The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

by David Deutsch

Another is the formation within the dynamic society of anti-rational subcultures. Recall that anti-rational memes suppress criticism selectively and cause only finely tuned damage. This makes it possible for the members of an anti-rational subculture to function normally in other respects. So such subcultures can survive for a long time, until they are destabilized by the haphazard effects of reach from other fields. For example, racism and other forms of bigotry exist nowadays almost entirely in subcultures that suppress criticism. Bigotry exists not because it benefits the bigots, but despite the harm they do to themselves by using fixed, non-functional criteria to determine their choices in life.