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Ideas transmitted through social networks systematically degrade. This paper establishes this claim through converging evidence from three independent domains: experimental psychology (Bartlett's serial reproduction paradigm and subsequent replications), cultural evolution theory (iterated learning models), and structural analysis drawing on information-theoretic concepts as illuminating analogies. We argue that cognitive and communicative constraints, while not identical to Shannon channel limitations, share formal properties that make significant fidelity loss expectable in mass transmission contexts. This structural expectability—not mathematical certainty—transforms the ethics of intellectual work. The paper grounds its normative framework in a responsibility-for-risk model: when actors can foresee that their actions create significant risks of harm, they acquire obligations to mitigate those risks proportionate to foreseeability and severity. The paper articulates seven principles of Conceptual Responsibility, organized into two categories: principles derived from transmission dynamics (Explicit Boundary Articulation, Anticipatory Misreading Analysis, Ethical Application Guidance, Active Discursive Engagement, Structural Fragmentation Resistance) and principles derived from social epistemology (Epistemic Humility, Downstream Responsibility Gradient). The framework acknowledges that transmission can also improve ideas through selection, refinement, and creative synthesis, and situates itself within the broader literature on testimony and communicative responsibility.
Kriger B. 2026. Conceptual Responsibility: Structural Constraints on Idea Transmission and the Ethics of Intellectual Communication. PREPRINTS.RU. https://doi.org/10.24108/preprints-3115631
