“There Is No Antimemetics Division” by qntm
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Rating: 4/5 Stars.
A fascinating book that looks at antimemes: ideas or concepts that want to hide themselves, that will erase all memories or data recorded concerning them, and can even kill you if you so much as think about them. When an existentially huge anti-idea wants to take over the world, only the Antimemetics Division has a chance of fighting it; or maybe it has, but has forgotten how to do it.
A series of vignettes in the book tell the stories of various other Unknowns the Division has encountered. Most just want to hide their existence, while others ‘steal’ memories from people to feed themselves (like one Unknown that was detected because it steals the memory of how to ride a bicycle). Another Unknown feeds on data and will erase your entire existence so they can feed on your memories in isolation (you have to read the book to discover how to defeat it).
But this dangerous Unknown, as gradually revealed in the book, has been growing for ages and will soon become powerful enough to feed on all of humanity. Hints of the war to contain it are documented in sealed safe areas (which must be forgotten upon leaving), showing that the Division has been fighting a losing battle, for they are fighting an entity whose existence is not known to those who are fighting it.
In the end, only a desperate plan, depending on people who have forgotten their relationships but pick up the hints left behind, must be executed if humanity has a chance of existing, and not become part of anti-idea whose time has come.
Book read from 2026/08/21 to 2026/08/25.