[ExI] Inflation and the 2024 election

[Keith Henson]

Evolutionary psychology makes the case that if humans have a psychological
trait, it was subjected to selection. Humans can, and do, get into cults
where the leader is worshiped and can do no wrong no matter how silly. As a
cult, Trump MAGA is not the most extreme. I think the Rajneesh followers
were even more over the top.

Why do humans have this trait? I am not sure, but I suspect it mainly comes
from selection for war and the need for infectious craziness to sync up the
attacking tribe.

Keith


On Fri, Oct 16, 2026 at 1:18 PM John Clark via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
> On Fri, Oct 16, 2026 at 3:18 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
> *> why does your party lose to an unpopular candidat**e?*
>
>
> *Why do cult preachers who predict an exact date for the end of the world
> fail to lose any popularity with their slavish acolytes even after that
> date recedes into the past  and their prediction clearly failed because the
> world still continues? Nobody knows.  I do have strong evidence that
> millions of people continue to find Donald J Trump to be charming and
> charismatic even after he has told literally TENS OF THOUSANDS of lies. For
> some reason his apparent charm and charisma never worked a damn with me, I
> find him to be** so stupid and pompous he would be comical if he hadn't
> introduced so much new misery to the world which already had quite enough.
> I freely admit I can't explain how doomsday cult leaders or the current
> leader of the Republican Party could possibly exist, but somehow both can. *
>
> *I also know that during the height of the Covid pandemic the difference
> between a doomsday cult and the modern Republican Party started to get very
> blurry.  *
>
>
> *John K Clark*
>
>
>
>
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