Haha, what a funny thought. It's like a special productivity poison, takes some percentage of your engineers and just deactivates them. That sounds like a great premise for a sci fi short, aliens sending some nerd-snipe super stimulus to soften up Earth.
From the Wikipedia article about the multi-armed bandit problem:
>Originally considered by Allied scientists in World War II, it proved so intractable that, according to Peter Whittle, the problem was proposed to be dropped over Germany so that German scientists could also waste their time on it.[13]
"General, the Allies have dropped pamphlets containing what our top scientists are calling a memetic infohazard."
"An infohazard? Have the eggheads come up with a new term for propaganda, we've got people to handle this stuff, why are you bringing it up to me?"
"Well, sir, they say this time it's different. It's not propaganda for ordinary citizens, it's a distraction for scientists and technical personal."
"Okay ... do they have any recommendations?"
"Yes sir, they say the only thing we need to do is make sure that the eggheads don't read it."
"That's it? Well, these are men of science and discipline, that should be easy. Issue the order. I wonder why they thought it was so important that you would have to interrupt me."
"I couldn't say, sir. They seemed quite agitated."
Meanwhile, in the lab.
"So, this folder contains an enemy memetic infohazard. In order to prevent it from taking effect we've been ordered to not read it."
Several scientists give knowing glances to each other.
"A real memetic infohazard? I wonder how they accomplished that?" The scientist moves towards the folder.
"Wait, what are you doing? We're not supposed to read it."
"It's fine. I'll be the only one reading it and then I'll let you guys know what I find." The scientist opens the folder and looks at the papers within while making several 'hmm' sounds. "Hey, Frank, what do you think of this."
"No, you said you would be the only one!"
"Just me and Frank. Don't be a wet blanket."
Frank begins to look over the papers, "You know, I bet this applies to what Sarah has been working on. Let's go talk to her."
"Wait, no. You just said ..."
"Me, Frank, and Sarah, no big deal." The scientists leave the room with the folder.
Hello fellow SCP agents. We're supposed to keep our involvement with the SCP foundation hidden. This antimemetic sentence will take care of any leaks ;-)
This is the plot of an Alastair MacLean novel involving a mysterious electronic device that was supposed to be "lost" to the Soviets (the guy they choose to lose it wasn't told about that bit and turned out to be pretty good at the job he thought he had).
