Parasites. Parasites Everywhere!

You could say that parasites are evil creatures. They're selfish, manipulative, and insidious. When they infect a host, they hope they don't kill it while they live within (since killing the host would mean killing itself). In that sense, parasites are tangentially symbiotic with the living things they infect. They existentially need a propagator --a host to help them spread themselves as efficiently as possible. Parasites can even take reign of the infected being's behavior for their own benefit: Sneezing is the common cold virus' effective way to propagate itself. Cuddling is the way an infectious virus makes kids look for closeness, so the infection jumps easily to the next host. The Gordian worm manipulates the brain of an infected cricket into jumping into water in order for the worm to mate.

We rarely stop to think about this, but interwoven ideas (Narratives) are parasitic, evil body-less "creatures" too.

Like parasites, Narratives can't survive by themselves. They need a host to live. Someone to adopt them and propagate them. And just like parasites, Narratives change the behavior of the host. They make him/her irrational. Exacerbate his/her emotions. A Narrative is built around the idea that Soros is bankrolling the resettlement of refugees (who will in turn "wage war to annihilate" white people) and an individual infected with that parasitic strain of Narrative commits an atrocity.

Unfortunately, Narratives are worse than parasites. After all, parasites are constrained by the laws of evolution. It takes many years for a new parasite species to evolve, giving us (potential victims) time to adapt and become resistant to each new species. To discover drugs against it, or develop natural immunity via hormesis.

Not so with Narratives. They're abstract. No molecular DNA is required to spawn them. Just a sufficiently evil, manipulative, and creative mind. A simple cogent story-line is crafted, and a hoax is born. The scarier, the better. Any combination of juxtaposed elements that hinges on its ability to trigger our emotions will harness the power of parasitic virality, infecting our brains with the satisfying illusion of understanding reality at an intuitively level.

Of course it doesn't help that there is a stupendously prolific Narrative producer out there. One spewing out new parasitic strains at every press conference. An unstable genius who has serendipitously honed in his ability to spit out parasite after parasite after parasite, leveraging the profit-from-eye-balls/engagement model of mainstream media, and taking advantage of the way social networks have usurped traditional media's old roll in mass manipulating the emotions of billions of people. Evil, manipulative, and smart, indeed. But hey, don't succumb to despair (just yet). At least his government hasn't used the full powers of AI to tighten its grip on society (like the chinese already have) --yet. 

But, in all honesty: is there even a way to assimilate reality completely divorced from parasitic Narratives? Is it even possible to cleanse our perception of reality from any and all emotional contamination? Do we even want to? Fact is, reality can't possibly be experienced in the same way by all. Science's humbling realization that the production of scientific truth can't possibly be divorced from emotional interpretations on the part of the very scientists producing it might finally bring science to a level playing field in the clashes against parasitic and deleterious Narratives. Eliminating the gap between the parasitically Narrated "knowledge" of the common man and that which used to sit on the pedestal of scientific intellectual superiority is a requisite to even begin the herculean task to retaking the reigns of this insanely emotional global train wreck.

Of course, requisite does not mean sufficient. And sanity might not come for long while now.