The Selfish Gene

Elon Musk’s Endgame

The Ezra Klein Show, 30 October 2026. The book comes up at 27 min 48 sec in.

Quinn Slobodian notes that Richard Dawkins coined the term 'meme' in The Selfish Gene (1976) and also coined 'viruses of the mind' in the early 1990s, and that the two concepts work together — both treating ideology and belief as discrete units that propagate between individuals through network technologies. Slobodian argues Musk has absorbed this framework wholesale in his conception of the 'woke mind virus.'

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How Do You Spot a Wellness Grifter? (with Dr Nick Tiller)

The Consistency Project, 28 October 2026. The book comes up at 15 min 15 sec in.

Nick Tiller cites Richard Dawkins' 1976 book as the origin of the "meme" concept—the idea that ideas and behaviors spread by imitation just as genes self-replicate and mutate—as the intellectual foundation for his own concept of persistent wellness trends as "mimetic parasites."

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Konstantin Kisin’s WARNING: Our Leaders Have Lost Control, We’re Headed For Conflict And Violence!

The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett, 20 August 2026.

One speaker cites The Selfish Gene to argue that the desire to replicate one's genes, not empathy, is what drives parental protective behaviour. A second speaker immediately calls it "a very bad book," extends the criticism to Dawkins's other work, and insists the motivation is empathy rather than genetic self-interest.