Binarność i sieć. Skracanie smyczy genetyczno-kulturowej w obliczu fizycznego zagrożenia dla zbiorowości społecznych
Binarity and network. Shortening the genetic-cultural leash in the face of the physical threat for the social collectives

Summary/Abstract: The article presents the concepts of shortening the genetic-cultural leash under the influence of events posing a threat for the population. Since the assessment of the real threat may be the effect of media influence, strengthening the message of such a threat may lead as a result to simplifying the complexity of the socio-cultural world. Shorten- ing the leash may consist in partial rejection of products of strictly cultural evolution, and as a consequence of cultural diversity, in favor of more primitive patterns of think- ing and acting. The consequence of this is self-perpetuating social polarization, which can sometimes lead to the feedback in the form of increasing the threat to the popula- tion. At the same time, defense mechanisms negating the threat may be revealed, and thus neutralize the emotions associated with it. In the event that the threat is real, the parties to the dispute may authenticate their own message, using arguments of opponents as well. At the memetic level, this may mean the relative closing of the memplexes and the adoption of “foreign” memes using mechanisms of regulation, manipulation of the status of a given idea in the network of meanings through meta-memes. For several decades, global warming has been indicated as a real threat to the population of Homo sapiens. On the basis of long-term observation of several websites, the author presents how ideas penetrate between communities of promoters of knowledge about the climate and their opponents.

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