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Every group promises coherence. Not all deliver it. The markers that distinguish groups serving member wellbeing from those extracting value — exit freedom, power gradients, harm escalation patterns — turn out to be diagnostic of the underlying structure.

Reddit, Discord, and X didn't invent tribalism — they gave ancient social instincts a new transmission infrastructure. Gene-culture coevolution theory explains why online communities so reliably produce in-groups, out-groups, and sacred beliefs, no matter the topic.

Sociologists have been slow to appreciate new religious movements as what they actually are: natural experiments in the formation of meaning communities. The conditions under which they emerge, stabilize, or collapse reveal the mechanics of coherence at the group level.

The puzzle isn't why some people believe in gods — it's why every human culture independently invented religion. Gene-culture coevolution offers a rigorous answer: costly signaling, identity formation, and collective ritual solve coordination problems that pure reason can't.

Not all ideas survive transmission equally. Cultural attractor theory argues that certain concepts fit human cognition so well they re-emerge spontaneously across unconnected societies.

Other animals learn. Only humans accumulate. The difference comes down to a specific cognitive toolkit — high-fidelity imitation, teaching instincts, normative reasoning — that enables each generation to build on the last rather than start over.

Most animals evolve one way: genetically. Humans run two inheritance systems simultaneously — genes and culture — and they co-evolve. Lactase persistence shows just how fast cultural change can reshape human biology.