at the very least a follow-up meeting to conclude the new ideas, and probably further “child” meetings to refine details. However, as the time when productive workers such as software developers would otherwise produce products is instead devoted to meetings, deadlines tend to be missed. As deadlines are missed, more meetings are held in order to discuss the missed deadlines, their consequences, &c. (We may also note that stress levels, particularly among managers, tend to rise; stressed managers then proceed to create disproportionate numbers of meetings. I propose that management stress is an extended phenotypes of meetings. Cf. Dawkins, The Extended Phenotype.)

4. The copying fidelity of meetings may at first glance seem like a problem—at least to the outsider. As a software industry insider, however, I may confidently reassure the reader that meeting progeny usually do closely resemble their progenitors, with only minor mutations such as (typically) changes in deadline dates and similar.

   As an aside that may merit further research, I have personally observed an inevitable trend for deadline dates to constantly increase in magnitude. It appears that we have a trend of directed evolution, such as is not typically observed in biological organisms; but I remind the reader that while I argue that meetings may qualify as replicators, there is no reason to suppose that they will necessarily behave analogously to genes and gene vehicles in every respect.

5. Besides fidelity and fecundity, the third criterion for a replicator set out by Dawkins is longevity, in that a physical replicator does not need to last forever, but it must exist long enough to be replicated…the longer a replicator exists, the more likely it is to be copied and the more time it has to make more copies. Some might object that meetings do not appear to be very longeval, but again, personal experience confirms that some meetings can last a very long time indeed. Furthermore, meetings have a peculiar reproductive cycle somewhat reminiscent of cicadas, in that progeny is conceived during a short active phase, followed by an extensive dormancy measured in days, or sometimes weeks, whereupon the cycle starts over. Unlike cicadas, however, the cycle does not have a fixed frequency. (It also appears that most meetings reproduce “asexually”—though not wholly so, as recombination and crossover are not infrequently observed.)

Unfortunately, I must leave off at this point as I have productive work to do which was previously interrupted by two meetings, and was further delayed by the necessity of providing a summary of several previous meetings. Naturally, this topic is fully open for discussion. I also leave you with the following question:

[Poll #1546298]