Section IV says: The idea of biological or cultural evolution causing a mass population explosion is a philosophical toy at best. I think it likely that biolog

Section IV says: The idea of biological or cultural evolution causing a mass population explosion is a philosophical toy at best. I think it likely that biological and cultural evolution get tangled together. Ponder the Darwinian pressures on the memetic immune system. It gets really complicated when things get Darwinian on two levels. People need a memetic immune system, to protect them against memes such as the Skoptsy[0] or Shakers[1] Memes themselves need to fit in the obvious sense of telling people to spread them. But in addition to this single level fitness, there is a cross-level concept: a meme is fertile if it encourages its hosts in their biological reproduction. The "be fruitful and multiply" meme has an edge, separate from its own reproductive success, in an increasing number of hosts. A meme is barren if it discourages its hosts in their biological reproduction. This complicates the Darwinian pressures on the memetic immune system. Assuming that the mechanisms in play are subtle enough to distinguish between fertile memes and barren memes, evolution shapes our memetic immune systems to block barren memes while leaving us vulnerable to fertile memes. Suppose that being smart correlates with having a subtle memetic immune system. Then we expect differences between smart and stupid people. We ponder barren memes and notice smart people being more resistant than stupid people. That seems natural; memes are basically selfish, being more resistant is good, right? Then we ponder fertile memes, and smart people are more vulnerable than stupid people. Wait! How are smart people getting infected by these memes, aren't they supposed to be smart? Whoops! Gaps in the memetic immune system to let the fertile memes through are favoured by natural selection. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skoptsy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skoptsy [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaker_communities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaker_communities