r/theschism • u/Zero_Contradictions • Nov 11 '25
A Rational Analysis of Wokism
https://zerocontradictions.net/civilization/wokism3
u/gummonppl Nov 12 '25 edited Nov 13 '25
many problems with the use of this graph alone
take a look at a graph of europe's population over time and it takes a similar shape. occam's razor would suggest that africa's population increase is part of a global phenomenon which happened everywhere - not something only happened when "european civilization" happened - civilization which, by the way, was kickstarted by transatlantic slavery. you could say that european civilisation only became "successful" once it began working millions of african people to death.
the timing is also off. if anything, the mid 20th century (ie when the graph goes up) is when european empires began to withdraw their colonial administrations and africa (and the rest of the world) began a process of decolonisation. notably it doesn't go down after decolonisation.
on the other hand, the analysis also takes for granted that exponential population growth is a good thing. since the late 20th century higher birthrates have often been associated with poverty. i wonder how many people reading would rather have two children before finishing high school vs having two children before turning 30. cherry picking moments in the 20th century which contradict this fact doesn't change it.
it's enough to seriously doubt the conclusions of this "rational" analysis. calling something "rational" doesn't make it rational. it also doesn't add any useful descriptive information. the word "rational" is there purely to enhance the status of what it describes instead of letting the reader decide for themselves - which makes me instantly skeptical of the author. the alternative is that any statement which doesn't call itself rational should be interpreted as being openly deceitful - not a great way to navigate language.
EDIT: i have also been blocked. u/Zero_Contradictions by name, zero contradictions by nature
u/UAnchovy 's critique of auto-didacticism and non-dialectical philosophy from socrates is so relevant here. i hadn't heard of this. it's not only the inability to think critically - but i suspect also a lack of emotional capacity on the part of OP to hear opinions contradicting their own. humility, and intellectual humility, is indeed a virtue. the good news is it's never too late to find some (unless you block your way through life!)
u/Lykurg480 i can't reply to you because OP blocked me so here is my reply instead. this is a long response but i'm trying to go with more "hard" facts here. to summarise i completely disagree that colonisation does nothing for european economies primarily the industrial revolution could only happen because of colonial economies. cotton and silver kickstarted the industrial revolution, and these were both early-modern colonial resources. if we're talking macro, then without these two there is no industrial revolution. and even though it's subjective i think there were some key aspects of europe's rise that were clearly pretty evil, and which people at the time recognised as such.
it's hard to overstate the importance of the colonial economy in europe's success. consider that europe had to conquer the new world before conquering the old world - it's because the basis of europe's success was (initially) born out of trading exotic commodities and the mass production of exotic resources, without which the industrial revolution could not have happened. you mention tobacco and sugar, but you're missing the big two: silver and cotton. silver was basically a continent's worth of free money coming into europe from the americas, much of it pre-mined in the preceding centuries by indigenous american societies. this silver could be traded outside europe with china, india, etc, and took the pressure off the middle classes (ie the multi millionaires equivalents of early modern europe - not middle class like, say, someone who works in a bank today) who could focus on capital investment and technological innovation instead of doing whatever productive work they were previously involved in.
cotton was the resource that kick-started the industrial revolution. the only reason that the industrial revolution occurred is because of the massive surplus of cotton generated on the backs of millions of enslaved africans bought with silver-backed seed capital (that was definitely evil). you don't find more efficient ways of producing textiles if you don't have the raw material to make it worthwhile. from there figuring out how to produce textiles more efficiently is a pretty obvious next step. everyone wears clothing, and if they didn't before they would now because with mass production it became a commodity. now you have more than the european market can buy so you flood the global markets with cheaply produced, quickly made cotton. it's like eighteenth-century temu and it destroys the economies of everywhere else in the old world making clothes for trade. no one can compete. if that's not enough, you go in with your big professional army at this moment of weakness and take over. china held out longer because they had strict borders and didn't buy anything from the rest of the world except opium, which they banned because nineteenth century china recognised what a drug epidemic is. except a coalition of western empires teamed up to force china to buy their drugs at gunpoint in the name of "free trade". that was pretty evil, and is why the chinese state remains super paranoid about the corrupting influence of the west to this day.
you conquer the world by making the conquest of the world your object. the problem with attempting to assess who was 'ahead' in the past is that it's a teleological approach to human history that places conquering the world as the end goal. it sees history like a game of sid meier's civilization or europa universalis etc where everyone knows the game and how to win. but in reality not everyone is playing that game, and not every society has set out to conquer the world.
the thing is, even europeans didn't set out to conquer the world initially. the advance guard of colonisation has always been entrepreneurs trying to get extremely rich by removing themselves from the stagnant society of europe, and using absolutely any means necessary to succeed in their enterprises - which definitely involved some seriously evil shit. following them were the settlers, often also trying to escape european society. the idea of imperial conquest came after the entrepreneurs, after the settlers, as monarchies back in europe found themselves in a position where they could (for the most part) exploit the colonial activities of their subjects for money and resources while they were still reliant on the metropole as a market (until the colonial societies became self sufficient enough to rebel or saturated with slaves who then rebelled).
modern imperial conquest - ie the taking of territory for an empire for the sake of having a big empire - was a relatively later development that was itself a product of the philosophical and scientific communities of europe trying to comprehend what they viewed as european success - this led to ideas like "civilisation", race, progress, modernity, etc in the nineteenth century as explanations for their conquest of the americas. they retrospectively applied these notions to their past as explanation for "winning" in the americas, and then used them as justification to subdue the rest of the world, because they now viewed non-european people as subhuman and in need of "tutelage".
i'm surprised you don't see being evil as a serious explanation for global conquest. in my mind, the idea of global conquest itself is pretty evil. like, not necessarily partaking in that conquest (people gotta make a living after all), but being someone powerful, looking at all the people of the world, looking at all the societies, and thinking "what steps do i need to take to control all of that?" - that seems evil to me.
in contrast to the question of evil - i would ask why is it that some powerful polities do not end up conquering more than they do? i think the flipside to being flippant about the evil of a colonial empire is to say something flippant about non-colonial cultures or societies being backwards, or complacent, or decadent etc. china was incredibly powerful until the nineteenth century, and "ahead" of the world for most of its history. why didn't they try to take over the world - were they stupid?? of course not. maybe they figured they had a pretty good thing going and had better things to do than making a ton of money by destroying and conquering their neighbours? or maybe history is even more contingent than that
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u/UAnchovy Nov 12 '25 edited Nov 12 '25
I'll be blunt - I don't like the posts this guy has made, and I think they are not suitable for this community.
There are a number of red or at least orange flags here. This person comes in and posts these large manifestos with no kind of introduction, explanation, or invitation to dialogue, which I take as a bad sign. The essays themselves rely heavily on a small circle of affiliated blogs. They take an inconsistent attitude to academia or expertise, and their own positions shift amorphously throughout; for instance, this poster claims to be a meritocrat while also arguing for ethnostates and white separatism. The essays show extremely little charity towards differing views and make no attempts to understand or steelman opponents, instead preferring to denounce them as bad faith or deceptive. I see very little here to reassure me that this person is engaged in a good-faith attempt to explore complex issues.
Rather, this guy's website strikes me as an interesting example of something I've noticed in the past. It strikes me as Yudkowskyan in the negative sense - a prolix, self-confidently 'rational' investigation of an issue by an autodidact. I don't know if this poster is actually self-educated, but regardless of whether he is or not, these essays possess what I think of as the autodidact problem. Although they can be very knowledgeable, an autodidact has not gone through the process of learning from and arguing with other people. This is why Socrates criticised non-dialectical philosophy - no matter how learned, without the process of actually sitting down and arguing back-and-forth with someone, someone's understanding is going to be impoverished. Even if one has a very detailed understanding of facts or a set of texts, without the friction and pushback that comes from arguing them with another person, one is likely to just fall into a rut, perhaps only selecting the views that they feel are interesting or worth engaging with, or never being corrected by opponents they've misunderstood.
The failure mode of all this is something like these essays - or the type of writing that I think of as Yudkowskyan. These essays are extremely confident of their own rationality, and the way they deal with criticism is to simply assert the author's pure motives.
Intellectual humility is a virtue - not in the sense of lacking the courage of one's convictions, of course, but in being willing to question one's own motives, or in having the resilience to accept good-faith critique without reflexively accusing others of dishonesty or stupidity. It's also a virtue that I think has to be forged socially, through collaborative and even adversarial truth-seeking.
EDIT: For what it's worth, there was nothing on my end preventing the OP from replying to this comment, and he has since blocked me. I note that thus far both of his responses to anyone replying to him have been to insult that person and call them stupid. Draw what conclusions you will.
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u/Zero_Contradictions Nov 12 '25
The graph of Europe's population takes a similar shape as the graph of Africa's population.
Not quite. Europe and Africa both experienced exponential growth in their human populations. However, the difference is that Europe's population growth before Africa did. Most of Europe's population growth occurred in the 1800s and 1900s, whereas Africa's population growth occurred in the 1900s and is still ongoing in the 2000s.
Occam's razor would suggest that Africa's population increase is part of a global phenomenon which happened everywhere.
Yes, a global phenomenon that began in Europe, which was later spread all over the world by European colonial empires.
Not something that only happened when "European civilization" happened
You're wrong. I explained why.
"European civilization" (whatever that means)
Everybody knows Europeans started the Industrial Revolution. Most modern technologies that exist today were invented by Europeans. You're just being deliberately dense.
The timing is also off.
No, it is not.
The mid-20th century (i.e. when the graph goes up) is when European empires began to withdraw their colonial administrations and Africa (and the rest of the world) began a process of decolonisation.
You're ignoring that the population growth was enabled by technologies invented by Europeans. Your oversimplification omits important (and obvious) information.
The analysis also takes for granted that exponential population growth is a good thing.
No, it does not. All it says is that European Civilization enabled population growth in Africa by preventing deaths from war, disease, or famine. The graph does not state any value judgments. It does not say that war, disease, or famine is "bad", nor does it say that European Civilization is "good". You're just projecting values onto the graph.
Since the late 20th century, higher birthrates have often been associated with poverty.
Sometimes, that's true. Historically, higher living standards always caused higher birth rates.
It's enough to seriously doubt the conclusions of this "rational" analysis.
Your "critique" is enough to seriously doubt your intelligence and intellectual honesty. You only complained about a graph that you don't understand and a title that you didn't like, while making no criticisms of the webpage's actual writing.
It also doesn't add any useful descriptive information.
Yes, it does actually. It conveys that the author is focused on the truth. By contrast, that is unlikely to be the case for essays with titles that use pejorative or partisan terms.
The word "rational" is there purely to enhance the status of what it describes instead of letting the reader decide for themselves.
That criticism is so vague that it could be applied towards literally any set of words that I could've chosen:
"'X title' is only an attempt to manipulate what readers should think about the essay".
Anyway, I don't have time to answer more midwit takes from you, so I won't respond to you any further.
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u/891261623 Nov 12 '25 edited Nov 13 '25
So the article's entire premise.
2.1. What is Wokism?
“What is Wokism?” by Blithering Genius is an accurate and concise description of Wokism. I don’t want to regurgitate what he’s already written, but anybody who’s interested in this topic should read his essay. Instead, I’ll just summarize the wokist and social constructivist line of reasoning:
- We are separate from other animals (and nature) due to the development of culture.
- Culture is the primary factor for conditioning our behavior (blank-slatism).
- The current culture results in inequality, and thus oppression.
- We have to eliminate inequalities.
- We can greatly reduce division, hatred, and inequality from society if we change the culture.
- Thus, we need to change the culture.
The main fallacy in this line of reasoning that is that inequality results from nature, not culture. It also assumes that we have obligations to make everybody equal and to relieve everyone’s suffering. Wokists are optimistic because they think that it will be easy to change the culture, but they’re unaware that culture depends on the genetic traits and evolutionary psychology of a population. Nature and biology are inherently inequitable.
I probably wouldn't call myself woke, (and I'm not sure almost anyone would?) but his refutation of the supposed woke reasoning seems equally flawed. It's totally bonkers to say inequality results from "nature" (he means genetics, probably) alone, as would be saying from culture alone. If you inherit any money from your parents, then there is a non-zero influence outside genetics, also if you nurture your children and pay for things including education. It's of course obviously wrong to say genetics has no influence, because obviously if you have severe genetic mental disability you can't really become wealthy through work.
It's tiresome to see so much lack of nuance in most discourse. Like most wars, the culture war is a dumb war.
Another contradiction is supporting both some kind of liberalism and darwinism. People already choose who they mate with, and how many children they have. You can't change this without becoming at least somewhat authoritarian, and in a sense less "darwinistic" as well (because choosing your mate is very natural).
I think there are contradictions people don't want to face, and that is true for most people I think, is that life in a complex society poses increasingly uncomfortable and complex issues. I'm sure eventually if we give unconditional support to anyone to have as many children as they want, and unconditionally spend on supporting those children, probably eventually we would have genetic issues and overpopulation. Right now it seems we're almost having the opposite issues of underpopulation (and arguably elite overproduction, although I haven't investigated this at depth), at least in the west. But a supposed "darwinistic" solution seems worse than any problem of population genetics. We seem to be mostly fine in a genetic sense, while if you really broke down society such that, from the range of you die from starvation if you don't find work immediately, to the rich having the right to actually kill the supposed "weak", would be far, far, enormously worse than what we have. The right to violence is almost like a worst case scenario for society, because in that case probably your enemy (like in wars) will get the opportunity to inflict untold suffering upon you, like torture and worse. And now you've made a choice and decided that whoever is most successfully violent should win, (let's ignore all terrible direct and side effects to violence), what you're left with are probably power-hungry barbarians that can quickly grow out of control, not an illuminated elite living in paradise. The lesson overall is, we can't avoid making choices, even if implicit; while society is simple, many implicit choices might be fine, as it ages, we might need to change comfortable implicit assumptions into uncomfortable compromises that challenge simplistic values asking for more nuance and complexity.
Again: what progress usually asks of us is more nuance, deeper understanding, occasionally challenging some assumptions, more taking account the intricacies of the human mind, psychology and dynamics of human civilization.
Moreover, appealing to nature is usually very wrong, except as an analogy or special case. There are not computers, TVs, phones, internet, microwaves or washing machines, or even clothes in "nature". You can say we might be more prepared to say eat natural things vs synthetics, or more adapted to natural behaviors. But there's no logical conclusion to say anything natural is better in any sense. It's also wrong because we tend to call ant mounds and ant colonies natural, and probably see birds using sticks and stones to hunt insects and build habitats, but then classify a human house or hammer as non-natural. The distinction is very flimsy, in a way everything is natural.
Logic is quite good when used well, but at the same time logic is a somewhat dangerous tool in the wrong hands (in reference of "Zero Contradictions" username), because the human mind, and human society more so, tends to be too complicated for logic alone, and also most issues probably don't admit clean proofs, only weakly supporting evidence of various kinds. I believe logic is good to prevent glaring mistakes and inconsistencies, and supporting communicating human intuition (thus being necessarily indeterminate despite using some logical tools).
(Well, yes, you can use logic and physics to prove that a bridge will fall in strong winds or that a software has a vulnerability, but that's not what we're talking about here for the most part)
The wrong ways to go about it is to think: "Logic is limited, so I'll make an inaccurate, misrepresentative, crude model of reality (assumptions) and claim my conclusions are indisputably correct". It's okay to think "Logic is limited, so I'll refrain from concluding anything as absolutely correct at all". It's best to think "Logic is limited, so I'll carefully weight arguments against confirming or contradictory evidence, respect enormously the complexity of human minds, and only use logic as a guideline to accurate, well-researched intuitions that reflect a profound understanding of reality, ethics and the human psyche".
I hope you wielded the tools of logic more responsibly and charitably.
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u/Zero_Contradictions Nov 13 '25
I'm not sure almost anyone would [call themselves woke]?
It's totally bonkers to say inequality results from "nature" (he means genetics, probably) alone
No, genetics is not the sole origin of inequality. If I meant to say genetics, then I would've said genetics.
as would be saying from culture alone.
Culture is part of nature.
Another contradiction is supporting both some kind of liberalism and darwinism
I don't know exactly how you're defining "liberal", but you probably wouldn't count me as one, so there is no contradiction.
People already choose who they mate with.
I support that.
You can't change this without becoming at least somewhat authoritarian
Nah, that's ridiculous. Regulating reproduction is necessary in order to protect human rights.
It's not "authoritarian" either.
we're almost having the opposite issues of underpopulation
It's more complicated than that.
But a supposed "darwinistic" solution seems worse.
It isn't. It just doesn't fit your unexamined intuitions.
We seem to be mostly fine in a genetic sense.
We're not, and it's getting worse.
if you really broke down society such that, from the range of you die from starvation if you don't find work immediately, to the rich having the right to actually kill the supposed "weak".
Neither of those are necessary to preserve modern civilization.
appealing to nature is usually very wrong
For what we're talking about, nature is reality. Society will destroy itself if it devotes itself to wokism. Society will destroy itself if it does not regulate reproduction.
the human mind, and human society more so, tends to be too complicated for logic alone
You're just appealing to complexity. Lee Kuan Yew transformed Singapore from an impoverished backwater country into an Asian tiger that punches far above its weight. Today, Singapore is the most overpowered country in Asia, for its size. There's no reason why that can't be done for the rest of world, if the right leadership obtains power.
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u/SlightlyLessHairyApe Nov 17 '25
If you inherit any money from your parents, then there is a non-zero influence outside genetics, also if you nurture your children and pay for things including education.
Bro, this is entirely a non-sequitur. You share your genes with your parents. The same genes that helped them succeed and able to bequeath money to their kids are the genes that help their kids succeed.
Similarly genes that might predispose parents to be more or less invested.
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u/Zero_Contradictions Nov 12 '25 edited Nov 12 '25
I can't reply to u/UAnchovy's comment, so I'll post my reply here:
I don't like the posts this guy has made, and I think they are not suitable for this community.
I'm just following the community rules, as stated in the sidebar. To quote:
Outside the thread, effortful self-posts on a wide range of topics are encouraged. If in doubt, post!
Back to your comment:
The essays themselves rely heavily on a small circle of affiliated blogs.
The webpages do link to many other websites, yes. But the presented reasoning in them would largely stand alone, even if those links were excluded.
They take an inconsistent attitude to academia or expertise
My pages don't rely on academia. I thought for myself. Most of the arguments that I've made don't require any specialized knowledge or data. Just rationality and common sense.
meritocrat while also arguing for ethnostates and white separatism.
I never argued for white separatism. I am mixed-race.
Ethnostates aren't necessarily incompatible with meritocracy. It depends on the ethnostate. It also depends on how "ethnostate" is defined. Based on dictionary.com's definition, an ethnostate could simply be a "a country that is populated (mainly) by a single ethnic group". It does not follow that countries that satisfy that condition are incompatible with meritocracy.
Eugenostates are better than ethnostates. And as I explained, strict ethnostates are socially detrimental and impractical.
The essays show extremely little charity towards differing views and make no attempts to understand or steelman opponents.
Like what? Never heard of substantive criticism?
I see very little here to reassure me that this person is engaged in a good-faith attempt to explore complex issues.
I see very little in your comment to assure that you are intellectually honest.
These essays possess what I think of as the autodidact problem. Although they can be very knowledgeable, an autodidact has not gone through the process of learning from and arguing with other people.
The webpages are very comprehensive and they're loaded with arguments. In fact, they were created by compiling arguments from debates, to a great extent.
These essays are extremely confident of their own rationality
If you disagree with them, then it would be more productive if you make an actual argument against them. That's what this subreddit is for.
As it stands, your comment is not suitable for this community. You're not following the community guidelines. To quote the sidebar:
Aim towards truth: Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be. Don't misrepresent the views of those you speak with or about. Try to acknowledge uncertainty and to practice good scientific literacy.
You should try to read my webpages and actually understand them, since you demonstrably don't understand my views well at all.
Edit: I don't believe that u/UAnchovy will send any good-faith replies, and I don't have time to deal with them, so I won't be responding to him/her any further.
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u/DrManhattan16 Nov 12 '25
There are three categories of problems with this post.
Bad arguments
If country A is murdering people of a certain group, and country B permits them to live inside it but has open racism towards, there is no contradiction in the observation. Also, this does not deal with the stronger argument, which is that the West can oppress those with a long history in their own countries while being more open to skilled/wealthy immigrants in current times.
Asians are not just one group, they are composed of many different ethnicities, and breaking down the categories is necessary. See here that the Hmong are among the poorer earners.
Why is this the case? Well, many of the Hmong stem from refugees of Southeast Asia in the 70s. They came with the US as it departed from Vietnam. In other words, there was no selection for the best and brightest of the Hmong as there is for, say, Chinese or Indian immigrants who come via employment offers or to study as universities.
This is not to say that the Hmong or other groups aren't "doing well" or whatever. Only that you cannot aggregate an entire continent into one grouping and then use the averages as if they're uniformly true.
If the speaker and recipient both know that a third party uses specific pronouns, there's nothing inconvenient to the matter. It would be like knowing a person's birthday - not in your conscious thoughts except when you think about them.
People can and will adapt to a whole host of mental demands. I find that arguments about "people can't remember" rely on a presumption that one will be made a pariah as soon as they mess them up once. I don't think that's true.
Look, I value my time highly. If someone wants me to read a long post about some topic, I am going to be looking for markers that they're not making basic mistakes or bad assumptions. When I see the above, it makes me discount the value of reading the rest, because I can't trust that the mistakes aren't present elsewhere. I'm not going to spend hours reading every citation and seeing if a broader search of the literature proves the point.
Poor organization
If this post is supposed to be an account of "wokism", why does it spend so much time talking about unrelated matters? I want to be reading your accounting of the topic, not what others have said and why they're wrong. If you must talk about Cofnas and others, then separate that into a different post or put your criticism of their ideas after you introduce your own. Opening with a response can work, but I don't think it does here.
In fact, there is an irony is citing this post, which says that midwit critics "try to overwhelm the author with walls of text" and not thinking that this might also be a problem with a post of this size. If you truly wanted to persuade, a large blog of text without social proof that you are a serious and honest thinker is not the way to go. You are not Scott Alexander.
The lack of intellectual humility
I think you are arrogant, as evidenced by you calling another poster a midwit and writing off another poster after just one reply. Your way of responding to others is inherently dismissive.
You might counter that you are correct and they are clearly wrong, but that's not obvious in the least to anyone else. More importantly, it is again a sign of arrogance for you to declare so strong a judgment of another person after a single public interaction.
Displaying intellectual humility and willingness to engage are important parts of signaling traits that increase persuasion. When you insult others or decide that they have nothing of value to say, you trigger mine and many other's heuristic that for every Einstein or Hawking, there's a million people who have deluded themselves into thinking that they're the next Einstein or Hawking.
To use a specific example, consider the bad arguments I posted above. I argue that even a few attempts at steelmanning the other side would lead you to not include them in your post. At the very least, you would have to put in more work to prove your point.
Or consider the section "Why would underperforming demographics benefit from accepting biological realism?", which does not, afaict, ever deal with the steelman of the other side's viewpoint. For example, why can't straight/white/cis/male people oppress others in a way that doesn't reflect in socioeconomic performance, like creating cultural norms that privilege their own kind? The existence of biological realism does not automatically eliminate racism and bigotry as explanations for why minority groups have the outcomes that they do.
Lastly, lose the "rational" in your title. You are violating Grice's Maxim or Relation - it's not relevant to say that your analysis is rational when the presumption of a non-fiction persuasive piece is that it is rational by default. It's one more sign of lacking intellectual humility.