huh, yeah, I think this is a pretty reasonable alternate hypothesis.
i do notice that there’s starting to be promising intellectual stuff coming from a right wing perspective again. i think this trend will continue and eventually there will be some enterprising zoomer publication that cracks the nut and gains genuine mainstream respectability as some sort of darling heterodox publication.
this would mean that even if the outgroup/fargroup distinction is the dominant force at play, it doesn’t indicate a permanent spiral towards right wing ideals in the community, as long as there continues to be new blood. it’s still all downstream of what’s going on in mainstream culture, yeah?
As further evidence for my position (and honestly also yours, they’re not necessarily in conflict), I bring up Wei Dai’s “Have epistemic conditions always been this bad?”, where he explains he has “gotten increasingly alarmed by leftist politics in the US, and the epistemic conditions that it operates under and is imposing wherever it gains power” but also mentions:
Quite possibly the conditions are just as dire on the right, but they are not as visible or salient to me, because most of the places I can easily see, either directly or through news stories, i.e., local politics in my area, academia, journalism, large corporations, seem to have been taken over by the left.
i do notice that there’s starting to be promising intellectual stuff coming from a right wing perspective again
Could you give me some references of what you’re talking about? I’d be very excited to read more about this. Most of what I’ve seen in terms of promising changes in the political sphere these days has been the long-overdue transition of the Democratic party mainstream to the Abundance agenda and the ideas long championed by Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, and Noah Smith, among others.
I’ve seen much less on the right, beyond stuff like Hanania’s Substack (which is very critical of the right these days). The IQ realignment seems real, with an ever-increasing share of Elite Human Capital moving to the left in the face of the Trump administration’s attacks on liberal ideals, constitutionalism, science funding, mainstream medical opinions (with the appointment of and cranky decisions taken by RFK Jr.), etc.
i think this trend will continue and eventually there will be some enterprising zoomer publication that cracks the nut and gains genuine mainstream respectability as some sort of darling heterodox publication
I’d love to be wrong about this, but I think it’s very unlikely this will actually happen. Modern epistemic conditions and thought bubbles seem to make the rise of genuine heterodoxy in the mainstream to be basically impossible. In modern times, the left requires ideological conformity[1] while the right demands personal loyalty.[2]
Heterodox organizations can only really float about in centrist waters, mostly populated by the center-left these days. The political left will demand too much agreement on issues like crime, immigration, transgender rights, rent control etc, for heterodoxy to be tolerated. And while political right embraces new blood of all kinds, that’s only if all criticism of the Trump administration is censored, preventing honest discourse on the most important political fights of this age.
What do you mean by “there’s starting to be promising intellectual stuff coming from a right wing perspective again?” I think what one means by “right wing” and “promising intellectual stuff” needs to be clarified.
Because if it’s just obvious stuff like “transgender women shouldn’t be allowed to compete in sports with cis women” or “iq isn’t bullshit” then I don’t know neither of those things seem very heterodox. But if it’s stuff like “gender affirming care doesn’t improve outcomes and shouldn’t be available to children” but said in a respectable way, that seems more “heterodox” but it also seems much more insidious.
If you’re a rich person in tech with high-status, a “darling right wing heterodox publication” could be a nice thing to read and discuss with your friends (ala “leisure of the theory class”). But if you have much less social power, a “darling right wing heterodox publication” looks like it will be one large “isn’t it wonderful to be a part of the genetically fortunate?” circlejerk.
Abstract intellectual discussions about liberty and security seem very interesting, but the audience for that stuff is very small. A substantial portion of “heterodox right-wing publications” look more like Thiel’s stuff at Stanford than they do the federalist papers.
huh, yeah, I think this is a pretty reasonable alternate hypothesis.
i do notice that there’s starting to be promising intellectual stuff coming from a right wing perspective again. i think this trend will continue and eventually there will be some enterprising zoomer publication that cracks the nut and gains genuine mainstream respectability as some sort of darling heterodox publication.
this would mean that even if the outgroup/fargroup distinction is the dominant force at play, it doesn’t indicate a permanent spiral towards right wing ideals in the community, as long as there continues to be new blood. it’s still all downstream of what’s going on in mainstream culture, yeah?
As further evidence for my position (and honestly also yours, they’re not necessarily in conflict), I bring up Wei Dai’s “Have epistemic conditions always been this bad?”, where he explains he has “gotten increasingly alarmed by leftist politics in the US, and the epistemic conditions that it operates under and is imposing wherever it gains power” but also mentions:
Could you give me some references of what you’re talking about? I’d be very excited to read more about this. Most of what I’ve seen in terms of promising changes in the political sphere these days has been the long-overdue transition of the Democratic party mainstream to the Abundance agenda and the ideas long championed by Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, and Noah Smith, among others.
I’ve seen much less on the right, beyond stuff like Hanania’s Substack (which is very critical of the right these days). The IQ realignment seems real, with an ever-increasing share of Elite Human Capital moving to the left in the face of the Trump administration’s attacks on liberal ideals, constitutionalism, science funding, mainstream medical opinions (with the appointment of and cranky decisions taken by RFK Jr.), etc.
I’d love to be wrong about this, but I think it’s very unlikely this will actually happen. Modern epistemic conditions and thought bubbles seem to make the rise of genuine heterodoxy in the mainstream to be basically impossible. In modern times, the left requires ideological conformity[1] while the right demands personal loyalty.[2]
Heterodox organizations can only really float about in centrist waters, mostly populated by the center-left these days. The political left will demand too much agreement on issues like crime, immigration, transgender rights, rent control etc, for heterodoxy to be tolerated. And while political right embraces new blood of all kinds, that’s only if all criticism of the Trump administration is censored, preventing honest discourse on the most important political fights of this age.
I.e., agreement with all leftist or progressive views espoused by The Groups
I.e., subservient fealty to Donald Trump
What do you mean by “there’s starting to be promising intellectual stuff coming from a right wing perspective again?” I think what one means by “right wing” and “promising intellectual stuff” needs to be clarified.
Because if it’s just obvious stuff like “transgender women shouldn’t be allowed to compete in sports with cis women” or “iq isn’t bullshit” then I don’t know neither of those things seem very heterodox. But if it’s stuff like “gender affirming care doesn’t improve outcomes and shouldn’t be available to children” but said in a respectable way, that seems more “heterodox” but it also seems much more insidious.
If you’re a rich person in tech with high-status, a “darling right wing heterodox publication” could be a nice thing to read and discuss with your friends (ala “leisure of the theory class”). But if you have much less social power, a “darling right wing heterodox publication” looks like it will be one large “isn’t it wonderful to be a part of the genetically fortunate?” circlejerk.
Abstract intellectual discussions about liberty and security seem very interesting, but the audience for that stuff is very small. A substantial portion of “heterodox right-wing publications” look more like Thiel’s stuff at Stanford than they do the federalist papers.