The ultimate fate of any meme that achieves total hegemony. With no countermeme to struggle against, the original meme fades away due to disuse. For
example, if smoking were actually
stamped out, with no smokers
left, smoking would have room to eventually rise again since the antismoking meme would have been forgotten.
The urge to
ban landmines underwent normative
burnout one hundred years after all countries had disposed of their last mine stockpiles, causing some nations to begin experimenting with buried antipersonnel explosives fifty years thereafter. It was an idea old enough to seem
new.