Imitation is a good survival strategy in societies with skin in the game, for only the "good" behaviors survive and remain visible to be copied.
What happens, though, when in a society, popularity itself prevents skin in the game?
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Because both the good and the bad sticks around, if you don't know better and imitate those around you, you don't know if you're imitating the good or the bad.
THE MIMETIC SINGULARITY: the downward spiral that follows when being popular (and thus imitated) prevents skin in the game.
Automatically, the bad yet popular remains popular long enough to become a source of imitation, and society dedicates itself to imitate behaviors with large, unaddressed negative side effects.
For example, an entrepreneur with a theoretical risk of bankruptcy but who gets away with breaking the law in his day-to-day has no effective skin in the game, and gets imitated.
Also: outrage, etc.
We can do better. We can praise the good he does and hold him accountable for the bad, so that we empower him to do more of the good and less of the bad.
Instead, failing to do the above leads to more of the bad being imitated.
We end up as what we allow and as what we popularize.
Let's choose wisely.