Memes as viruses seems apt. There's a fine balance between exposure leading to herd immunity, and pure isolation making the entire population susceptible to bei

Memes as viruses seems apt. There's a fine balance between exposure leading to herd immunity, and pure isolation making the entire population susceptible to being swept up in a collective insanity once a novel one emerges or re-emerges from generational turnover (eg Marxism or Nazism.) Anyone pretending like one or the other is a global maximum is wrong, and pulling us closer to something non-balanced creates risk around the worst case befalling us in that regime. The obvious question in this analogy is if there's anything akin to a vaccine. Well, when it comes to bigotry, I think having people you care about in your life that are in tribes or groups being demonized by bigots is just that. And a society of liberal norms of the free exchange of ideas and democracies acts similar to a culture of hand washing and cleanliness in a society where people are free to interact with the sick.