What Next, Mass Depraved-Heart Murder? - 2

Some Background

This series is following a lawsuit filed in a California federal court against various government officials (What Next, Mass Depraved-Heart Murder?).

Those officials are state government officials (ibid).

In a post on this blog yesterday, I posted about the dangerous and deadly ideology that is firmly implanted within the halls of government (The Authoritarianism of Climate Change).

This case we are following is a perfect example of the hubris, psychopathy, and murderous heart of the authoritarian leaders and their followers (ibid).

Let's first review the first sentence of the complaint, Oil-Qaeda's response, and the plaintiff's reply.

First, the complaint:

"Every month, Occidental and Chevron directly pump 2.63 times more toxic waste water into the San Joaquin Aquifer than oil released into the Gulf during the entire BP spill. The California Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) plans to allow them to continue for another 21 months. This lawsuit brought to stop the poisoning of the San Joaquin aquifer and to remediate the damage already done to the farmland of Kern County."

(What Next, Mass Depraved-Heart Murder?). The defendant authoritarian leader Oil-Qaeda, and its followers, response was in effect "the king can do no wrong," as pointed out in the plaintiff's reply document:

"The State Defendants (Division of Oil, Gas & Geothermal Resources, Timothy Kustic, Mark Nechodom and Edmund G. Brown, Jr.) assert that they are immune from liability because the alleged acts “involve discretionary policy-making decisions.” (ECF 64-1 at 21:5.) The State Defendants cannot cite to any authority for discretionary decisions when it comes to protecting our water. Congress alone has the power to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act (“the Act”. Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation, Inc. v. United States Environmental Protection Agency, 118 F.3d 1467, 1478 (11th Cir. 1997) (“LEAF”). DOGGR received authority from the EPA to enforce the Act and must “prevent underground injection which endangers drinking water sources.” 42 U.S.C. § 300h(b)(1). Even now, Occidental, California Resources, and Chevron (“Oil Companies”) inject billions of gallons of toxic waste water directly into California’s fresh aquifers. The Oil Companies proudly defend the contamination of this water – they claim they had a right and successfully lobbied for these permits. All of the Defendants forget that there is no right to lobby any California employee or elected official to violate a federal law. The only lawful lobbying would have been for the Oil Companies to lobby Congress. Contributing money to campaigns and then being allowed to violate federal law is the essence of racketeering. The Court should deny the motion to dismiss this RICO lawsuit. Indeed, RICO makes clear that no one should corrupt the government process, and water safety should never be tainted with the evidence of bribery, fraud, and extortion. This case is exactly the type of case envisioned when Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”) in 1970. Congress observed that “money and power are increasingly used to infiltrate and corrupt legitimate business and labor unions and to subvert and corrupt our democratic processes.” United States v. Turkette, 452 U.S. 576, 593, 101 S. Ct. 2524, 2533 (1981)(emphasis added). The United States Supreme Court reversed a dismissal of a RICO case allowing a civil lawsuit involving government corruption that bears striking similarities to this action. H.J. Inc. v. Northwestern Bell Tel. Co., 492 U.S. 229, 109 S.Ct. 2893 (1989). The only significant difference, the corruption in HJ impacted the rates charged telephone customers, not corruption that led to water contamination."

(PLAINTIFFS’ OPPOSITION TO STATE DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO DISMISS COMPLAINT, p. 11-12, emphasis added). This blog has pointed out that the doctrine "the king can do no wrong" is now called "sovereign immunity."

Sovereign immunity is hypothesized to be a toxins-of-power generated doctrine (Sovereign Immunity Source: Toxins of Power?, cf. Sovereign Impunity: A Child of the Supreme People).

Sovereign Immunity / Impunity Is An Authoritarian Concept

The concept "the king can do no wrong" is an ancient concept of Yin/Yang Chinese philosophy in the Daoist/Taoist tradition based on the authoritarian leader created deceit that "shame and guilt" are illusions (The Authoritarianism of Climate Change).

In modern day America it is the philosophy of authoritarian leaders and authoritarian followers, and perhaps Stockholm Syndrome sufferers, who state in one psychological test after another that "there is no right or wrong" when it involves climbing their way "to the top" (ibid).

In other words, they want to hurt anyone anytime and completely get away with it, and they very often do under the doctrine of sovereign immunity.

Thus, they declare unabashedly in official court papers that they can poison the drinking water of millions of Californians without any recriminations.

Or, kill and damage millions of people annually via global warming induced climate change without any shame or guilt (The Private Empire's Social Media Hit Squads, 2).

So, their expectation is that the victims must pick up the tab (You Are Here - 5).

The previous post in this series is here, the next post in this series is here.

Hypothesis: Toxins of Power Originate in Molecular Machines - 2

Universe of molecular machines

I. Introduction

A recent post at Dredd Blog points out that the physical universe, including the human brain and body, is composed substantially of molecular machines (The New Paradigm: The Physical Universe Is Mostly Machine - 3).

That post draws from, among other things, two books mentioned in the New York Review of Books, and a long list of Dredd Blog posts on the subject of molecular machines going back to 2009 (The New Paradigm: The Physical Universe Is Mostly Machine).

Those two books are: "Life’s Engines: How Microbes Made Earth Habitable", and "A New History of Life: The Radical New Discoveries About the Origins and Evolution of Life on Earth."

II. The Revolutionary Context

In a previous Dredd Blog post, the latter book had been discussed a bit, even featuring a video of the author, at a book signing in Seattle.

There, Dr. Peter Ward talked about the book contents, which indicated that the book was revolutionary (Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 42).

The first chapter of the first book I mentioned, the other book in the review, Life’s Engines, discusses how scientists missed the full picture of evolution:

The concept of genes and the basis of the physical inheritance of traits were totally unknown to Darwin, or anyone else at the time. [p. 19]
...
The concept of origin, as in the origin of life, was in the back of Darwin’s mind but not explicitly discussed in the book. [p. 20]
...
Even if Darwin had observed fossil microbes, he would almost certainly not have understood what their relationship to plants or animals was. Darwin, and virtually every other scientist in the nineteenth century, would have been profoundly surprised to learn that plants and animals had all descended from microbes over a period of time that was completely unimaginable in the nineteenth century ... [p. 21]

(Life’s Engines, Chapter 1, cf. Princeton University Press). The book also takes a revolutionary look at microbes, in terms of their part in evolutionary unfolding.

It pointis out how the establishment's scientific and religious communities at large missed the big little picture by not considering microbial life as the first order of inquiry:

In sum, the oversight of microbes, in both the literal and figurative senses, distorted our worldview of evolution for more than a century, and including microbes in our understanding of evolution is still a work in progress. [p. 12]
...
Microbes were missed because of our observational biases. They had been on this planet for billions of years before the first animal arose. Let’s meet the missing microbes and see how they played an outsized role in making this planet function. Without microbes, we would not be here. [p. 22]

(Life’s Engines, Chap. 1). Thus, the book points out, the two major sources for the science (Darwin) and faith (Bible) of origins had not discussed microbes (in fact Darwin was not even aware of either microbes or genes).

I don't want to be a spoiler, but I will address your attention to the second half of the title of the book "How Microbes Made Earth Habitable."

That indicates a revolution in scientific hypotheses and theories.

III. Ok, So What About The Molecular Machines?

The title of the New York Book Review piece, mentioned in Section I above, sets the molecular machine stage: "How You Consist of Trillions of Tiny Machines."

A concept that has been discussed on Toxins of Power blog for years:

Dr Clarke said: “There are a lot of fundamental questions about the origins of life and many people think they are questions about biology. But for life to have evolved, you have to have a moment when non-living things become living – everything up to that point is chemistry.”
...
“Our cells, and the cells of all organisms, are composed of molecular machines. These machines are built of component parts, each of which contributes a partial function or structural element to the machine. How such sophisticated, multi-component machines could evolve has been somewhat mysterious, and highly controversial.” Professor Lithgow said.
...
Many cellular processes are carried out by molecular ‘machines’ — assemblies of multiple differentiated proteins that physically interact to execute biological functions ... Our experiments show that increased complexity in an essential molecular machine evolved because of simple, high-probability evolutionary processes, without the apparent evolution of novel functions. They point to a plausible mechanism for the evolution of complexity in other multi-paralogue protein complexes.
...
The most complex molecular machines are found within cells.
...
Writing in the journal PLoS Pathogens, the team from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences show how they studied the molecular machine known as the 'type II bacterial secretion system', which is responsible for delivering potent toxins from bacteria such as enterotoxigenic E. coli and Vibrio cholerae into an infected individual.

Professor Richard Pickersgill, who led the research, said: "Bacterial secretion systems deliver disease causing toxins into host tissue. If we can understand how these machines work, then we can work out how it they might be stopped."

(Do Molecular Machines Deliver Toxins of Power?). That there are molecular machines in organisms has been carried forward, on this blog, to also consider whether viruses may also have molecular machine components:

When is a life form not a life form? When it's a virus.

Viruses are strange things that straddle the fence between living and non-living. On the one hand, if they're floating around in the air or sitting on a doorknob, they're inert. They're about as alive as a rock. But if they come into contact with a suitable plant, animal or bacterial cell, they spring into action. They infect and take over the cell like pirates hijacking a ship.
...
Viruses are a curious lot. The standard drawing of the tree of life, the one you find on the inside back cover of biology textbooks, is divided into three branches: Archaea, Bacteria and Eukarya. Viruses don’t make it onto the page.

That makes sense, some scientists argue, because they’re not alive. They can’t reproduce on their own; they require the cozy environment of living cells for their survival. Others disagree. Not only are viruses alive, they say, but genetic evidence indicates that they may have been the first forms of life on Earth, predating cellular life.
...
The processes responsible for the evolution of key innovations, whereby lineages acquire qualitatively new functions that expand their ecological opportunities, remain poorly understood. We examined how a virus, bacteriophage λ, evolved to infect its host, Escherichia coli, through a novel pathway. Natural selection promoted the fixation of mutations in the virus’s host-recognition protein, J, that improved fitness on the original receptor, LamB, and set the stage for other mutations that allowed infection through a new receptor, OmpF. These viral mutations arose after the host evolved reduced expression of LamB, whereas certain other host mutations prevented the phage from evolving the new function. This study shows the complex interplay between genomic processes and ecological conditions that favor the emergence of evolutionary innovations.
...
If not for a virus, none of us would ever be born.

In 2000, a team of Boston scientists discovered a peculiar gene in the human genome. It encoded a protein made only by cells in the placenta. They called it syncytin.
...
What made syncytin peculiar was that it was not a human gene. It bore all the hallmarks of a gene from a virus.

Viruses have insinuated themselves into the genome of our ancestors for hundreds of millions of years.
...
It turned out that syncytin was not unique to humans. Chimpanzees had the same virus gene at the same spot in their genome. So did gorillas. So did monkeys. What’s more, the gene was strikingly similar from one species to the next.

(Are Toxins of Power Machines or Organisms?). We are getting closer all the time, but, we must consider how molecular machines make, and then deliver, toxins of power.

IV. What About The Toxins of Power In Molecular Machines?

There is one ironclad and well known phenomenon deep down in any molecular machine, or any molecule for that matter, which can deliver what we can call a potential toxin of power:

"The analysis of the original proton wave packet involves an interesting phase problem, and, since the energy distribution is temperature dependent, the whole phenomenon is also temperature dependent."
...
"The tunneling times will depend essentially on the height and the form of the barrier. In DNA, the form of the double-well potentials regulating the hydrogen bonds depend not only on the base pair involved but also on neighboring pairs, their net charges, and the entire electric environment. The tunneling time is hence not only characteristic for a certain biological specimen but is also a function of the position in the DNA molecule involved. The tunneling time is very likely also temperature dependent, even if the protons are well shielded in the double helix. The main problem is whether the tunneling time is very short in comparison to the replication time, or whether there exist organisms where the penetration of the barrier is slow in comparison to the replication." 
...
"It should always be remembered that, in Born's interpretation of quantum mechanics, the quantity |¥|² represents the probability density for finding the proton in a specific position. The tunneling of the wave packet is hence a time-dependent process which is going to influence the properties of the genetic code." 
...
"In this connection, it should be observed that the tunneling probabilities depend not only on the base pair involved but also on the electrostatic environment, the neighboring base pairs, etc., which may explain the occurrence of "hot spots."
...
At a DNA replication, the protons have to "choose sides," and the proton code immediately after a DNA replication represents actually a nonstationary state from the quantum-mechanical point of view. The time evolution of the system and particularly the penetration of the potential barrier in the double-well potential represents a loss of the genetic code which should perhaps be considered as the primary cause of aging. The aging is thus a process which goes on continuously in the DNA molecule but gets "manifested" at the replications.
...
Proton tunneling may finally be of importance in connection with the occurrence of spontaneous tumors. The growth of an individual is a highly refined balance between factors which enhance the cell duplication and other factors which limit this duplication so that the organism takes a specific shape. The entire process is stimulated and controlled by various enzymes, and there is a feedback from the environment about which we know, at present, very little. If there is a somatic mutation, i.e., a change of the genetic code in a DNA molecule in the body of an organism, the change may influence the protein synthesis and the balance between the enhancing and controlling enzyme actions in the growth cycle. Actually, the new genetic code may lead to the development of a "new individual" within the individual, i.e., a tumor."
...
"In this paper we have pointed out that, since the protons are not classical particles but "wave packets" obeying the laws of modern quantum theory, the genetic code cannot --in spite of all precautions-- be 100% stable. Due to the quantum-mechanical "tunnel effect," there is always a small but finite probability that the protons will change place, alter the genetic code, and give rise to mutations. This implies also that this transfer of protons over a distance of about 10^-8 cm may be one of the driving forces in the evolution of living organisms on the earth."

(Stem Cell Malfunction A Quantum Toxin Source?, quoting the journal: Reviews Of Modern Physics, Vol. 35, No. 3, by Per-Olov Lowden, 1963). That is a purely abiotic dynamic, in terms of the core physics (cf. The Uncertain Gene).

Proton tunnelling can happen to any atom or molecule that is part of an utterly lifeless rock on planets, a steel beam in a skyscraper, a virus, a microbe, or other biological entities.

V. A Curious Example

Let's look at the corruption of a powerful group, which is ostensibly the most aware and knowledgeable group concerning human cognition.

They are the mind doctors.

Yet, it is coming to light that:

The largest association of psychologists in the United States is on the brink of a crisis, the Guardian has learned, after an independent review revealed that medical professionals lied and covered up their extensive involvement in post-9/11 torture. The revelation, puncturing years of denials, has already led to at least one leadership firing and creates the potential for loss of licenses and even prosecutions.

For more than a decade, the American Psychological Association (APA) has maintained that a strict code of ethics prohibits its more than 130,000 members to aid in the torture of detainees while simultaneously permitting involvement in military and intelligence interrogations. The group has rejected media reporting on psychologists’ complicity in torture; suppressed internal dissent from anti-torture doctors; cleared members of wrongdoing; and portrayed itself as a consistent ally against abuse.

Now, a voluminous independent review conducted by a former assistant US attorney, David Hoffman, undermines the APA’s denials in full – and vindicates the dissenters.

(Guardian: Psychologists and ‘Enhanced’ Interrogation; Full report: PDF). Some of the minds in the group became corrupted by toxins of power.

That infection then spread through the organization's governors under the meme complex dynamics which groups tend to foster (A Structure RE: Corruption of Memes - 3).

VI. Conclusion

This post is getting way to long for a single post, so I will close now and continue this series another day.

The next post in this series will consider the advent of wireless communication, propaganda, and other signalling.

That is, communication of various sorts as both a source of toxins of power, and as a remedial dimension for neutralizing toxins of power (a teaser is here).

For those readers who want to follow the overall evolutionary hypotheses about how the molecular machines evolved, consider (On the Origin of the Genes of Viruses, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13; The Uncertain Gene, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).

The previous post in this series is here.

What Next, Mass Depraved-Heart Murder?

Power corrupts

In this post I offer an actual example of cases where the toxins of power are at work under the covers.

One generally supposes that governments do all they can to protect citizens, especially during droughts or other global warming induced climate change events.

And that would generally be the case except when the toxins of power corrupt the cognitive ability, not to mention the heart of those exposed to power.

Mass-poisoning of the populace does not seem like a normal government function does it?

A federal lawsuit filed in California alleges just that:

Plaintiff Hopkins

"Every month, Occidental and Chevron directly pump 2.63 times more toxic waste water into the San Joaquin Aquifer than oil released into the Gulf during the entire BP spill. The California Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) plans to allow them to continue for another 21 months. This lawsuit brought to stop the poisoning of the San Joaquin aquifer and to remediate the damage already done to the farmland of Kern County."

(Comm. To Protect Our Agricultural Water vs Occidental Oil & Gas, p. 1, emphasis added). I guess the case could also be called The People vs. The Bastids.

Defendants include officials in the California Government, from the Governor on down, as well as a boatload of Oil-Qaeda executives and operatives.

The complaint alleges Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) violations, constitutional violations under color of state law, and conspiracy to commit them:

"G. The Conspiracy

Beginning in 2011, the Oil Companies kept close attention to the EPA audit.

The Oil Companies knew that they ignored the regulations to protect underground water, and if the public knew of the risks, the Oil Companies would face massive liability for potential contamination of groundwater (historical and future). The Oil Companies also knew that they needed government approvals to engage in hydraulic fracturing. If the public knew of their failure to comply with underground injection control (UIC) requirements for waste water, the Oil Companies would be subject to greater scrutiny for hydraulic fracturing – waste water from fracking includes added chemicals.

The Oil Companies also knew that they needed landowners to approve the hydraulic fracturing, and if these landowners knew of these problems, landowners would not allow the Oil Companies to proceed with actions that would damage the farms and water supplies. By at least October 27, 2011, the Oil Companies agreed that no company would provide DOGGR with the documents to show protection of fresh water including (1) geological studies; (2) engineering studies; or (3) casing diagrams. This continues to the present day.

In early October of 2011, Occidental also directly contacted Governor Brown and told him to fire Miller and Chernow. Brown’s office then requested records about the permitting process as it related to Occidental. On October 14, 2011, Chernow sent documents regarding Occidental’s California operations to the senior officials handling the inquiry from Governor Brown. Chernow emailed that he was “willing to follow any direction as required. If direction is different than what the Department is currently pursuing, I would appreciate as explicit direction as possible.”

Less than a week later, on October 19, 2011, Occidental started reporting that “it cannot get the permits it needs for new drilling projects in California.” This was a misrepresentation of the problems arising from Occidental’s own decision not to follow the law.

On October 27, 2011, Occidental’s environmental engineer admitted to Chernow it had “the necessary information . . . However, he’s been told to stand down (by a lawyer is all I know) and not give us anything. There is apparently a meeting in Bakersfield at Oxy’s offices this afternoon to discuss whether they give us what we need or continue to give us nothing.”

Governor Brown’s office and his senior advisor, Cliff Rechtschaffen, scheduled a meeting with Miller and Chernow held the next day. Rechtschaffen notified them that DOGGR must immediately fast track permit approval. His team presented a document entitled the Temporary Assistance Program or TAP. Miller sought guidance from the United States Environmental Protection Agency about the list of demands.

The EPA representative reviewed and commented on it, and Miller responding by writing ... “I agree with your point that this has similarities to what was prepared by [Western States Petroleum Association ] WSPA.”

On November 2, 2011, Miller and Chernow went to another meeting which Rechtschaffen joined over the phone. Miller told Rechtschaffen the proposal violated the Safe Drinking Water Act. Rechtschaffen told her this was an order from Governor Brown."

(ibid, Complaint, pp. 25-27, line numbers removed, emphasis added). In other words, Oil-Qaeda guided the government officials to hide their illegalities.

This guidance of the California State Government by oil companies is not that rare (A Methanol Economy Way Out of Here - 6)

I know that government propaganda has hardened the public perception concerning "conspiracy theories," but the law is very well aware that conspiracies happen every day:

In fact, you might be surprised how many conspiracy theories are handled by the federal and state governments on a daily basis:

Over one-quarter of all federal criminal prosecutions and a large number of state cases involve prosecutions for conspiracy.

(Conspiracy Theory, 112 Yale L.J. 1307 (2003), Preface,  emphasis added). That is a lot of real, serious as a heart attack, beyond a reasonable doubt, and well documented occurrences of "conspiracy theories" going on in reality before the eyes of anyone who wants to see them.

(On The Origin of "Conspiracy Theory"). There is even the notion of conspiracy to commit "depraved-heart murder."

The case featured in this post is a civil case, but RICO can also be used in a criminal context:

"Defendants Brown, Nechodom, Kustic, Oviatt, DOGGR, WSPA, CIPA, OCCIDENTAL OIL AND GAS CORPORATION, CHEVRON U.S.A. INC., and others known and unknown, being persons employed by and associated with the Enterprise did unlawfully, knowingly, and intentionally conduct and participate, directly and directly in the conduct, management, and operation of the affairs of the Enterprise, which was engaged in and affected interstate and foreign commerce through racketeering activity that included numerous acts indictable under 18 U.S.C. § 371 (conspiracy to defraud the United States); 18 U.S.C. §§ 241 (intimidation of any person engaged in free exercise of speech or any Constitutional right); 1341 (mail fraud) , 1343 (wire fraud), 1346.43 (honest services), 1512 (b) (intimidating and threatening witnesses), and 1513(b) (intimidating and threatening witnesses)."

(ibid, Complaint, pp. 43-44, emphasis added; cf. Oil-Qaeda & MOMCOM Conspire To Commit Depraved-Heart Murder).

Hmmmm ....

Anyway, this blog will follow the above case as it develops, while elaborating on long standing Toxins of Power Blog hypotheses concerning the always mystical "toxins of power." 

The next post in this series is here.

Abiotic Evolution: Can It Explain An Origin For The Toxins of Power? - 3

First, since this series has focused to some degree on stem cells (1st post, 2nd post), and since there was a big row/scrap about some scientific papers concerning stem cells (papers that were said to be flawed); today, I will update/narrow the line of reasoning in this series to the degree that these events might apply.

Note that this blog never agreed nor disagreed with the papers which indicated that stress could generate stem cells ("embryonic-like stem cells could be created by exposing bodily cells to stress" - Nature Retraction Notice).

That dust-up, in the journal Nature, is still ongoing to some degree, because there were some mysteries then which still remain in that ongoing scientific drama:

The investigation also has not explained one of the most notable features of the cells — their ability to form a placenta — something that embryonic stem cells do not generally do. “That is still one question that to me is still a mystery,” says Manuel Serrano, a cancer biologist who has worked with stem cells at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre in Madrid.

Serrano, like many of his colleagues, was intrigued by the papers, published in Nature in January 2014, reporting that adult cells could behave like stem cells after experiencing severe stress^{1, 2}. To him, the premise made sense — there was ample evidence in the literature that stressed cells were prone to taking on new identities.

(Nature, "Questions Linger Over Stress-induced Stem Cells", emphasis added). There is little to no dispute that stress has an impact on organisms.

In fact, the stress involved in this drama being played out led to the suicide of one of the scientists involved (STAP Paper Co-author Sasai Commits Suicide).

Second, since we apply the toxins of power hypotheses to adults, we can ignore embryonic and other stem cells, to focus directly on adult stem cells:

Adult stem cells. These stem cells are found in small numbers in most adult tissues, such as bone marrow or fat. Compared with embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells have a more limited ability to give rise to various cells of the body.

Until recently, researchers thought adult stem cells could create only similar types of cells. For instance, researchers thought that stem cells residing in the bone marrow could give rise only to blood cells.

However, emerging evidence suggests that adult stem cells may be able to create unrelated types of cells. For instance, bone marrow stem cells may be able to create bone or heart muscle cells.

(Mayo Clinic, emphasis added). So, as these cells are going through the process of "shape shifting", what could cause that morphing process to be initiated, and what toxins could impact upon those cells, and the ones they were morphing into or creating, during and/or after the metamorphic process?

One of the country's top experts on stress (quoted often on this blog) has given stress a substantial amount of thought:

In 1900, what do you think were the leading causes of death in this country?

If you were 20 to 40 years old and a woman, the single riskiest thing you could do was try to give birth. TB, Pneumonia, influenza killed a lot of other people. But few people under the age of 100 die of the flu anymore. Relatively few women die in childbirth. Instead, we die of these utterly bizarre diseases that have never existed before on the planet in any sort of numbers—diseases like heart disease, cancer, adult-onset diabetes, and Alzheimer’s.

Now, some of this has to do with nuts and bolts biology. But some of it has to do with issues that nobody ever had to think about before in medicine—totally bizarre questions like, “What’s your psychological makeup?” or “What’s your social status?” or “How do people with your social status get treated in your society?

And this one: “Why is it that when we’re feeling unloved, we eat more starch?” Figure that out, and you’ve cured half the cases of diabetes in this country.

Indeed, when you look at the diseases that do us in, they are predominantly diseases that can be caused, or made worse, by stress. As a result, most of us in this room will have the profound Westernized luxury of dropping dead someday of a stress-related disease. That’s why it’s so urgent that we understand stress—and how to better manage it.

(How to Relieve Stress, by Dr. Sapolsky; emphasis added). So, the stress addressed in the valid parts of the scientific papers that were recalled by the journal Nature for other reasons, and the subsequent testing (i.e. "embryonic-like stem cells could be created by exposing bodily cells to stress") are still worthy of further consideration.

A substantial number of related events that are causes of, or contributors to, our demise or death are also worthy of further consideration.

Why, then, would anyone question the potential impact of the constant exposure to stress on people who are sitting in seats of power?

Especially since astronomically smaller amounts of exposure to stress in "minor" events, such as traffic jams, can even have an impact:

For 99 percent of the species on this planet, stress is three minutes of screaming terror in the savannah, after which either it’s over with or you’re over with. That’s all you need to know about the subject if you’re a zebra or a lion.

If you’re a human, though, you’ve got to expand the definition of a stressor in a very critical way. If you’re running from a lion, your blood pressure is 180 over 120. But you’re not suffering from high blood pressure—you’re saving your life. Have this same thing happen when you’re stuck in traffic, and you’re not saving your life. Instead you are suffering from stress-induced hypertension.

We humans turn on the stress response with memories, with emotions, with thoughts, and the whole punch line is: That’s not what it evolved for. Do it regularly enough, and you’re going to damage your cardiovascular system. Increased blood flow hammers on the walls of your blood vessels, causing inflammation. Fat and glucose and cholesterol glom on and begin to clog your arteries. That’s bad news. You are more at risk for chronic fatigue, sleep disruption, muscle atrophy, and probably most importantly, adult-onset diabetes, this once obscure disease that’s just on the edge of being the number one killer in this country.

Chronic stress also does bad things to the nervous system. Stress kills neurons in the part of the brain called the hippocampus and weakens the cables between neurons, so they can’t talk to each other. This impairs the formation and retrieval of long-term memory. The opposite thing happens in the amygdala, which is where we see fear in a brain scanner. In the hippocampus, stress causes stuff to shrivel up. But stress feeds the amygdala. It actually gets bigger. Chronic stress creates a hyper-reactive, hysterical amygdala, and this tells us tons about what stress has to do with anxiety disorders.

(ibid, "How to Relieve Stress", emphasis added). Regular readers know that this blog has many posts concerning the impact which the amygdala has on behavior (e.g. The Toxic Bridge To Everywhere, Hypothesis: The Cultural Amygdala).

But, perhaps equally central to the analysis of what impact it has on those in seats of power, the frontal cortex is implicated too:

What about the frontal cortex? It’s the most human part of the brain; we’ve proportionally got more of it than any other species does. And what does the frontal cortex do? It does gratification postponement, self-discipline, long-term planning, emotional regulation. It’s the last part of the brain to fully mature—that doesn’t happen until you’re 25 years old, which explains a lot about the freshmen year of college.

This has a very interesting implication. If this is the last part of the brain to fully develop, by definition, then, it is the part of the brain least constrained by genes and most sculpted by experience. What does chronic stress do to the frontal cortex? Atrophy of neurons, disconnecting circuits. As a result, you make the most idiotic decisions, which are going to haunt you for the rest of your life, and yet you think they’re brilliant at the time. That’s another effect of chronic stress: Your judgment goes down the tubes.

(ibid, "How to Relieve Stress", emphasis added). That fits well with what we see happening in seats of power (e.g. The Peak Of The Oil Wars - 12, New Climate Catastrophe Policy: Triage - 11, The Ignoratti Preacher Says: "The Ice Age Cometh").

And since Dr. Sapolsky said "it [frontal cortex] is the part of the brain least constrained by genes and most sculpted by experience", it might help to review posts related to the impact that experience has on those in seats of power (epigenetic and cultural: One Man's Junk Gene Is Another Man's Treasure Gene?, Choose Your Trances Carefully).

Some of the observations the world makes based on Americans in power, when "judgment goes down the tubes", is to change their perspective on America:

In the early fall of 2014, I traveled from my home in Oslo, Norway, through much of Eastern and Central Europe. Everywhere I went in those two months, moments after locals realized I was an American the questions started and, polite as they usually were, most of them had a single underlying theme: Have Americans gone over the edge? Are you crazy? Please explain.

(The Life and Death of Bright Things - 2, emphasis in original). Stress causes death and lack of judgment, nevertheless its impact on those in power, in some ways, is said to still be a mystery:

The profound evolution of primate neocortex was influenced by the computational demands of living in a complex social environment (Dunbar & Shultz, 2007). For primates, a key factor creating structure within the social environment is power. In nonhuman primates, an animal’s power is partly determined by the degree to which they dominate conspecifics. Those that are able to exert dominance over others gain greater access to valuable resources like food and potential mates (Dunbar, 1980; Lewis, 2002; Watts, 2010). In human societies, power similarly creates “dependence asymmetries,” wherein the powerless depend heavily on the powerful for resources, whereas the powerful enjoy relatively unabated access to resources (Russell & Fiske, 2010). This asymmetry results in differences in how the powerful and the powerless process other individuals. Despite what we know about the effects of power on social information processing, the majority of the evidence is indirect, and the mechanisms underlying power’s influence remain a mystery.
...
Future research will be needed to determine the mechanisms through which power impacts motor resonance. Though it is dangerous to rely solely on brain imaging to infer mental activity (cf. Poldrack, 2006), extant neuroimaging data are crucial for generating testable predictions for this work. In this vein, one possibility is that the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), a brain region that sends visual input to resonant brain areas, is inhibited or somehow deactivated by high power.

(Power Changes How The Brain Responds To Others, PDF; emphasis added). Clearly, there is mystery still out there to be considered by those laboring in the realm of serious research.

That reality lends some credence to this blogs focus on a broad area of potential sources for the origin toxins of power, from memes all the way to microbes, viruses, and molecules.

Since abiotic evolution still takes place in an area which impacts the relevant areas higher up in the hierarchy of physics, genetics, and biology, in closing today's post, let's take a look at that abiotic source once again:

"The analysis of the original proton wave packet involves an interesting phase problem, and, since the energy distribution is temperature dependent, the whole phenomenon is also temperature dependent."
...
"The tunneling times will depend essentially on the height and the form of the barrier. In DNA, the form of the double-well potentials regulating the hydrogen bonds depend not only on the base pair involved but also on neighboring pairs, their net charges, and the entire electric environment. The tunneling time is hence not only characteristic for a certain biological specimen but is also a function of the position in the DNA molecule involved. The tunneling time is very likely also temperature dependent, even if the protons are well shielded in the double helix. The main problem is whether the tunneling time is very short in comparison to the replication time, or whether there exist organisms where the penetration of the barrier is slow in comparison to the replication." 
...
"It should always be remembered that, in Born's interpretation of quantum mechanics, the quantity |¥|² represents the probability density for finding the proton in a specific position. The tunneling of the wave packet is hence a time-dependent process which is going to influence the properties of the genetic code." 
...
"In this connection, it should be observed that the tunneling probabilities depend not only on the base pair involved but also on the electrostatic environment, the neighboring base pairs, etc., which may explain the occurrence of "hot spots."
...
At a DNA replication, the protons have to "choose sides," and the proton code immediately after a DNA replication represents actually a nonstationary state from the quantum-mechanical point of view. The time evolution of the system and particularly the penetration of the potential barrier in the double-well potential represents a loss of the genetic code which should perhaps be considered as the primary cause of aging. The aging is thus a process which goes on continuously in the DNA molecule but gets "manifested" at the replications.
...
Proton tunneling may finally be of importance in connection with the occurrence of spontaneous tumors. The growth of an individual is a highly refined balance between factors which enhance the cell duplication and other factors which limit this duplication so that the organism takes a specific shape. The entire process is stimulated and controlled by various enzymes, and there is a feedback from the environment about which we know, at present, very little. If there is a somatic mutation, i.e., a change of the genetic code in a DNA molecule in the body of an organism, the change may influence the protein synthesis and the balance between the enhancing and controlling enzyme actions in the growth cycle. Actually, the new genetic code may lead to the development of a "new individual" within the individual, i.e., a tumor."
...
"In this paper we have pointed out that, since the protons are not classical particles but "wave packets" obeying the laws of modern quantum theory, the genetic code cannot --in spite of all precautions-- be 100% stable. Due to the quantum-mechanical "tunnel effect," there is always a small but finite probability that the protons will change place, alter the genetic code, and give rise to mutations. This implies also that this transfer of protons over a distance of about 10^-8 cm may be one of the driving forces in the evolution of living organisms on the earth."

(Stem Cell Malfunction A Quantum Toxin Source?, @ Review of Modern Physics). While we digest all this we need to remember that we are considering the impact of the type of stress which is induced or enhanced by exposure to power.

Today, I am saying that such impacts may reach all the way down to the abiotic dynamics that can cause mutations at the atomic level.

I am also saying that those impacts may reach up to higher level genetic dynamics, as well as upon even higher level adult stem cells as they function to repair the damage stress has caused to cells around them.

The previous post in this series is here.

Comparing a Group-Mind Trance to a Cultural Amygdala

"I said hard a-starboard"

When archaeologists use the word "cultural" it may not mean exactly the same as when we use it in everyday street talk.

The "Museum of Natural and Cultural History, University of Oregon" excavated caves in Oregon this year, in one pursuit on the trail of ancient culture.

When discussing the culture found in "Paisley Caves" in the state of Oregon (likely the oldest yet found in the U.S.), the word we are discussing is used to describe material in layers of cave soil:

Our emphasis was on the recovery of in situ bone, coprolites and cultural materials ... The upper 80 cm of sediments contained sparse Middle and Late Holocene cultural deposits. Deposits between 80 and 160 cm are, for all practical purposes, culturally sterile though a small hearth and a few artifacts, dated at 8440 cal. BP, were encountered just below a lens of Mazama ash at approximately 120 cm. The oldest and densest cultural remains in the cave were located between 190 and 230 centimeters ...

(NGBPP Research at the Paisley Caves, emphasis added). The words "cult" and "culture" hint that "cultural" can describe physical artifacts as well as ways of thinking.

Thus, the concept of "the cultural amygdala" can seem to be ambiguous at first blush (Hypothesis: The Cultural Amygdala, 2, 3, 4).

But, if we use words that we are more accustomed to, it does not seem quite so ambiguous (e.g. compare: Cultural Trance, More About Cultural Trance, Consensus Trance, Trance, Functional Psychosis, and Culture).

The cultural amygdala works like what psychologists call "group-mind trance" as follows:

American psychologist Boris Sidis wrote of a striking instance of a trance that was not limited to one person, but affected a whole group. He cited the memoirs of Russian writer and journalist Ivan Ivanovich Panaev, describing the riots of military colonists in Russia in 1831. Panaev recounted that in the course of some of the hardest fighting, he came across a corporal lying in the street, crying bitterly. When Panaev asked why he was crying, the young soldier said it was because down the street, a mob was trying to kill his beloved commander, Sokolov. Panaev suggested that the corporal stop crying and go to his leader's aid. A little later, when Panaev himself brought soldiers to help Sokolov, he was astonished to see that the corporal had joined the mob and was beating Sokolov with a club. When Panaev asked what on earth he was doing, the young man replied: Everyone else is doing it. Why shouldn't I?

Immersed in the energy of the mob, the corporal had totally given up his own individuality and control of his own mind. His normal perception of reality had disappeared, and he was locked into the thinking and reality of the mob. The mob possessed a corporate mind that overwhelmed the personal views of all who came under its sway. The "group mind" of the rioters was so strong that even the soldier, who was sincerely devoted to his commander, could not resist it. He was plunged into a group-mind trance in which he was absorbed in the thought and emotion of the group and out of touch with reality as he normally knew it.

Group-mind trance does not occur only in highly charged temporary gatherings, such as riots or lynch mobs. Group-mind trance is a part of the everyday life of each one of us. We belong to various kinds of groups--families, work groups, churches, and other organizations. Each has its own group mind that entrances us, perhaps more subtly than a lynch mob, but every bit as effectively. And in the group-mind trance, we experience all the features of other trance states.

Group-mind trances give us a basis for understanding the macrotrance of culture. We could think of group-mind trances as existing on a spectrum from the family on one end to culture on the other. Culture is the group-mind trance of a whole people, and because it is so pervasive, it remains largely invisible to those who are held in its sway.

The influence of group-mind trances cannot be overestimated.
...

The trance that is least recognized but very significant in our lives is group-mind trance ... Here the individual becomes a carrier of the values and drives that characterize the group as a whole. While immersed in the group mind, people may think and act in ways that are totally out of character with how they are when separate. Group-mind trance can occur in connection with such groups as one's family, church, or club; at sports events, rock concerts, tenants' meetings, and political conventions; or when involved with the staff at work or friends at a gathering. Group-mind trance forms a bridge to cultural trance, which may be thought of as a group-mind trance on the level of a whole people.

(Are You In a Trance?, cf. Trance Zero: The Psychology of Maximum Experience, emphasis added). We are born into the trance-like dynamics of our culture which builds our cultural amygdala circuits in our brain.

Another brain scientist has put it this way:

Probably 98 percent of your reasoning is unconscious - what your brain is doing behind the scenes. Reason is inherently emotional. You can't even choose a goal, much less form a plan and carry it out, without a sense that it will satisfy you, not dis­gust you. Fear and anxiety will affect your plans and your ac­tions. You act differently, and plan differently, out of hope and joy than out of fear and anxiety.

Thought is physical. Learning requires a physical brain change: Receptors for neurotransmitters change at the synapses, which changes neural circuitry. Since thinking is the activation of such circuitry, somewhat different thinking re­quires a somewhat different brain. Brains change as you use them-even unconsciously. It's as if your car changed as you drove it, say from a stick shift gradually to an automatic.

(The Toxic Bridge To Everywhere, quoting Dr. Lakoff, italics added). The part of our brain that begins to be shaped by our culture early on, continues to be shaped in our adulthood.

Wars and other problems (Titanic Mistakes Using The W Compass) can and do develop from time to time, when cultural amygdala circuits "naturally" function differently in two different cultures:

The "foreigner" is, moreover, outside the principal immediate system of law and order; hence aggression toward him does not carry the same opprobrium or immediate danger of reprisal that it does toward one's "fellow-citizen." Hostility to the foreigner has thus furnished a means of transcending the principal, immediately threatening group conflicts, of achieving "unity" —but at the expense of a less immediate but in fact more dangerous threat to security, since national states now command such destructive weapons that war between them is approaching suicidal significance.

Thus the immense reservoir of aggression in Western society is sharply inhibited from direct expression within the smaller groups in which it is primarily generated. The structure of the society in which it produced contains a strong predisposition for it to be channeled into group antagonisms. The significance of the nation-state is, however, such that there is a strong pressure to internal unity within each such unit and therefore a tendency to focus aggression on the potential conflicts between nation-state units. In addition to the existence of a plurality of such units, each a potential target of the focused aggression from all the others, the situation is particularly unstable because of the endemic tendency to define their relations in the manner least calculated to build an effectively solidary international order. Each state is, namely, highly ambivalent about the superiority-inferiority question. Each tends to have a deep-seated presumption of its own superiority and a corresponding resentment against any other's corresponding presumption. Each at the same time tends to feel that it has been unfairly treated in the past and is ready on the slightest provocation to assume that the others are ready to plot new outrages in the immediate future. Each tends to be easily convinced of the righteousness of its own policy while at the same time it is overready to suspect the motives of all others. In short, the "jungle philosophy"-which corresponds to a larger element in the real sentiments of all of us than can readily be admitted, even to ourselves-tends to be projected onto the relations of nation-states at precisely the point where, under the technological and organizational situation of the modern world, it can do the most harm.

(Certain Primary Sources ... of Aggression ..., p. 319-20, PDF, emphasis added). This difference of culture and its impact was pondered in this series when we considered the impact of a form of culture shock:

For example, let's hone in on that by recognizing for the moment that a person raised in Mississippi on a small farm, then living there through adulthood, will have a different social awareness and cultural Amygdala when compared to a person who is raised and lives their life in the art district of Paris, France.

The more temporary nature of the cultural Amygdala could be envisioned by imagining that the two individuals, one from Paris and one from Mississippi, were relocated in their teens, the person in Paris relocated to a small farm in Mississippi, and the person in Mississippi relocated to the art district in Paris.

The cultural Amygdala hypothesis would predict, upon relocation, a change over time in the cultural Amydala of both individuals as a result of being placed into very different cultures from the one they experienced through their teen years ...

(Hypothesis: The Cultural Amygdala). The rewiring of cultural brain circuits is automatic over time, but resistance to change, i.e., perpetuating the status quo, is the norm.

This is why the ships of state in various cultures have a difficult time making course corrections, and why the majority of them commit suicide:

Historically, self-destruction is the common denominator for past human civilization, culture, and society:

"In other words, a society does not ever die 'from natural causes', but always dies from suicide or murder --- and nearly always from the former, as this chapter has shown."

(A Study of History, by Arnold J. Toynbee). As regular readers know, I have posted Sigmund Freud's writings where he indicated that psychoanalysis of groups, including civilization itself, would not prove unproductive ...

(Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch). Diversity has its benefits together with its drawbacks.

Unless good communication and awareness are part of our cultural amygdala circuitry, an opening for toxins of power to develop arises.

That can cause a dangerous trance like state where those who are on watch miss dangerous threats that develop from time to time (You Are Here).

You might want to read a similar post (Comparing a Meme Complex to a Cultural Amygdala).

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On the cultural trance of deniers ...
02:15-02:50 Dr. Chomsky mentions "institutional contradiction" (another word for cultural trance)

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A New Potential Source for Toxins of Power: Wireless Signals

CQ CQ CQ Wx-104 Got your ears on?

Regular readers here at Toxins of Power Blog know that I look high and low for sources of the Toxins of Power (About Toxins Of Power).

This includes memes, microbes, viruses, memory corruption, and even meteorites (you name it and I search it out).

Today, I announce several new potential sources for those wily rascals that generate toxins of power.

Before getting into the wireless hypothesis, remember that molecular (chemical) signalling, messaging, and/or communication has been considered here before (see e.g. Microbial Hermeneutics, 2).

To move into the additional wireless signalling aspect of communication, let's begin by first checking out a Dredd Blog post which furnishes the following information:

It is well accepted that all objects, whether living or nonliving, are continuously generating electromagnetic fields (EMFs) due to the thermal agitation of their particles that possess charges. Interest in EMFs as alternative forms of cell-to-cell communication can be traced back to at least the second decade of the 20th century. Interactions between EMFs and biosystems have been intensively studied for over a century and a quantitative understanding of many interaction mechanisms exists, There is much evidence that biological processes can be induced or modulated by induction of light of characteristic frequencies.

Recently, distant interactions between mammalian cells through EMF coupling have been shown. Distant (non-chemical) interaction in biosystems is not limited to interactions at the cellular level. Biosystem interaction has been reported at the level of plants, insects and other biosystems.

In 1997 Cosic proposed that there is a resonant interaction between macromolecules that plays an essential role in their bioactivity. The key point of Cosic's finding is the assignment of specific spectral electromagnetic (EM) characteristics of proteins to their specific biological function. Proteins with common biological functionality are known to share one significant peak, called the Consensus Frequency, which is acknowledged to represent the region responsible for the biological functionality. Bio-molecules with the same biological characteristics recognize and bio-attach to themselves when their valence electrons oscillate and then reverberate in an electromagnetic field. Protein interactions can be considered as resonant energy transfer between the interacting molecules. In simple words each protein and biomolecule has its fingerprint electromagnetic characteristics that can be used for its identification. In living systems long-range electromagnetic fields exchange messages across a distance because of matching emissions and absorption spectra. Non-resonating, unwanted random signals are excluded simply because they do not resonate.
...
The chemical mode of communication [between and among microbes] is the best studied of all. Nevertheless, bacteria also use electromagnetic signals as part of sophisticated signaling [systems] that function over distances that are substantially larger than cellular dimensions (which are the order of one to a few micrometers). The following descriptions focus mainly on the investigations in the area of electromagnetically mediated communication of microorganisms.

Research into the electromagnetically mediated communication of microbes started immediately after the discovery of mitogenetic radiation (MR) by Alexander Gurvitch in the 1920s. His observation stimulated early research, which led to over 500 publications on the ability of information exchange by means of electromagnetic fields between micro-organisms.

(On the Origin of the Genes of Viruses - 11, quoting science journals). This means that molecular, chemical communication or the corruption of that molecular, chemical communication between and/or among cells within the human microbiome is not the only potential source of miscommunication --a potential source of "toxins."

Today, I want to focus on a hypothesis I conjured up circa 1994, which is that human brain cells use wireless communication at certain junctures (synapses) within the brain circuitry system.

That is, the human brain circuitry has a wireless component at or in the synapses, which is in addition to the molecular, chemical communication components at or in the synapses.

These hypothetical wireless components are in addition to the known molecular, chemical communication that is conducted between human cells and microbes within our human bodies.

Over the past few years we have already considered, as potential toxin sources, the molecular, chemical communication (or miscommunication) between and/or among microbial and human cells in our bodies.

Wireless communication is the new potential source that we are contemplating today, as well as the potential for corruption of those wireless signals.

Figure 1: Synaptic communication

First, as a contemplative example, imagine that human brain synapses have wireless modules, in addition to the chemical, molecular modules which facilitate communication.

Figure 1, to the right, illustrates synaptic locations - (click to enlarge).

In future posts the construct of those wireless modules will be discussed in more detail.

A closer look at the known chemical, molecular communications, as well as the hypothetical wireless communications that take place in the brain, at synapses, is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: chemical-molecular & wireless signals

The Figure 2 graphic shows the traditional, comparatively slow molecular, chemical communications within the human brain synapse, as well as the hypothesized practically instant communication by wireless, photon signals which are also sent and received in the same synapses in the human brain.

Some cognition in the human brain takes place far too fast and too efficiently for it to be a system composed solely of waiting for slow chemical transfers to take place at synapses.

Therefore, the hypothesis goes, there is also electromagnetic wireless communication which takes place at the speed of light (because the components of that communication, photons, only travel at the speed of light).

If bacteria and viruses can do some wireless communication for efficiency and immediacy, human brain cells must handle at least the most urgent communication in the same or similar wireless fashion don't you think?

Wireless signalling takes place orders of magnitude faster and more efficiently than chemical, molecular communication can take place.

Further, since photons are orders of magnitude smaller that molecules, far less material (matter) is required for wireless communication.

Next, to address the issue of toxins in this process, consider that our civilization's communication system could be disrupted by, for example, CME bursts from the Sun (Coronal Mass Ejection).

That phenomenon tends to disrupt communications (wireless, etc.) between and/or among electronic devices on Earth, including orbiting satellites (ibid).

Disruption and/or corruption of communication can also take place in our brains when viruses, microbes and/or other cells (including brain cells), are conducting wireless communication.

In closing this first post of this series, I want to be clear and emphasize that viral and microbial communication with human cells is not conducted at human brain synapses.

Only human brain cell to human brain cell (neuron to neuron) signalling is being considered in the synapse to synapse depiction and discussion.

Wireless virus and microbe communication would seem to be done in an entirely different location and manner that at synapses.

Thus, we can focus on the origin of toxins of power in this context as arising in the area where hypothesized signal corruption or disruption would take place, which is at or in the synapses of human brain cells.

Comparing a Meme Complex to a Cultural Amygdala

"98% of Reasoning is Subconscious"

In past posts on this blog, discussions have considered the hypothesis of a meme complex (e.g. The Territorial Realm of Toxins of Power).

Similarly. a hypothesis of a cultural amygdala has been advanced (e.g. Hypothesis: The Cultural Amygdala).

A meme complex is an analytical tool like Freud's ego, id, and superego in the sense of not being associated with physical brain parts such as the lobes, medula oblongata, or amygdala (Wikipedia Human Brain). 

The "cultural amygdala" is a notion of physical brain circuits that attach to and extend from the physical amygdala, but it operates like a meme complex in many ways.

The definition or description of a meme complex should help:

A set of mutually-assisting memes which have co-evolved a symbiotic relationship. Religious and political dogmas, social movements, artistic styles, traditions and customs, chain letters, paradigms, languages, etc. are meme-complexes. Also called an m-plex, or scheme (Hofstadter). Types of co-memes commonly found in a scheme are called the: bait; hook; threat; and vaccime. A successful scheme commonly has certain attributes: wide scope (a paradigm that explains much); opportunity for the carriers to participate and contribute; conviction of its self-evident truth (carries Authority); offers order and a sense of place, helping to stave off the dread of meaninglessness. (Wheelis, quoted by Hofstadter.)

(Memetic Lexicon). One church has memes, ideas, and dogmas that differ from those of another church, yet some of the memes, ideas, and dogmas of both churches can be the same or quite similar.

The differences may be in degree or in kind, depending on which culture, nation, or society the meme complex or church is located.

The meme complex or cultural amygdala of a group of athiests in India is going to vary in degree and in kind with a meme complex or cultural amygdala of Christian Baptists in Mississippi, U.S.A.

Both the concept of a meme complex and the concept of a cultural amygdala invite the notion of a sub-entity such as a sub-meme-complex and a sub-cultural-amygdala.

An example of an overall or super-meme-complex would be "Baptists" while some sub-meme-complexes within it would be "English Baptists," and "American Baptists":

Baptists are individuals who comprise a group of denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers (believer's baptism, as opposed to infant baptism), and that it must be done by complete immersion (as opposed to affusion or sprinkling). Other tenets of Baptist churches include soul competency (liberty), salvation through faith alone, scripture alone as the rule of faith and practice, and the autonomy of the local congregation. Baptists recognize two ministerial offices, pastors and deacons. Baptist churches are widely considered to be Protestant churches, though some Baptists disavow this identity.

Diverse from their beginning, those identifying as Baptists today differ widely from one another in what they believe, how they worship, their attitudes toward other Christians, and their understanding of what is important in Christian discipleship.

(Wikipedia, Baptists, emphasis added). That description or definition includes the adjectives "diverse" and "differ," which applies equally well to political concepts such as "conservative" and "liberal."

The adage "it takes a village to raise a child" could apply, the village being the meme complex or cultural amygdala circuits, the "child" being a meme or circuit.

What is important about this, is that our brains are different as a result of the culture -- that "village" -- in which we grow from childhood into adulthood:

Progressives tend to believe that democracy is based on citizens caring for their fellow citizens through what the government provides for all citizens — public infrastructure, public safety, public education, public health, publicly-sponsored research, public forms of recreation and culture, publicly-guaranteed safety nets for those who need them, and so on. In short, progressives believe that the private depends on the public, that without those public provisions Americans cannot be free to live reasonable lives and to thrive in private business. They believe that those who make more from public provisions should pay more to maintain them.

Ultra-conservatives don’t believe this. They believe that Democracy gives them the liberty to seek their own self-interests by exercising personal responsibility, without having responsibility for anyone else or anyone else having responsibility for them. They take this as a matter of morality. They see the social responsibility to provide for the common good as an immoral imposition on their liberty.

(Alternet - Lakoff). Those two meme complexes joust for power as people within each of those cultures develop different memes and different cultural amygdala circuitry:

Thought is physical. Learning requires a physical brain change: Receptors for neurotransmitters change at the synapses, which changes neural circuitry. Since thinking is the activation of such circuitry, somewhat different thinking re­quires a somewhat different brain. Brains change as you use them-even unconsciously. It's as if your car changed as you drove it, say from a stick shift gradually to an automatic.

(What Orwell Didn't Know, see this also). The sub-entities are like clouds that take on various shapes and changes as the wind blows them along, mixing together at the edges from time to time, bending, morphing, and being reshaped down through history and down through one's lifetime.

I also mentioned similarities among meme complexes and cultural amygdalas, because some of those similarities are areas that deserve major consideration and contemplation:

Even more specifically, we have been looking at the dynamics involved when the citizenry sees the government as a parental figure.

That may sound strange to those who have not read up on it, but according to those who labor in this realm, as professors and social scientists, it is generally understood to be a real cultural phenomenon:

Have you ever noticed how many "family" words are associated with the concept of "nation" in literature, politics, and government?

A quick check of a few relevant metaphors (forefathers, father of the constitution, Uncle Sam, motherland, fatherland, homeland, father of the nation, founding fathers, mother of the nation, family of nations, etc.) makes me want to look at perhaps the key source-metaphor for this notion:

... a common metaphor, shared by conservatives and liberals alike -- the Nation-as-Family metaphor, in which the nation is seen as a family, the government as a parent and the citizens as children ...

(The Nation-as-Family Metaphor). To expand upon this concept a bit, consider these comments:

It’s no accident that our political beliefs are structured by our idealizations of the family. Our earliest experience with being governed is in our families. Our parents “govern” us: They protect us, tell us what we can and cannot do, make sure we have enough money and supplies, educate us, and have us do our part in running the house.

So it is not at all surprising that many nations are metaphorically seen in terms of families: Mother Russia, Mother India, the Fatherland. In America, we have founding fathers, Daughters of the American Revolution, Uncle Sam, and we send our collective sons and daughters to war. In George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, the voice of the totalitarian state was called Big Brother.

As George Lakoff discussed at length in his 1996 book, Moral Politics, this metaphorical understanding of the nation-as-family directly informs our political worldview. Directly, but not consciously. As with other aspects of framing, the use of this metaphor lies below the level of consciousness.

(Security: Familyland, Fatherland, or Homeland?). When the government evolves in a direction from left to right, the citizenry will in general also have that tendency.

(Security: Familyland, Fatherland, or Homeland? - 2). Using that metaphor we can think of the nation as the super-cultural-amygdala, super-meme-complex, or village.

That super-entity contains within itself both political diversity (progressive, conservative) and religious diversity (Northern Baptists, Southern Baptists).

Those can be thought of as a sub-meme-complex or sub-cultural-amygdala.

Ideas, feelings, and behaviors of different degrees or kinds are at work in each of those "super-" and "sub-" structural entities.

How does that relate to the toxins of power?

It is instructive to remember that pathogens work as a sub-group within a host:

Quorum sensing is the regulation of gene expression in response to fluctuations in cell-population density. Quorum sensing bacteria produce and release chemical signal molecules called autoinducers that increase in concentration as a function of cell density. The detection of a minimal threshold stimulatory concentration of an autoinducer leads to an alteration in gene expression. Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria use quorum sensing communication circuits to regulate a diverse array of physiological activities. These processes include symbiosis, virulence, competence, conjugation, antibiotic production, motility, sporulation, and biofilm formation. In general, Gram-negative bacteria use acylated homoserine lactones as autoinducers, and Gram-positive bacteria use processed oligo-peptides to communicate. Recent advances in the field indicate that cell-cell communication via autoinducers occurs both within and between bacterial species. Furthermore, there is mounting data suggesting that bacterial autoinducers elicit specific responses from host organisms. Although the nature of the chemical signals, the signal relay mechanisms, and the target genes controlled by bacterial quorum sensing systems differ, in every case the ability to communicate with one another allows bacteria to coordinate the gene expression, and therefore the behavior, of the entire community. Presumably, this process bestows upon bacteria some of the qualities of higher organisms. The evolution of quorum sensing systems in bacteria could, therefore, have been one of the early steps in the development of multicellularity.

(Microbial Hermeneutics). Biological pathogens are ineffective alone, so they must work together via communication to accomplish group tasks.

Meme complexes, cultures, and nations work the same way in the sense of working together via communication.

For toxins of power to generate corruption, the relevant communication system must be corrupted in some way (see e.g. On the Origin of Propaganda).

Those who sit in the seats of power need to be aware of the destructiveness of  deceit and dishonesty, both to themselves and to those they serve, because it robs the group of some degree of an awareness of reality, hence, it injects dementia memes into the relevant meme complex or false circuitry into the cultural amygdala (see e.g. Etiology of Social Dementia).

These concepts are likely to be helpful for implementing the hope that Freud foresaw but could not develop in his own lifetime:

If the evolution of civilization has such a far reaching similarity with the development of an individual, and if the same methods are employed in both, would not the diagnosis be justified that many systems of civilization——or epochs of it——possibly even the whole of humanity——have become neurotic under the pressure of the civilizing trends? To analytic dissection of these neuroses, therapeutic recommendations might follow which could claim a great practical interest. I would not say that such an attempt to apply psychoanalysis to civilized society would be fanciful or doomed to fruitlessness. But it behooves us to be very careful, not to forget that after all we are dealing only with analogies, and that it is dangerous, not only with men but also with concepts, to drag them out of the region where they originated and have matured. The diagnosis of collective neuroses, moreover, will be confronted by a special difficulty. In the neurosis of an individual we can use as a starting point the contrast presented to us between the patient and his environment which we assume to be normal. No such background as this would be available for any society similarly affected; it would have to be supplied in some other way. And with regard to any therapeutic application of our knowledge, what would be the use of the most acute analysis of social neuroses, since no one possesses power to compel the community to adopt the therapy? In spite of all these difficulties, we may expect that one day someone will venture upon this research into the pathology of civilized communities. [p. 39]
...
Men have brought their powers of subduing the forces of nature to such a pitch that by using them they could now very easily exterminate one another to the last man. They know this——hence arises a great part of their current unrest, their dejection, their mood of apprehension. [p. 40]

(MOMCOM's Mass Suicide & Murder Pact - 5). Further discussion of this subject matter will continue in future posts (e.g. cf. Comparing a Group-Mind Trance to a Cultural Amygdala). 

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George Lakoff: How Brains Think (5:34 "... you can only understand what the neural circuitry in your brain allows you to understand ... you can't understand just anything ...and this particularly is the case in political reasoning ... but it's true in many other things as well ...")

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Memes

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