[An imaginary conversation, posted purely for entertainment purposes.]

MG: No, think about it. It'll be like a conceptual incubator - an incubator for memes! We need an environment where they can grow, propagate, evolve…

JW: But we already have that.

MG: The growth environment is too uniform - not enough competition. We should get some contrasting viewpoints in here besides Hitchens - somebody who can introduce some robust competition, or that might combine for some hybrids.

JW: But what's wrong with leaving things the way they are now?

MG: As it stands there's not enough evolutionary pressure. We're wasting resources, because we don't know if they can survive and propagate outside the lab. We should design it like each forum is culture, though the memes can cross if they're robust enough. Think of a collection of open petri dishes racked together in an incubator. We need to do this, or something like it. People are demanding more consistent results.

JW: Dawkins would love it. I don't know, though. I don't think Gates will go for it. There's a press liability issue, you know - it's a company reputation thing. Too risky.

MG: Don't you have some contacts at the Washington Post? They don't seem to care much about their reputation... [laughter]

JW: Maybe. But the IT people tell me data collection's a bitch. Unless you can live with small samples, we'd need to redesign the place from the ground up.

MG: That's actually a good thing. There are a few of the regulars we’d be better off without. Like that Ioz – it's like he's spreading bleach into the tide pool. We need to make the environment less "sticky" and shake a few of those old-timers off into blogland.

JW: Hey, you ever finish up with that special project you were working on?