Epistemic status: fairly high confidence. Say 80%. These ideas are my own and I wrote this myself, but then polished with AI. LessWrong and its surrounding ecosystem are magnetic for a very particular kind of mind: logical, system-oriented, verbally and spatially strong, unusually comfortable with abstraction. If you’re reading this...
Epistemic status: exploratory but confident. This essay presents a general framework for identifying and analyzing ideologies based on recurring structural patterns. It draws on observation, theory, and examples from across the political spectrum. The goal is to improve mental defenses against manipulative belief systems, not to discredit all ideological thinking....
Epistemic status: fairly high confidence. Say 80%. These ideas are my own and I wrote this myself, but then polished with AI.
LessWrong and its surrounding ecosystem are magnetic for a very particular kind of mind: logical, system-oriented, verbally and spatially strong, unusually comfortable with abstraction. If you’re reading this and feel unusually seen by that description, you should at least consider the hypothesis that you are autistic.
Not in the pop-culture sense. Not in the “likes trains” sense. In the cognitive-architecture sense.
Why LessWrong specifically?
Superficially, it’s about community norms: truth-seeking, careful examination of evidence, low regard for credentials, explicit reasoning over vibes. Evidence matters. Arguments are supposed to cash out.
But at a deeper level,... (read 1299 more words →)
You can acknowledge critics are deluded or self interested whilst also admitting they have some substantial points - this is more in the vein of using that as a justification to ignore all criticism; even valid criticism.
Yes populism is overly broad - I think I'll reword this with a more specific example. You're right that MAGA is a better example - but do they even engage with their political opponents? They seem to mostly just sort of yell them down. Maybe my theory is wrong?
Religion is a good idea too - you're right that this is broader than just political ideologies. I'm a bit averse to wading too deeply into the culture wars, my attempt was to try and describe things at a meta level, or at least try to remain not too overtly partisan, so I was wary of attacking people's religion etc too explicitly.
Epistemic status: exploratory but confident. This essay presents a general framework for identifying and analyzing ideologies based on recurring structural patterns. It draws on observation, theory, and examples from across the political spectrum. The goal is to improve mental defenses against manipulative belief systems, not to discredit all ideological thinking. I welcome critique and refinement.
We live in an online society saturated with diverse ideologies—identity politics, political populism, libertarianism, conspiracy theories, and others. The internet and social media enable these ideologies to spread rapidly, significantly influencing real-world politics and everyday life, often negatively. This essay outlines the defining features of ideologies, examines their essential structural components, explores why they spread effectively, identifies their... (read 2465 more words →)
Keen.