Nazism, Communism, Islamism. What makes mind viruses take control of societies and use human hosts to battle other mind viruses in an effort to build an organization to propagate the ideas?<p>I view it in an epidemiological context. Yes, there is a certain susceptibility in the human mind, but we have much bigger second-order effects when it comes to groups of people, and organizations. Our own ideology is Liberal Democracy, which is more tolerant of multiculturalism. But the &quot;psychology of the masses&quot; can be a dangerous thing. It can cause a flint (three teenagers being kidnapped in West Bank) to escalate into a flame (war in Gaza where 1500 civilians die), or via escalating reprisals where &quot;refugees&quot; rape women and mobs of hooligans raid peaceful refugees, and so forth.<p>Human life is often lost in the greatest amounts when one ideology is &quot;completing its revolution&quot;. Whether it is the Holodomor or China&#x27;s Three Terrible Years man made famines, or the persecution of Falun Gong, the rights of human beings take a backseat to ideology. That&#x27;s what I find to be most dangerous politically.<p>Although I fear actual viruses, bacteria, overpopulation and world-ending events more, an inflexible ideology + power is a pretty terrible combination.