I came up with the word "phobeplex" the other day, a memeplex that is rooted in threatening annihilation of the genes, often co-existing with a binary opposite of eternal life or "being saved". It's derived from phobia, fear, and using -plex similar to Susanne Blackmore's selfplex (2000)^[1], also used later by Hoyle Leigh (2010)^[2], and memeplex (origin unknown to me. )

"With a monopoly on violence, lower level systems in the brain, the paleo-mammalian brain and the brain stem, favour ideas similar to the Catholic idea of hell, eternal suffering, hitch-hiking on neurosis, existing as what could be called a phobeplex, a memeplex that is rooted in threatening annihilation of the genes, often co-existing with a binary opposite of eternal life or "being saved". "

A phobeplex is threatened by for example psychedelics, because they reset the amygdala fight and flight system^[3]. Cannabis for example, on me, seems to counter-act testosterone, which is a neurotogen, and so THC kills phobeplexa or prevents them from reproducing, similar to how antibiotics act on bacterial infections.

Statism as a phobeplex, or meme pool informed by phobeplexa

If a phobeplex is viewed as a living organism, fighting for its survival, that shows how religious myths like the story of hell are just niches within meme pools, meme cultures, that exist within the environment of the human brain, similar to how an E. coli culture can live in a petri dish or a coral reef can live in the environment of an ocean. The phobeplex is an organism that needs to feed from something to continue to reproduce, regardless of how, it will find a way, either through the Abrahamitic mythology of hell, or the Westphalia mythology of the atomic bomb^[4], nature finds a way, similar to how a tree sapling breaks through the asphalt.

The use of a monopoly on violence, coercion by deterrents to mediate behaviour, act on the fight and flight system within the human brain, lower level systems that involve survival instincts in the brain stem, and re-orient attention ("survival mode") as well as applying a filter on incoming memes, favouring what can be broadly called "statism", a phobeplex that acts as a trojan meme, a self-reinforcing consensus trance that propagates through consensus maintained via imitation of the phobeplex, similar to how consensus in Bitcoin or Ethereum is maintained through nodes "imitating" based on a protocol.

References

1. The Meme Machine (2000)

2. Genes, Memes, Culture, and Mental Illness Toward an Integrative Model (2010)

3. Psychedelics as cultural mutagens and de-conditioning pharmaceuticals (2017)

4. Using memetics to inquire what has been the religion of the 20th century (2018)