AIM Framework glossary
Negative Mimesis
Canonical definition
Negative Mimesis is Mimetic transmission that produces net social harm through rivalry escalation, inflation, scapegoating, or crisis dynamics. It occurs where Mimetic copying operates under scarcity, zero-sum competition, or structural conditions that convert a coordination mechanism into a conflict amplifier.
Explanation
Negative Mimesis is not a second mechanism sitting alongside the useful one. It is the same copying, running in conditions that change what the copying produces. Where the thing being copied can be had by everyone, imitation spreads a skill; where it cannot, imitation spreads a contest. Nothing inside the Individual distinguishes the two cases, which is why the framework's interventions address the conditions rather than the disposition, and why eliminating M is neither possible nor the goal. Its paradigm cases are positional competition, where one Individual's gain requires another's loss; the Confabulation Cascade, where a transmitted narrative compounds toward collective delusion; and scapegoat contagion, where the Grievance Belief spreads mimetically to produce coordinated targeting. The same Content can fall on either side: copying the wish to excel is Positive Mimesis in a cooperative, non-rivalrous setting and Negative Mimesis in a winner-take-all status tournament.
Epistemic status
Framework-Specific Construct.