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Mind Viruses: Is There Anything They Can’t Do?
I was piqued years ago by the idea that homosexuality could be triggered by a virus. It is not as crazy as it sounds. After all, homosexuality is contraindicated in evolutionary theory. And, like viral outbreaks, homosexuality happens in clusters, and is not solidly determined by genetics (as determined with twin studies). That said, nobody ever found an actual viral trigger for homosexuality.
Of course, we now know that viruses are not necessarily physical entities. Ideas themselves can – and most certainly do – go viral. And ideas can be absolutely bonkers; consider the inability of some to define a woman!
Elon Musk popularized our current madness under the title “the woke mind virus.” And there is a lot of nonsense under that same mind virus: that all relationships must be seen through the prism of power, that feelings are more important than anything else, that everything natural is necessarily always good, to name just a few.
The most important of all of these might be the transgender craze that has confused millions of children who could not know any better, and forever mutilated and sterilized far, far too many of them. And what was this craze, if not a mind virus?
If this is right, then can we revisit homosexuality, and ask the same question: when society and culture promote homosexuality, then the ideas spread, and the behavior follows. A lot of people who might go down one path, end up going down another, as a result of the ideas that they have been given. Does the mind virus not mimic, in many respects, physical viruses?
I know that some would consider this post to be hate speech. But we live in an age where violence is understood to be encouraged and spread by anything from video games to fiery politicians to union organizers. And there is certainly some truth in that. We know the school shooters who are glorified end up inspiring others who, absent examples to follow, may never have tried to kill other people.
If violence can be spread by the power of suggestion and societal support, why cannot sexual preferences and proclivities?
P.S. I am not claiming that the virus is necessary for homosexuality, any more than violence requires societal acceptance. But it is clear, when we compare violent and non-violent cultures (as well as sexually confused cities from traditional ones), that a decent percentage of either behaviors is not, in fact, inevitable.
Published in General
There’s at least one big difference between homosexuality and “trans”; actual trans people are a tiny, tiny minority. The gays are about 3-4% of the population. A fourteen year old girl who thinks boys are icky (not an uncommon reaction, nor is it always unfair) might be able to talk herself into thinking she’s trans or gay.
(BTW, “pious” Iran performs trans surgery, because weirdly enough, parents would rather have a carved-up child than a homosexual one.)
Boys are, as we all know, different. If we aren’t excited by someone, how do I put this within the Code of Conduct, the lack of physiological response means we can’t talk ourselves into it, nor can someone else talk us into it.
I spent my career in the film and TV industry. I met a lot of homosexuals. They are not as numerous in Hollywood as people seem to believe, but there are probably more here than in, say, the aluminum siding and storm door industry. In all that time I never met one that could have been straight. They really are born that way.
So no, I don’t think it’s a case of persuasion.
What is your evidence? Both of those statements seem more based on faith than evidence.
Sure. it’s hard to trust the so-called authorities on either side. So I use my experience, my eyes and ears, and some considered judgment about human nature, as seen in actual person to person encounters. No filter for political correctness. No guesses about the evolution of psychological blah-blah. Not faith at all. In this matter, I have no faith.
Yeah, I have tentative conclusions.
If your cousin’s teenage niece thinks she’s a boy? Yep, probably grow out of it.
Your sister’s 18 year old son who needlepoints, memorizes Broadway scores, has no apparent interest in girls, and aspires to be a choreographer? Uh…maybe you better sit down for this, but…
Consider other notorious examples of Mind Viruses, such as:
And so forth.
It all seems very consistent to me.
I think there is a base rate of homosexuality where it is not a case of persuasion. But the culture has made homosexuality extremely high status and popular. I think that adds to the base rate.
The book I wrote about recently, Crazy Like Us, asserts that once a pool of “symptoms” for a condition is established, a number of people will suddenly start to fit those symptoms. The author referred to them as memetic diseases.
I think it goes a long why to explaining things such as why so many celebrities have trans children.
Many are.
But sexuality, like most things, is on a spectrum. I know people who are flexible, and persuadable. At Barnard, girls were sometimes called LUGs – Lesbian Until Graduation.
Which suggests that some are born that way, some are born the other way, and there is a big squishy middle which is willing to be persuaded one way or the other. This is a reasonable explanation for how so very many homosexuals in history managed nevertheless to father children.
I have spent some time over the years thinking about why I am what I am.
I think it is one of these possibilities, genetic or a product of my formative period, or a combination of the two.
Two sources have given me insights that put emphasis on the formative years.
Morris Massey’s “What You are is Where You were When . . .”
Neil Howe’s “Fourth Turning” and “Generations”
The Covid-19 panic made me dig in more because of the apparent mass psychosis that it produced.
I also was exposed to the Myers-Briggs Personality trait analysis during my working career.
All very interesting stuff.
There are at least a million angles to this question, and twenty-five years ago, I think the residents of the state of Massachusetts debated them all during the emotional wars over gay adoption in our state. :)
Speaking as someone who has spent a lot of time as a volunteer in our elementary, middle, and high schools, the promotion of the gay lifestyle and choice absolutely increases the numbers of children who decide to go that way. Schools are highly competitive socially. For every kid who “succeeds” socially–in the dating scene particularly–there’s another kid who does not succeed. In that competitive dynamic, the kids who believe they are failing look for reasons to explain it. “Being gay” or “being trans” is a very convenient “explanation,” which offers the added benefit of special attention for the victim status.
The reasoning is as old as time and human history: “It’s not my fault.”
And it is a lot less work to grasp at this explanation than it is to try to make oneself more appealing to the other kids in social settings, which in some sad cases is an impossible feat for them to achieve anyway for a variety of reasons.
Presenting the “gay lifestyle” or “trans lifestyle” also offers a way to “rebel” against one’s parents, which, again, is something kids really enjoy doing.
It’s a horrible situation for parents, and it has gotten progressively more horrible with each passing year.
I don’t think it’s necessarily a question of persuasion. But there is inherent value in having cultural norms.
The human psyche is terribly complicated and chaotic, and especially so during adolescence, so it’s not at all surprising that young people (who have no experience and poor judgment) would have difficulty figuring things out. But when there are strong societal norms, those help to keep you stabilized even when you might not have the means to find such stability yourself.
Such norms, when they work, mean that there is a cost to being too weird. This doesn’t mean you can’t be weird if you really believe that that’s who you are, but you must be honest and accept that you are weird. There was a time when this wasn’t a problem: some people decided that they were happier being outside the mainstream, but they accepted that they were outside the mainstream.
Now those guardrails are gone; there is no cost to being weird, because we are told that there is no such thing as weird, and we are all required to pretend to accept it (or even celebrate it). Everything is normal and beautiful. So if you’re confused about which path to take, why not choose the one that will make you a member of a popular and trendy clique, rather than the one that is just ordinary and boring?
Here’s an interesting video of a discussion about where we are today. Neil Howe has a theory that we go through cycles and that we are in the last of four phases, the crisis, and Trump could be the catalyst for change:
As ‘Thoughtful Money’ blog’s Adam Taggart
I would expect homosexuality to be no more common in humans than other animals. Anything over that is a mental creation. I can accept that chromosomes gone wrong can create a homosexual like any other birth defect. It should be accepted as such, neither mocked nor celebrated. I do not celebrate a person’s deformity or defect but respect them all the same. I also would not respect a person who wished others had the same defect. Homosexuality seems to be more common in the arts. Perhaps homosexuality in that small percent is beneficial to society. Let them live their lives as they please, respected for their contributions to society. I draw the line at recruiting straight people to change. Someone told me about their now happily married daughter who graduated college believing she was a lesbian, convinced of that by a college professor who was a lesbian.
The trans push is just a sign we have a sick, dying culture. Mother Nature didn’t suddenly advance evolution rapidly to something that would eventually lead to human extinction.
Excellent comment BXO which I entirely agree with. I just want to add something to it. We are also currently living in culture which encourages and rewards (real and imagined) victims and victimhood. This is completely a product of the Left – it started with race, class and ethnicity and has been expanded into sexual orientation, trans insanity, and even obesity. In this culture, victims get special treatment and, at least some (I think a fair amount) of the trans contagion is due to this. Rather than being a white person at the bottom of the totem pole and responsible for all of society’s ills, you can move up to one of the special groups on that totem pole with the requisite rewards that come with that status.
Why are needlepointing, Broadway musicals, and choreography gay?
I don’t know. Above my pay grade. Stereotypes are not always true, but there’s usually a reason why they form.
That is completely credible now that I think about it. It’s also horrifying.
I suspect gay is
geneticheritable and environmental, like most traits. Intelligence is ~60/40, but the social influence on gayness must be significantly stronger. My working hypothesis is 40/60.And the Wizard of Oz fandom.
There’s a difference between stereotype and archetype.
Actually, they’re opposites.
That’s a weird title for a chart that doesn’t show any numbers. Nor does it explain the color coding for the markers.
There could be many different things that would trigger homosexuality. One theory I’ve heard is that a traumatic event can result in a person turning gay. Another is a long-term, sustained failure to find someone of the opposite sex to be with . . .
Considering that a “full-on” homosexual would be limited to an even smaller share of the population, why would that be “better?” Or maybe it would just be a way to somehow justify the loneliness?
Isn’t it funny how the huge increase in trans people in the last 10 years just happens to coincide with a political need of the Democratic Party, specifically, the need to have a new minority to champion after the victory in the Supreme Court for gay marriage? Maybe mind viruses can be caused by politicians.
Yep!
So I went looking for it, right? Let me tell you my friend, the internet is a dark and slimy place. I’m still checking to be sure I didn’t get any on me.
I searched a bit, doing the modern excuse for “research” and “detective work.” I eventually found a few things very similar to that map but not precisely. Nowhere did I find a hypertext version, only images.
But I felt I was on the scent when I found this site with a very similar image. Its subtle gayness may have contributed to my evaluation – those people are very smart, you know. Sorry for the large screen cap. Comment continues below.
(Parenthetical: I really look down on those yahoos who are always going on about the terrrrrfffs, you know? I get that I’m being elitist, but I just can’t get on with such vulgar peasants.)
This nationwide map is a dangerous resource, says James. And I can’t find it anywhere, that’s not fair, says Barfly. But he persisted.
The internet’s search and lookup structures are thoroughly corrupted. It was by following an idle distraction that I found this 2022 article in the Post Millennial. Short version is there once was such a map based on Google data, and they hid it because it was alarming the normals and James complained.
It is not safe to explicitly name the objects of one’s despite and contempt, so I will shut up. I will go see how I can give the Post Millennial a little support.
We have uninvented the Internet search. There is a market niche waiting to be refilled.
This article clarifies things a little.
One trans-friendly person made the original map. Here’s her current version. Not much detail – it’s just the yellow pages for tranny drug pushers and chop shops.
The Gender Mapping Project copied the original and began to add information. That, I think, is the version that’s been disappeared. There was some dustup about copying, the DMCA was mentioned. Twitter (this was 2022) and Fatbook took down the Gender Mapping Project’s account.
More power to them. Go TERFs!
First I ever heard of this word. Is it best to remain ignorant of what it means?