In 2008, I published an
earlier version of this post spotting curious parallels between the geographic spread of non-rational ideas and biological parasitism -- or phrased differently -- between
memetic and
genetic pandemics. Beyond these two examples from European history -- the expansion of
Christianity and the spread of the
Great Plague (a.k.a. the Black Death) -- as shown in these two maps...
Here we have two more examples, first the
spread of Islam...
And the
spread of Buddhism...
Yes, these happen on different timescales, have diverse points of origin, and varied mechanisms for transmission + replication + mutation. Nevertheless both poisonous ideas and viral poisons are parallel phenomena for humanity to apply scientific methods on, to ever more thoroughly understand, and to ultimately prevail over.
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