Ideas Mutate
Throughout history, humanity has been driven by transformative ideas that catapulted human knowledge to higher pedestal, whether in science or morality or philosophy. The pivotal knowledge opens new pastures of query. This new knowledge is like a new tool added to our jury-rigging armoury. What ensues is a play of ideas, as men get busy using this new tool in conjunction with other existing ideas and “see what happens!”. Ideas travel in all sorts of directions. In biology, such travel is called as blind mutations. Nobody really knows initially how far the new mutations of ideas will go. Some die in infancy, while others last. The ones which last are successful, but not necessarily good (after all they were blind mutations, remember!). So, the good & bad ideas flourish, extending their reach, creating ripples across the environment, setting the direction & speed of human endeavours – the good ones progressing humanity, while bad ones regress, or prevent progress, at best! In this article I primarily focus on the bad ones.
Great ideas often evolve—or morph—into unintended forms, sometimes distorting their original purpose. Misinterpretations, power dynamics, or the complexities of implementation can turn noble intentions into tools of digression, stagnation, regression, division, oppression, or misuse. This phenomenon raises crucial questions about how and why ideas lose their way, and what we can learn to safeguard their true essence.
Let’s look at some examples from history in which, with hindsight, we can clearly see how good ideas segue into bad ones.
Example1: Evolution to Eugenics
Good Idea: Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
Random mutations, which compete for survival in an environment; one’s which get fitment to the environment, survive; others perish. This was called Natural Selection.
Bad Idea: Eugenics
Human traits like intelligence and character were inherited and that society could be improved by encouraging the “fit” to reproduce and discouraging reproduction among the “unfit.”
The Morph: Francis Galton was a cousin of Charles Darwin. He was a polymath with contributions in the fields of statistics, geography and psychology. Galton was inspired by Darwin’s theory of natural selection. It led him to propose his theories on heredity & Eugenics (good birth) – human traits like intelligence and character were inherited and that society could be improved by encouraging the “fit” to reproduce and discouraging reproduction among the “unfit”. His ideas laid the groundwork for the eugenics movement, which gained traction in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This movement later influenced harmful policies, such as forced sterilizations and racial purity laws, particularly in the United States and Nazi Germany. Policies based on eugenics were used to marginalize those deemed “unfit,” often targeting the poor, disabled, mentally impaired and minority groups.
With hindsight, it is impossible to miss this as a cautionary tale about the misinterpretation of science to justify social inequalities, that too by Charles Darwin’s first cousin himself!
Example 2: From Socratic idea ethical philosophy & virtue to Plato’s idea of ideal society (Utopia)
Good Idea: Socrates, as depicted in Plato’s dialogues, emphasized questioning, critical thought, and the pursuit of truth through dialectic methods. His ideas were rooted in humility, self-awareness, and moral integrity.
Bad Idea: Plato’s Republic interprets these principles into a vision of a “just” society with a rigidly hierarchical structure, ruled by philosopher-kings.
The Morph: What started with Socrates as an individual pursuit of virtue, segued into a idealistic vision of a just society, determined by “Who should rule”, with a rigid hierarchical society ruled by philosophical-kings. This paved the way for an authoritarian model prioritising order and centralised control. Autocrats like Juliet Caesar and Augustus arrived on the scene and change in political leadership through violence became the norm. Much later, Plato’s ideas culminated into the philosophical justification of “benevolent dictatorship”!
Example 3: Marxism to Totalitarianism
Good Idea: Utopia – an equitable world; a classless, stateless society achieved through the collective ownership of production.
Bad Idea: Totalitarianism, Communism, Maoism, mass mediocrity
The Morph: The lofty ideas of equity were upended as a tool of mass violent toppling of ruling regimes, totalitarian power centres. The equity was ironically achieved through a mass mediocrity – everyone was miserable. Individual sovereignty was highly compromised (North Korea says HI!).
Example 4: Religions, from spiritual quests to Dogmatic Control
Good Idea: Most religions started as a subset of philosophy, as a quest to comprehend the creation, life, consciousness, morality.
Bad Idea: Religious identity (even of some of the most peaceful ones) have been used world over, throughout history (and continues to do so!) justify control, oppression and violence.
Example 5: From Equality & Liberty to Woke
Good Idea: Equality, Liberty & Freedom
Bad Idea: Woke ideas like DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion)
The Morph: The ideas of equality, freedom and liberty were hallmarks of the Enlightenment and bedrock of modern USA & France constitutions. The term ‘woke’ initially referred to awareness about racial & social injustice. Over time, it has got morphed into vigilance against inequalities related to gender, sexuality etc. These ideas are hijacked by idea pathogens like postmodernism, radical feminism, cultural relativism, cancel culture and ideological tribalism. Wokeism has infiltrated academia and corporations. Pro-Hamas protests in universities and the front-burnering of diversity over merit, as a criterion for corporate recruitments are glaring examples of this.
Example 6: From Risk hedging through Financial Derivatives to Leveraged Gambling
Good Idea: Financial Derivatives (Futures, Swaps & Options) were a great idea for hedging risks.
Bad Idea: Weapons of mass financial destruction
Greed rode these ‘tools of mass financial destruction’ to create a giant Global Financial Crisis of 2008. It continues its mass destruction through death by a thousand cuts as it preys on millions of traders who used this leveraged tool to punt in stock markets.
Memes (Ideas) Evolve like genes
Memes evolve like genes. And just like gene evolution is blind, meme evolution is blind too. They mutate in all directions – great, good, bad, ugly. 99.99% of species that emerged have gone extinct. However, one species makes all the difference going forward – homo sapiens!
We are special. Our consciousness, creativity, and knowledge makes us special. We have the potential to leverage our knowledge & creativity to ensure an endless growth in civilization reaching far & beyond in this infinite universe. For this to happen, we have to ensure that the evolution – genetic or memetic, ceases to be blind. In other words, biologically, our species and all the other species that help us exist, must prevail. Similarly, when it comes to ideas, we have to ensure that good, progressive ideas flourish, while the bad ones are nipped in the bud. With hindsight, all the above morphing of god ideas into bad look clear, as the bad ideas manifest into bad outcomes (eg. eugenics into nazism, derivatives as weapons of mass financial destruction of 2008). But, we need proactive nipping in the bud, rather than waiting for the bad ideas to manifest into bad outcomes.
For this to happen (nipping bad ideas in the bud), ideas, and their mutations need to be fiercely debated and the wrong ideas need to be called out. Freedom of expression is paramount here (Cancel Culture needs cancellation!). This will ensure the progress of our civilization is not derailed through bad ideas. This method of debating out the ideas is far cheaper than letting the ideas play out and cause mass suffering and ‘wasting’ useful time in history by derailing progress. Here are two quotes from Karl Popper:
“By criticising our theories we can let our theories die in our stead… we can get rid of a badly fitting theory before the adoption of the theory makes us unfit to survive.” – The Myth of Framework
Our attempts to see and to find the truth are not final, but open to improvement’ that our knowledge, our doctrine, is conjectural; that it consists of guesses, of hypotheses, rather than of final and certain truths; and that criticism and critical discussion are our only means of getting nearer to the truth. – Conjectures and Refutations
Here’s The Thing:
These examples underline the importance of vigilance in the interpretation and application of ideas. While ideas are born in a specific context with certain intentions, their downstream applications often deviate, shaped by power, human ambition & short term incentives or simply misunderstandings. While Darwinian evolution of ideas can always tilt towards the bad, we can strive to maintain the progressive trajectory of great ideas while resisting their distortion.
When we see an interpretation of an idea, we need to guard against:
- Contextual Integrity – Preservation of the original context while extending them to new domains.
- Encourage, not cancel, debate
- Skin in the game/Conflict of interest – Those propagating the ideas must have skin in the game, with no personal axe to grind.
- If it really matters to you, like in domains of health, finance etc, you need to be self-capable of understanding things, not just blindly relying on authorities or experts to do it for you.
- Develop knowledge. Read, Read & Read even more. Know the stuff.
- Develop a sense of meta-cognition of what’s going around. Are you & the masses getting swayed towards regression? Are your beliefs the best explanation? Are there better explanations?
- When you spot a morphing of a bad idea, don’t go with the flow… be ready to display the atavistic response – Fight or Flight!