[1] Back in 2012-3, a mind virus called “The Pixar Timeline Theory” spread through the writers’ rooms at Buzzfeed, The Verge, and Screenrant. Patient zero was a writer named Jon Negroni who contracted the virus from a website called Cracked. The original strain of the virus was a fan theory that all the Disney Pixar Films tell one long story of an apocalypse where animals and toys become sentient while humans were gradually destroying the planet. Patient zero popularized the theory after he meticulously processed all the Pixar Films through the algorithm his mind virus was running.
The Pixar mind virus had its highest morbidity rates among the cultural critics and aspiring intellectuals at Buzzfeed, The Verge, and Screenrant because these communities are especially vulnerable. Intellectuals are the perfect hosts for mind viruses because (1) they only read and replicate each other’s work—cutting themselves off from the herd immunity of the idiot masses—and (2) they derive their status by having more novel ideas than their colleagues. Once a mind virus infects its host, it starts running a script that processes all incoming information according to the algorithm. Everyone infected with the virus runs the same script but processes different information though it. It evolved several strains including the theory that All Quentin Tarantino films take place in the same universe, and the theory that all of Joss Whedon shows take place in the same universe. Different content, same script.
A similar mind virus called “intersectionality” broke out in the 1990s in academia. Just like the Pixar virus, it has a contrapositive nature to the scientific method, meaning you start with the theory and filter facts though it. It has a basic script that isn’t difficult to run, so it spreads easily from person to person. Its association with academia gives it the added advantage of being much more infectious to status-seeking individuals than its Pixar cousin.
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[2] Between September 2001 and July 2015 was a period in history called the New Atheism movement. The period was benchmarked by two pivotal events; the first being the September 11 attacks and the latter being the cathartic ruination of an innocent dentist from Minnesota after his hunting guides led him to mistakenly shoot the wrong lion. Prior to the death of Cecil the Lion but after the September 11 attacks, a series of writers concluded that there was something uniquely parasitic about religious thinking that leads people to think and behave in irrational and maladaptive ways.
Richard Dawkins wrote a book called The God Delusion in 2006 illustrating this claim. The central argument of the book was that religion is a memeplex (a network of ideas), and at the center of that memeplex was the God delusion. The God delusion is like a mind virus and it transmits itself across time by occupying the minds of people and adapting to fit into the worldview of each new generation. The problem is that what is beneficial for the memeplex is not necessarily beneficial to its host. (Consider the celibate priest who spreads Christianity, but never bears any children sharing his genes.)
The following year, a blogger named Mencius Moldbug responded in a series of essays titled How Dawkins Got Pwned. He was mostly in agreement with this model and expanded on the metaphor between genes and memes. Moldbug outlined several mechanisms for how memeplexes can get people to act against their interests. The God delusion, says Moldbug, “is alien to reason – no sensible person would accept it, but by accepting nonsensical doxology you demonstrate your loyalty to the group.”
Moldbug’s essays argue that Dawkins is infected by the meme he argues against. He has a strain of “nontheistic Christianity.” Using the parasite metaphor, he says, “He thinks he is attacking superstition on behalf of the armies of reason. In fact, he is attacking M.41 on behalf of the armies of M.42.” M.41 is the old Christianity that still believes in the God delusion, and M.42 is the new mutation for the nontheistic strain.
Moldbug calls this strain “universalism”, and its hosts tend to believe in the “fair distribution of goods, the futility of violence, the universal brotherhood of man, and the reification of community.” Nontheistic Christianity is just as morbid as theistic Christianity, according to Moldbug, but the evidence for this wasn’t widely available until mobs of people infected with strain M.42 got their first taste of blood from that dentist from Minnesota (Rest in Peace).
M.42 is a pathological memeplex like its predecessor Christianity. It largely infects upper middle-class whites who believe they are marked with an original sin (read [category] privelage). Just like they’re puritanical ancestors, they self-flagellate and apologize for the sinfulness they inherited from generations past. They are very evangelical, the end of the world is near <insert AOC soundbite/> and they restlessly pursue saving the souls who have not yet repented for their ancient sins.