Glossary

Terms:

Anarcho-fascism: More polite than the finger, but communicating the same meaning: a way to dodge the question of which exosemantic gang sign, which political thede, one identifies with.

Anarcho-tyranny: A system of misrule in which a government refuses to control real criminals but controls the innocent: legitimate functions of government are neglected, but illegitimate functions are performed. “The result of anarcho-tyranny is that government swells in power, criminals are not controlled, and law-abiding citizens wind up being repressed by the state and attacked by thugs.” [1] [2]

Apparat: See Polygon.

BDH-OV conflict: The conflict, created by the democratic convention of limited war, of the Brahmin, Dalit, and Helot castes against the Optimate and Vaisya castes. The modern-day manifestation of  [1]

Black magic: The redivision of the semantic territory, forming new maps. Contrasts with white magic. [1]

Brahmin: One of Mencius Moldbug’s five castes. Defines status by “scholarly achievement, success in an intellectual profession, or position of civic responsibility.” America’s intellectual caste. High-status Brahmin occupations include artist, scientist, lawyer, and activist. America’s governing class. Allied with the Dalits and Helots against the Optimates and Vaisyas. “The ideal Brahmin would live in a cabin, chop his own wood, own nothing else in the world, be the world’s top-ranking poet, and condescend to teach a seminar at Harvard every five years or so.” [1] [2]

Caste: A social group defined by its status system. America has five castes: Brahmin, Dalit, Helot, Optimate, and Vaisya; a sixth caste, Antyaja, is sometimes included in the analysis. [1]

Cathedral: A decentralized extragovernmental power structure, operating without any central coordination or planning, consisting of academia and the media. Not one thing in the sense that the FBI or the Catholic Church are things: Harvard generally agrees with Yale, and both generally agree with the New York Times, but neither of the three have any formal power over any other. So named because it’s not the Bazaar, and because people in it speak ex cathedra. The Cathedral operates as the brain of the Polygon. “The universities formulate public policy. The press guides public opinion. In other words, the universities make decisions, for which the press manufactures consent.” [1] [2] [3]

Chesterton’s fence:

Crocodile:

Crocodile humor: The trope in which the smug and powerful mock the peasants and barbarians. After the Soviet humor magazine Krokodil, which “loved to parody the buffoonish, corrupt doings of the hooligan dissidents.”  [1]

Czarnoksiężnik: A practitioner of black magic. From Polish “evil wizard”. Cf. czarodziej.

Czarodziej: A practitioner of white magic. From Polish “good wizard”. Cf. czarnoksiężnik.

Dalit: One of Mencius Moldbug’s five castes. Defines status by wealth, power, and sexual success for men, and by attractiveness and popularity for women. Favored occupation: crime, perceived as guerrilla warfare against an unjust society; but some exceptionally high-status Dalits are in music and athletics. Consists of multiple ethnic subgroups with little to no solidarity. Historically rare. Allied with the Brahmins and Helots against the Vaisyas and Optimates. [1] [2]

Die Lösung: The Solution. The strategy of a party in a democracy to manipulate the makeup of the voting population in its favor. “Would it not be easier in that situation for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?” [1]

Duocode:

Duocodicalism:

Elthede: An outgroup. More precisely, if thede(x) gives a list of all thedes that x identifies with, an elthede is any thede not on that list. Usually refers to the subset that x’s thedes define themselves in opposition to. [1]

Elthedish: Signaling identification with an elthede. [1]

Exosemantic: “The part of a word or statement that isn’t its strict entailments, but which are extremely common implicatures– specifically, these shouldn’t be contextual or Gricean implicatures, but socially bound ones, which have been formed by continued use of the word in particular contexts, or by particular speakers.” [1]

Formalism:

Fourth-circuit argumentation:

Furthest remove:

Group dynamics: The study of man as a social animal, or rules that that study turns up. [1]

Helot: One of Mencius Moldbug’s five castes. An imported peasant caste that defines status by hard work, money, and power for men, and by attractiveness, motherhood, and association with successful men for women. Their value system is unsustainable in the US; their children usually become Dalits, but new Helots can always be imported. Historically rare. Allied with the Brahmins and Dalits against the Optimates and Vaisyas. [1] [2]

Kafkatrap: See here.

Land’s law: Whatever is subsidized is promoted.

Map:

Meme:

Memeplex:

Monocodicalism:

Neocameralism:

Nostrism: The use of the word “we” to refer to a social structure or group, especially government. [1]

Idealism: The belief that universals—for example, peace, freedom, justice, or Aryanism—exist independently. [1]

Incentive structure:

Polygon: The permanent civil service: all nonmilitary government officials whose positions are immune to partisan politics (i.e. democracy) and all formally outside government whose goal is to influence or implement public policy. [1]

Rangordnung: The society-wide ranking of castes. Can be nonlinear, and in America is. [1]

Ratus quo: Awful pun on “status quo”, referring not to the state of things at the current moment, but the direction things are currently moving in. [1]

Reaction:

Ring of Fnargl:

Optimate: One of Mencius Moldbug’s five castes. Defines status by birth, breeding, and personal character, with wealth serving as a prerequisite but not a mark of actual distinction. Additional status can be conferred by participation in the military, where they usually become officers. Sees themselves as superior to the Brahmins, and vice versa. Allied with the Vaisyas against the Brahmins, Dalits, and Helots. [1] [2]

Schelling fence:

Schelling point:

Sith: See czarnoksiężnik.

Slow history:

Territory:

Thede: A social component of identity; something that one identifies with and, in doing so, finds commonality with others who identify with the same thing. Examples: ‘the group of friends who meet every Wednesday night for pizza’, ‘nerds’, ‘Muslims’, ‘Han Chinese’, ‘Westerners’. [1]

Townie: See Vaisya.

Ultracalvinism: See Universalism. [1]

Underclass: Dalits and Helots.

Vaisya: One of Mencius Moldbug’s five castes. Defines status by productive employment for men, attractiveness and motherhood for women, and a successful family life and social participation for both. Additional status can be conferred by participation in the military, where they usually become NCOs. Usually not interested in the world outside what directly relates to their life. Frequently referred to as “middle Americans” or, less accurately, “red-staters”. Allied with the Optimates against the Brahmins, Dalits, and Helots. [1] [2] [3]

White magic: Attempting to clarify the meaning of existing words that divide the semantic territory, usually ideographs. Overlaps substantially with analytic philosophy; the analytic method, best exemplified by Rawls’ treatment of the subject of justice, is white magic to the core.

Wizard: A practitioner of magic.

Laws:

Aretae’s first law: The feedback system defines the system itself. Or: Rates, not states. [1] [2]

Carlyle’s law: Only humans govern. Or: personnel is policy. [1]

Conquest’s first law: Everyone is conservative about what he knows best. [1]

Conquest’s second law: Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing. [1]

Conquest’s third law: The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies. [1]

Goodhart’s law: When a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good metric. Or: Once a social or economic measure is turned into a target for policy, it will lose any information content that had qualified it to play such a role in the first place. [1] [2]

Moldbug’s law of sovereignty: Sovereignty is conserved. [1]

Land’s law: Whatever is subsidized is promoted. [1]

Law of Sewage: If you put a drop of wine in a barrel of sewage, you get sewage. If you put a drop of sewage in a barrel of wine, you get sewage. Mencius Moldbug says: “You’ll find that this rule applies perfectly to many fields of human endeavor.” [1] [2]

The Old Law of Gnon: The penalty for stupidity is death. Any eugenic trend within history is expressed by continuous downward mobility. [1]