In this episode, Simone and I discuss the model for revolutions, and how it applies to online culture wars. We discuss the role of the economic and social elite in society, and why it is the most likely to lead to a revolution.
00:00:07.620I believe we're talking about revolutions and the model for revolutions that you came up with the other day that surprised me.
00:00:17.320You always accredit things to me. I don't know why, you know, but whatever.
00:00:20.720Because you come up with all the ideas. I ask dumb questions sometimes, which is apparently helpful.
00:00:26.240Well, this is in reference to the previous post, where I was saying it's actually very rarely the most downtrodden class in society that leads to any form of a revolution.
00:00:37.740You can see this sort of across societies during colonial periods, where the colonies that would revolt first were often the wealthiest colonies, like the American colonies.
00:00:46.340Where, like, the average citizen was taxed less than the average citizen in the UK was taxed at the same time period, when they were revolting over taxes without representation.
00:00:57.140And, you know, I think that it's really interesting to look at, like, why revolutions happen.
00:01:03.320And we sort of came up with a predictive model, which we want to apply to online communities, because I think it can tell us who's going to win the online culture war, and how groups can win the online culture war.
00:01:15.140But you would also say that this transfers to, broadly speaking, governments and other.
00:01:22.260Yeah, broadly speaking governments, et cetera.
00:01:24.340And it doesn't always hold true, but when it doesn't hold true, you can see sort of proof of the model through the ways it doesn't hold true.
00:01:43.260So you have the urban disenfranchised group, you have the rural disenfranchised group, you have the economic elite, and you have the social elite.
00:01:57.160And then you also have the military as sort of a fifth class that can sometimes matter in this equation.
00:02:02.320The difference between the economic elite and the social elite is the economic elite are those with the most economic power within an institution, although, you know, within a communist system or something like this, they're just the people who sort of control the means of production to some extent, because people often end up controlling that within those systems.
00:02:19.380The social elite are the individuals you are supposed to respect the most and whose opinions you are supposed to respect the most within a society.
00:02:28.660So historically, this could be like a religious caste.
00:02:32.680But within our existing society, it would be things like journalists and professors.
00:02:40.540It would be the people who you are supposed to respect, even if they don't have economic wealth.
00:02:44.900So historically, it really would have been the priest caste most.
00:02:50.320Even if, you know, aren't supposed to, like, even if, like, the priests don't have a lot of wealth, you are supposed to respect them.
00:02:56.380Within our existing society, I mean, you could say this is a sign of, like, a fallen society or whatever.
00:03:00.080It is academic accredited individuals as well as journalists.
00:03:05.480So the most common thing that leads to a revolution, and this is why communism is so often used as the motivation for a revolution, is that the social elite want the wealth and the power that the economic elite have.
00:03:26.380So the social elite, and this is why in a society where you can ensure your social elite have a lot of wealth and power, you are very likely to have government turnover.
00:03:36.960So in a society where you have a huge disparity, where the social elite have very, very little wealth and power, that is where you are most likely to have a lot of people calling for revolution.
00:03:51.940If you look at journalists, they have very little economic stability.
00:03:55.560Like, it is, like, a terrible paying job.
00:03:58.480And it's a job where they're constantly about to be fired because, you know, it's increasingly irrelevant.
00:04:03.540And then you have the professor class, which is also just, like, a giant pyramid scheme now because everyone's moving for this social status and there are far more people who have achieved the minimum qualifications for it to apply for these positions or the maximum qualifications even.
00:04:19.420And when you contrast with the number of positions of this largely parasitic caste.
00:04:25.260I mean, they produce very little in terms of increased production in society.
00:04:29.600So they can only survive by taking money basically from the disenfranchised groups.
00:04:37.320I mean, they'll claim they take money from the economic elite of society, but it's very hard to take money from the economic elite of society.
00:04:43.060So they take money from the disenfranchised groups and the economic elite take money from the disenfranchised groups.
00:04:50.060If, let's say, an academic is primarily making money through, like, Harvard's endowment, which funds most of their research, how are they making money?
00:04:58.400Well, most of them are not making money from the endowments.
00:05:02.800That's why tuition is so freaking high.
00:05:04.660And most of the people who are getting this tuition are getting something that doesn't really help their career, does not help their earning potential, but is subsidizing the lifestyle of this social elite caste within our society.
00:05:18.940And if you look at why tuitions are so high, it's these ridiculous government-backed loans.
00:05:24.740I mean, I would say there was one thing the conservatives should be finding more than anything.
00:05:28.080It's the government-backed loan system.
00:05:30.080Because when you have a government-backed loan that you cannot get out of through bankruptcy, which you can't a student loan, which is why if you look at the cost of a university degree now and you amortize that over the cost of your life, you typically are getting about a net neutral often.
00:05:45.420And it's not totally at that point yet, but the cost of university is continuing to rise.
00:05:51.300And I expect that cost to stop rising when its value is about 10% to 25% higher than its amortized value over the cost of your life, over your entire life.
00:06:03.060And the reason I expect it to go to a bit higher is because it gives you a bit of social status or something like that.
00:06:09.200So, I mean, we are living in a society now where the social elite are in this absolutely terrible position when contrasted with the economic elite.
00:06:18.580So, they have every motivation to say, let's redistribute wealth.
00:06:23.340And they try to encourage the dispossessed groups in our society, the urban and rural dispossessed groups in our society, to join their cause with the impetus that they will redistribute wealth to them.
00:06:36.640What they really often mean is they plan to run this apparatus that redistributes wealth.
00:06:42.560And through running that apparatus, they expect some level of, if not more wealth than other people, less work per the wealth that they have access to, while still having access to their same voice boxes and social status within society.
00:06:58.080Now, where this becomes really interesting is who actually wins revolutions.
00:07:04.220And this is where within our existing society, there is actually very little real risk of a revolution from the left.
00:07:12.780And that is to really have a powerful, and this is also when I talked about the social elite and stuff like that.
00:07:18.340This is also why when you look across societies, revolutions are often usually started by students or student groups or stuff like that.
00:07:27.560Because that is where the social elite often have the most power to ferment revolution.
00:07:32.380So, and because those people expect to eventually be at the top of the new social elite within the economic system once it has been reestablished.
00:07:40.620So, they court the urban dispossessed.
00:07:45.180The problem being is that the urban dispossessed are largely irrelevant in revolutions.
00:07:51.340To maintain power, you need the rural dispossessed on your side.
00:07:55.740This is what you see in places like Russia and Turkey today.
00:08:00.280The reason why you are so unlikely to see any sort of revolution within these places is when you do see these rebellious groups begin to ferment dissent, the rural groups are firmly on the side of the existing power structure.
00:08:17.720And so, you are very unlikely to get a revolution.
00:08:20.980Why is it that the rural dispossessed are so much more important than the urban dispossessed?
00:08:26.700It's because the urban dispossessed typically rely on a very complex social structure.
00:08:32.400They rely on supply lines to get their foods.
00:08:34.580They often are much more reliant on social programs and much more reliant on the government to essentially give them food and everything like that.
00:08:41.700But in addition to that, they're much more reliant on society more broadly continuing to work.
00:08:48.200Whereas the rural dispossessed are much more, have a much easier time feeding themselves, etc.
00:08:53.540Second, urban dispossessed require much fewer troops to pacify when they need to be pacified.
00:09:01.600Right, because they're all in the same place.
00:09:07.920Rural dispossessed can attack basically wherever they want.
00:09:12.100So, you have to distribute your troops across a large rural region and then the rebels or the rebellious group can pick and choose the location of the fighting to some extent.
00:09:24.060Because they can, you know, either you kill them all, right?
00:09:28.220Which then loses you one of the core resources you often want in those areas, which is the people and their knowledge of tilling land and stuff like that.
00:09:35.020Or you prevent their movement, which can be very hard to do.
00:09:38.940So, as they can move together and attack wherever they want within a community, they can target thinner troops, which makes them very, very hard to keep down.
00:09:50.420And you can't just control them by sieging them.
00:09:52.800And by sieging them, what I mean is disrupting supply lines, keeping food from entering your neighborhood.
00:09:56.280Well, you see this with places, like, not just attempts to, we'll say, change things in the Middle East, you know, like foreign incursions into the Middle East, but also the United States Revolution, you know, the colonial revolution.
00:10:11.140One of the reasons we won was because the rural disenfranchised were able to essentially fight back, right?
00:10:19.120I mean, several cities were burned down.
00:10:20.880I mean, all the people in urban areas were actually quite exposed and were actually...
00:10:26.460And what people often imagine when they hear this is that the rural population are the ones necessarily doing the majority of the fighting, but that's not really true.
00:10:33.840If you just have the sympathy with the rural population, they'll find the cave you're hiding in, they'll find your safe house, and they will deliver you food and supplies, which is much harder to do in cities because you can much more easily control the flows of food and supplies.
00:10:48.500And mark food and supplies is, this is going here, this is going here.
00:10:52.940Where this is relevant to the online world, well, so one where this is relevant to our existing society, if you look at progressive groups in the U.S. that are trying to ferment revolution, they almost holistically focus on urban populations, which are essentially useless in a revolution.
00:11:07.840Unless those urban populations do not have these systems that are meant to support them.
00:11:16.400So this is what you saw in the Russian revolution of the initial communist revolutions in Russia under sort of the czarist regime.
00:11:23.620Because during those revolutions, the urban populations did not have infrastructure that was supplying them with food.
00:11:30.820They did not have all the, they did not have like any sort of resources that were going to them because of the state.
00:11:36.880They did not have any of the benefits that exist within current urban populations that make them so hard.
00:11:44.160Really, the only benefit that they had was that they were slightly easier to siege, which is, can be pretty hard in an urban environment when you have sort of unification and this population is used to supporting itself, which is what you kept seeing in the Russian wars during these periods.
00:11:59.440Whenever somebody would try to siege an urban area, these populations were so used to supporting themselves, they were used to incredible hardship.
00:12:05.860And so it was very hard to actually siege these populations.
00:12:10.500But in an existing world economy, almost all urban populations have these benefits to some extent, which make them very useless in a revolution.
00:12:19.280Now, what gets interesting is how does this apply to the online world?
00:13:44.140Who is the rural dispossessed and who are the urban dispossessed?
00:13:47.900Within the online communities, the urban dispossessed are those who live online within social communities that are controlled by these social elite and economic elite.
00:14:46.200And because the people who come to these communities are the ones who often feel the most silenced by moderators.
00:14:52.920Within sort of the urban dispossessed of the online sphere.
00:14:55.920They are often those with the views that most contrast with the mainstream views among moderators.
00:15:01.800Considering that the moderators within these communities have largely been owned by the progressive sphere.
00:15:07.240That has pushed the conservatives more to this online world dispossessed community.
00:15:12.160Unfortunately, what this means is that these individuals, or not unfortunately, unfortunately from the perspective of a progressive mindset, are going to be very hard to stamp out.
00:15:23.280And will probably ultimately win the online culture war.
00:15:26.260This is why when you look at the online culture of today, whether it's like any major themes, whether it's memes, or new music treads, or new social treads, like bronies, or the Trump administration, or MAGA, or whatever.
00:15:41.020All of this started in the world dispossessed of the online sphere.
00:15:45.180They all started in places like 4chan.
00:15:46.960Yeah, so it's the equivalent of like strange militias coming out of the countryside, or weird movements.
00:16:08.380Yeah, but the reason you see something different in the online sphere is the moderator class has taken such control of what's being said within these urban online environments, that anyone who really wants to challenge the existing system has to go to these rural locations.
00:16:29.900And so they may not ideologically agree with the entire rural location.
00:16:33.360I mean, I doubt like the people who started the brony movement were like far right away, is there anything like that, right?
00:16:38.560But they would have been laughed at or said they were trolling.
00:16:43.100I mean, what's funny is even 4chan used to try to ban their content for a long time and then largely gave up because the culture of this community was one of the moms are asleep, you know, post the thing that annoys them most.
00:16:56.020And it's also created this culture, which is becoming increasingly important, I think, in the political landscape today, the internet increases in the importance of trolling.
00:17:04.820But because the trolls are the people who are kicked out of these urban communities the most into these online rural communities.
00:17:14.740So that's why trolling has become such an important part of the generative culture today.
00:17:20.300When I talk about generative culture, I'm talking about culture that's generating genuinely new ideas and new ways and new forms of art and stuff like that, which you often see coming out of these areas.
00:17:29.800So what's the, what is the physical equivalent of a troll, like in history or in current culture?
00:17:40.680Just like weirdos who get kicked out of cities because they don't.
00:17:59.660But I was also going to say, so a really interesting thing about this phenomenon and a huge mistake that the progressive part of the online culture is making right now is they think that they gain power by turning urban dispossessed groups into rural dispossessed groups.
00:18:17.460So an example I'd make here is you would have a community like Tumblr in Action or something like that.
00:18:21.820A big mistake you often see the moderator class making these days is they exercise their power by totally banning or completely disenfranchising groups, which turns a group where they used to have say or power into a totally rural dispossessed group.
00:18:41.260And they think that through doing this, they have won.
00:18:46.020So an example might be they take a community like Tumblr in Action, right?
00:18:49.440And they will ban that group or they'll ban red pill groups.
00:18:52.880And then these communities reform within iterations of the communities that are often much smaller in terms of user count.
00:19:00.760But the users that they are able to maintain are now uninfluenciable by the mainstream online culture and much more generative to future online culture.
00:19:12.440So you can look at stuff like, you know, we often talk about the red pill movement or the men's right or the mixed town movement.
00:19:17.500A lot of these movements got nuked within like Reddit and stuff like that, where the mods used to have power over them.
00:19:23.840Well, we probably would have never seen that movement, whether or not you think it's for better or worse, had the initial moderators of things like Reddit not banned those communities and forced them into the rural dispossessed communities where they began to generate more generative content.
00:19:41.280So what you're saying is by, quote unquote, banning hate speech and suppressing offensive ideas, rather than maybe showing them to be stupid or overcoming them by just having active debate and kind of, you know, engaging with them where they are, by banning these communities essentially to the rural area,
00:20:06.820they are forcing them to become empowered and then more influential, but also more extreme.
00:20:12.880Yeah. Well, I mean, it's a bit like if you had a city today and you had some religious group or something like that, and you're like, just get out of the city.
00:20:24.500Yeah. Either convert or get out of the city.
00:20:26.660And so, you know, maybe 40, 50% of them, 60%, maybe even 70% would convert.
00:20:32.100But the 30% that leaves the city, you know, picks up arms on their way out, gets access to, you know, lines of food.
00:20:40.060They are being put in a position that no, like, sane king would put them in.
00:20:45.820But the problem is, is that if you look at the online sphere today, they hugely underestimate just how much of online culture is coming from these rural communities
00:20:54.380or how little online culture is genuinely generated by what's going on in sort of the, quote unquote, urban online populations.
00:21:02.100Another reason why so much of online culture and why you see this flip real world versus online
00:21:06.940is within a community like 4chan, within these rural populations, they are often fully anonymized
00:21:14.140because these individuals are afraid of what's going to happen to them when they enter sort of, you know, the real world settings,
00:21:20.860how much of this is going to hit them in real life.
00:21:22.360And because they're fully anonymized, that means that every individual idea has to compete on its own.
00:21:29.960Every individual post gets interacted with or lifted based on its own merit from the perspective of that community
00:21:37.900rather than based on the status of the individual.
00:21:41.960It's sort of the truest meritocracy you could ever build.
00:21:44.840And because of that, you get more creative ideas coming at a faster pace, which is very difficult to compete with
00:21:52.900if you're coming from sort of these ideologically dulled, we follow the leader, moderated online communities.
00:23:45.120You guys, like history keeps getting rewritten by the internet.
00:23:47.760He was a joke candidate among both the far right and the far left of the dominant political class of the United States.
00:23:55.6004chan bolstered him to the point where he began to be considered seriously by some commentators on the right, which was his pathway to power.
00:24:04.600But without 4chan, there is no Donald Trump.
00:24:09.540And that was a major sea change in politics in the U.S.
00:24:12.920You know how people in the U.S., they're always like, oh, well, you can't say that Republicans were the party that freed the slaves because the parties have flipped since then.
00:24:21.380Well, the parties just did another flip recently.
00:24:27.080But things like, you know, hawkishness versus dovishness.
00:24:30.620Protectionism versus anti-protectionism.
00:24:32.820Lots of major policy positions flipped to the extent that I would argue that in a post-Trump world, the two political factions in the U.S. are essentially new and different political factions that I think you could largely call the globalists versus the nationalists.
00:24:48.660And this new political flip that I think we just got was an update of history's blockchain, whether or not you think it's a positive or negative one.
00:24:59.580And yeah, this conversation has been very productive.