memes
Organisms are subject to natural selection because of three things:
- They reproduce
- They mutate
- They die (before reproducing) if they do not fit their environment.
Ideas are subject to the same three effects that organisms are, and thus undergo natural selection (according to Dawkins).
In CGP Grey’s video “This video will make you angry”, Grey argues that anger inducing ideas are selected for and survive the “environment” of discourse and our political landscape.
2008 Obama supporters and 2016 Trump supporters were both successful in the usage of internet memes (and general internet communities), which contributed to the rapid spread of (mis)information and grassroots internet organization.
Tags: polarization CGP Grey Dawkins natural selection Obama Trump
