[FRIAM] The lies of Trump and ecDNA

[Jochen Fromm]

Hmmm I am not sure. I'm still trying to understand cultural evolution better and how exactly fascism and authoritarianism fit into this picture. One thing I just noticed is that Trump's slogans are actually very similar to commandments - which serve as cultural genes in religious contexts. For instance "Make America Great Again" is a political slogan and the name of Trump's MAGA movement, but it is also a commandment like "You shall not murder". A call to action and an abstract instruction how to act. It appeals to all those people who do not feel great - Hillary Clinton's deplorable people. "Build the wall" and "Lock her up" are similar political slogans which are also commandments to expel immigrants and to imprison opponents. These are the genes of Trump's primitive strongman ideology.-J.
-------- Original message --------From: glen <gepropella at gmail.com> Date: 2/27/24  7:26 PM  (GMT+01:00) To: friam at redfish.com Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The lies of Trump and ecDNA IDK. It seems like ecDNA, in general, can be either good or bad. And mitochondrial DNA feels like a boon, overall. Maybe a better analogy would be ecDNA <-> media and MAGA to the oncogenes being promoted. I think a useful foil for stressing the analogy is the difference between a filter bubble and an echo chamber. If we define a filter bubble as the sieve through which the ambience extrudes and an echo chamber as an agent-oriented selection bias, we can classify MAGA cult members as victims (incompetent consumers of media) and perpetrators. The perpetrators might be like the Federalist Society, where they seek echoes of their beliefs and put them in power. Or they might be like Joe Rogan, where they promote/amplify toxic materials they find in the wild. The latter seem like trans-acting ecDNA ... and Rachel Maddow might be similar to Joe Rogan in that sense, only considered toxic based on what they promote, not promotion in itself. The former seem like oncogenes. The rest, like some random soccer mom at the Jan 6 riot, don't seem like either of those to me.On 2/27/24 08:51, Jochen Fromm wrote:> The lies of Trump and his MAGA cult are a bit like extrachromosomal DNA that is apparently behind many malignant cancers. Both are normally part of selfish entities - single cell organisms or narcissistic con men -  and disrupt or distort the normal fabric of the world they live in. Interestingly ecDNA takes the form of tiny circles just like plasmids in bacteria. And it spreads faster than DNA in chromosomes, just as lies spread faster than the truth. As Jonathan Swift said "Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it"> https://www.the-scientist.com/cancer-may-be-driven-by-dna-outside-of-chromosomes-68590-- ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listservFridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriamto (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.comFRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/  1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
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