Red vMeme is egocentric, power-driven, immediate-gratification value system. The will to dominate. It sits in the Culture dimension (CUL) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-CUL-0006, within the Culture family. The core principle: egocentric, power-driven, immediate-gratification value system. The will to dominate. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
Scientific Definition
Egocentric, power-driven, immediate-gratification value system. The will to dominate.
Plain-English Definition
Egocentric, power-driven, immediate-gratification value system. The will to dominate.
Feynman Explanation
Red doesn't negotiate. Red wins or loses, and then resets the table.
Core Principle
Egocentric, power-driven, immediate-gratification value system. The will to dominate.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Egocentric, power-driven, immediate-gratification value system. The will to dominate.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Necessary in turnaround and crisis; toxic in steady-state without containment.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Red doesn't negotiate. Red wins or loses, and then resets the table.
Examples
- Beck & Cowan; appears in early-stage entrepreneurship, autocratic leadership, gang dynamics.
- Necessary in turnaround and crisis; toxic in steady-state without containment.
Pending editorial review.
Original analysis from The Incentives Lab — how this element behaves inside real payoff structures.
Why this element matters to incentive design
Executives usually notice this element only after it has cost something. By then it looks like a one-off. It is not. The mechanism underneath it is straightforward: egocentric, power-driven, immediate-gratification value system. The will to dominate. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: red doesn't negotiate. Red wins or loses, and then resets the table. Every element in the Culture dimension changes the perceived payoff of an action before the action happens, which is exactly where incentive design has leverage.
How it gets exploited
Left undesigned, necessary in turnaround and crisis; toxic in steady-state without containment. It is amplified whenever necessary in turnaround and crisis; toxic in steady-state without containment. Inside organizations that shows up as necessary in turnaround and crisis; toxic in steady-state without containment. The pattern is the same one Goodhart's Law describes: the measurable proxy attracts the effort, and the purpose behind it quietly loses funding.
How the Lab designs around it
The redesign move is to channel Red into legitimate competitive arenas; bound it with Blue structures. The test of any redesign here is simple: after the change, can you name what the organization is now doing less of? If not, the payoff structure did not actually move.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Channel Red into legitimate competitive arenas; bound it with Blue structures.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Channel Red into legitimate competitive arenas; bound it with Blue structures.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Order, discipline, hierarchy, principle, and rule-based value system. The 'right way' to do things.
The communitarian, egalitarian, consensus-seeking value system. Emerged strongly post-1960s.
The achievement-driven, rational, strategic, market-oriented value system. Most of Western corporate life.
A value system — a structured way of making meaning that emerges at a particular life-condition stage.
The integrative, systemic, flexible value system — the first of second-tier.
We prefer stories over raw facts, even when the story is misleading.
We construct a coherent life story; that story shapes future decisions.
Cultures vary in how strictly norms are enforced and deviance punished.
Each value system (Beige through Green) believes itself to be the only valid one and dismisses the others.
The relative weight a culture gives to individual goals vs. group cohesion.
The combination of historical, social, and existential pressures that activates the next vMeme.
How much hierarchical inequality a culture accepts as normal.
Where Red vMeme is cited in the corpus
Essays, field guides, and diagnostics from The Incentives Lab that apply this element.
- EssayCulture Is the Residue of Incentives
Declared culture versus revealed culture.
- DiagnosticCultural Performance Audit™
The instrument that reads cultural behavior.
- EssayAI Agents Inherit Your Incentives
How this element propagates into automated systems.
- ReferenceThe Periodic Table of Human Behavior
The full 1,267-element map this page belongs to.
- CourseIncentives 101
The free ten-part primer on reading a payoff structure.
Questions about Red vMeme
- What is Red vMeme?
- Red vMeme is egocentric, power-driven, immediate-gratification value system. The will to dominate. It sits in the Culture dimension (CUL) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-CUL-0006, within the Culture family. The core principle: egocentric, power-driven, immediate-gratification value system. The will to dominate. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
- What is an example of Red vMeme?
- Necessary in turnaround and crisis; toxic in steady-state without containment. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-CUL-0006).
- How is Red vMeme exploited?
- Necessary in turnaround and crisis; toxic in steady-state without containment.
- How do you design around Red vMeme?
- Channel Red into legitimate competitive arenas; bound it with Blue structures.
- Which behavioral dimension does Red vMeme belong to?
- Red vMeme is classified in the Culture dimension (CUL) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Culture", class "Mental Model". Its permanent identifier is HBT-CUL-0006 and its evidence grade is B.