Unsettled: Power and Meme Theory

Why I can’t celebrate the Dominion Settlement

Photo by GR Stocks on Unsplash

I didn’t care for the Big Bang Theory. It felt condescending at best and horrifically racist/sexist at worst. That said, I’ve seen an episode or two and one of them indulged in a theory I’d never heard of: Meme Theory. The basic idea is that information self-replicates in a way that’s comparable to biological genes. Ideas and behaviors form a culture as a means of “survival.”

I love the idea that the universe and everything in it is alive. How many religions have pondered this to a degree? But what makes Meme Theory special is that it isn’t talking about rocks and trees and stars: it’s talking about intangible concepts.

Some take this less as a symbolic interactionism and more as a literal “information is alive and desperately wants to remain.” It would certainly explain why bad ideas never seem to go away. No matter what we disprove; it finds a new audience. Looking at the plague of modern conspiracy theories; you wouldn’t be the first to see dogma itself as a living, breeding parasite.

Photo by SRIJIT RAHA on Unsplash

I’ve been following the story of Dominion Voting Machines and their lawsuit against…