What’s Our Problem? A Self-Help Book for Societies

What’s Our Problem? A Self-Help Book for Societies is Tim Urban’s second book. Adapted from the blog series The Story of Us, the book is about how the world, but specifically the US, has gotten so polarised, why it’s happening now, and what can be done about it. A condensed Story of Us is included in the book, although the content from the blog series only makes up 25% of the book, with 75% being new content.
== Intro ==
If the history of humanity became a 1000 page book, each page representing 250 years, then humanity is on page 1000 and will enter page 1001 soon. The important thing is, technology is exponential. The more advanced humanity became the faster they progressed. This is broadly observed in the last 4000-2000 years, and in the last 10 pages of the book each page jump becomes more and more extreme (on average, the Dark Ages set progress back though other parts of the world prospered). The jump from page 999 to page 1000 was so extreme that anyone travelling from the beginning of 999 would die of shock if they saw the end of page 1000.
More advanced technology means higher stakes. The good times become really great, and the bad times get more and more awful. The next thing is that from Tim's perspective his society seems culturally to be progressing backward. This is worrying because as technology grows faster, it doesn't matter how great the good times are, since the bad times could potentially lead to the extinction of the human race. At a time when it's more important to avoid the bad times than ever, humanity seems to be getting closer to the bad times.
Tim then introduces himself, detailing how he spent 6 years working on this project, introducing the contents of the book, and shows a full table of contents.
== Chapter 1: The Thinking Ladder ==
In the animal world, if brains are computers, animals run by a software program called the Primitive Mind. While it is sufficient for the animal world, it isn't adapted to the modern world, leading to phenomena like moths flying around a street lamp, thinking it's the sun, because the Primitive Mind hasn't evolved to realize that street lamps exist. The Primitive Mind evolves slowly. The Primitive Mind represents many of the animals in previous Wait But Why posts, such as the Instant Gratification Monkey, and the Social Survival Mammoth. The Primitive Mind represents emotions such as anger, fear, and short sightedness.
But in humans, there is also the Higher Mind. The Higher Mind is rational, feels more complex emotions like empathy, plans long term, and is what makes humans different from other animals.
Combined, in humans, a tug of war between the Higher Mind and the Primitive Mind takes place. The book claims that it is the central internal struggle of humans throughout their lives, and the power between the Higher Mind and the Primitive Mind changes. When the Higher Mind wins, the person does things that make sense and has clarity and awareness, and when the Primitive Mind wins, ther person does things that don't make sense and are hypocritical and petty.
This struggle manifests in many different ways, from the struggle to find creativity to addiction.
The book then introduces an important tool, the vertical spectrum, how you think, to complement the horizontal spectrum, what you think.
It examines the four main tiers of the vertical spectrum, with each tier called rungs, although it is a range.
Scientists (with a capital S, not to be confused with people who study science) exist when the Higher Mind completely dominates the Primitive Mind and tries not to be delusional, searches for the truth, and most importantly, always open to revising their position on the horizontal spectrum. Scientists know the truth is hard to find and use the scientific method.
After doing research and making a hypothesis, Scientists like to test their ideas and debating and comparing their ideas and refine them. Most people aren't usually Scientists.
Sports Fans root for a desired outcome. While they care about the integrity of the system and on fair play (or debating tactics), they root for one of their ideas to be correct and have a harder time changing their mind than Scientists. The Higher Mind is still in control, but less so than in Scientists. Confirmation bias occurs in Sports Fans. When doing research the Primitive Mind steers the mind to look for research that confirms beliefs and doesn't like dissent. 
When testing arguments, Sports Fans root for their idea and feel like they win when they make a good point.
Being biased also causes Sports Fans to incorrectly perceive neutrality. When someone who is biased in the same direction as you you view them as neutral while someone who is actually neutral is perceived as biased.
While Sports Fans are more stubborn, they still care about finding the truth and the integrity of the learning process and can change their mind with much persuasion.
Eventually, someone drifts down the critical point when someone has their Primitive MInd take control, entering Unconcievable Land.
At this point, people can't be persuaded and care more about their beliefs than finding the truth.
The next rung is the Attorney. The Attorney refuses to change their beliefs and only does research that confirms their beliefs, and cannot be swayed. 
When researching, instead of finding information and coming to a conclusion, an Attorney uses a conclusion and researches off of that.
For example:
A Scientist's beliefs:
Let's find out whether X is true.
An Attorney's beliefs:
X is true. Let's find out why.
The book clarifies that this isn't an insult to real attorneys. Real law attorneys know that the best way to get the truth and justice out of the system requires presenting both sides of the evidence. Attorneys are like a courtroom with only one side of the case at court, leading to a predetermined ruling.
Attorneys are hypocritical and not aware that they are Attorneys. They still believe they are finding the truth, and logical fallacies are rampant.
The result is the brain's learning process doesn't work anymore. However, Attorneys still acknowledge the truth finding process and might change in the future if the Higher Mind strengthens.
Finally, there's the Zealot. The Zealot treats ideas like its baby, the absolute truth and they cannot change their mind. They have full conviction in their beliefs, and no dissenting evidence can change that. Zealots confuse ideas with people. They view a challenge on an idea as a challenge on themselves. This is when the Primitive Mind is fully in control.
Sports Fans and Scientists are higher rung thinkers, and Zealots and Attorneys are lower rung thinkers.
The book then talks about two types of intellectual cultures. The Idea Lab and the Echo Chamber.
Idea Labs are when a group of people dominated by Higher Minds get together. Idea Labs are communities composed of by HIgher Minds, and each Higher Mind works together to keep other people on the higher rungs. Ideas are separated from the person, everyone is treated with respect although ideas are not, everyone is working together to find the truth, and dissent and criticism is encouraged.
Idea Labs value humility and conviction without supporting evidence or reasoning is frowned upon. 
Meanwhile, Echo Chambers are the opposite of Idea Labs, composed of lower rung minds. Echo Chambers only allowed one sacred truth, all dissent is discouraged, humility is discouraged, and conviction towards the sacred belief is rewarded.
Idea Labs combine to form genies, and echo chambers combine to form golems. While genies are smarter than the sum of their parts due to high rung thinking, golems are dumber than the sum of their parts due to low rung thinking.
The concerning trend is that society seems to be going down the ladder, from the high rungs to the low rungs.
== Interlude: The Liberal Games ==
In nature, where primitive minds rule, there is only one rule: 
Anyone can do whatever they want as long as they have the power to do it. This is called the Power Games.
Because golems have no moral principles or code, they usually are stronger and more capable of conquering and defeating genies. The only way to fight golems is to form other golems, which is why throughout history most major empires were golems.
When the US rebelled and declared independence from Britain, they were given the chance to form their own country. Usually, a rebellion happens where the dictator is overthrown and replaced by a dictator just as bad. The foundation of the US, however, was set during the Enlightenment, with new ideas. The basic principles the Founding Fathers took from the Enlightenment (though these ideas have been around since Ancient Greece), were concepts such as tolerance, legal equality, human rights, and freedom. They saw the Power Games as causing many problems and worked to create a high rung society.
The basic reason for human behavior is human nature (the primitive and higher minds), combined with their different environments leads to their behavior.
Taking advantage of this, the founders created a government creating a society, not run by the Power Games, but by the Liberal Games (side note, "liberal" was not be used to refer to American left in the book, with progressivism being used instead, so "liberal" will be used as a term to describe the principles of the Enlightenment).
An important part of this is freedom. In the Power Games, everyone has complete freedom, including the freedom to harm others. Due to the rules of the Power Games most people lose most of their freedom with only a few having complete freedom. The Liberal Games fixes this by protecting the people's freedom to do anything that doesn't harm others. This modifies the rules of the Power Games to:
Anyone can do whatever they want, as long as it doesn't harm others.
This ban on harm changes the environment, transforming conquerers to politicians and nobles to entrepreneurs. This system in theory benefits more people than in the Power Games. The great inventions of the 1900s were due to the success of the Liberal Games, turning the primitive fire of the Primitive Mind into a steam engine of relentless technological progress and innovation.
The problem though, is that while the Liberal Games are designed to contain the Primitive Mind, it takes social norms to enforce these ideas. Without those norms, the Constitution means nothing. The worry is that these norms might be eroding.
== Chapter 2: Politics on the Ladder ==
There are four main parts of the new spectrum invented: The high rung right, the high rung left, the low rung right, and the low rung left.
Those on the high rungs use the higher mind to view politics, and disagree in three main ways:
What is?
As in science and history, what is the present like, and how we got here. How are resources distributed? What is the population like?
What should be?
The ideals of how the country should be. High rung thinkers disagree on what is morally good, philosophically right, or fair. Should there be more or less government control? What should the country's role in the world be?
How do we get there?
Even those who agree on the same view of a more perfect country may have different views on how to achieve that. If you want to reduce the national debt, should there be spending cuts or tax increases? Or both?
There are two high rung genies in the US, high rung progressivism and high rung conservatism. Progressivism drives change to make the country better, while conservatism conserves what is good about the country and prevents progressivism from messing with that. If the country was a car, progressivism steps on the gas pedal while conservatism is in charge of the brakes and reverse pedal. Both genies are necessary to counteract the force of hteo others and prevent one side from becoming a caricature of itself. In the end, while high rung thinkers might disagree, they all know that they're on the same side of making the country better.
However, most people are often low rung about politics because politics often deals with fairness, resource distribution, and power, everything the Primitive Mind likes. Low rung politics, or Political Disney World, consists of the low rung right golem and the low rung left golem, each believing they're in their own Disney movie where they're the completely good guys and the other side are the completely bad guys, with no grey areas in between. Echo chambers dominate and everyone is forbidden from questioning the sacred narrative. Both sides each have a checklist of "good" and "bad" positions.
Low rung politics also leads to the use of low rung mortality, principles, and tactics, behaving like the Power Games and using fallacies, coercion, being morally hypocritical, and applying double standards.
The chapter then investigates the golem's immune system and how they keep people believing the sacred belief, noting how people in different golems have wildly different perceptions of reality. It shows how that is accomplished through the use of conspiracy theories that fit the narrative, twisting facts such as swapping trends and anecdotes (pretending one is the other), confusing correlation and causation even when that's not the case, several fallacies such as the straw man, motte and bailey, and ad hominem attacks, and investigates each of them in more detail.
It also examines the genie's immune system, such as calling people out for low rung thinking and debunking conspiracy theories and incorrect information.
It ends with saying how there is a tug of war in the US between those on the higher rungs and those on the lower rungs, how the Founding Fathers hoped that high rungness and genies will always prevail, and how the Liberal Games and their culture are fragile, like an ecosystem. And when just something changes, the whole ecosystem goes out of whack.
== Chapter 3: The Downward Spiral ==
There have been two major shifts on why golems have increased both in number and size. 
The first shift is concentrated tribalism.
Emergence is a concept where small things combine to form something bigger than the sum of their parts, like ants forming a colony,
While the 1950s are widely remembered as an era of national unity, it's not actually because there wasn't any conflict, but the conflict was distributed along the emergence tower (the higher you go, the bigger the unit).
In the decade before the 1950s the country was dominated by World War 2, uniting the different factions of hte country into (mostly) one, cohesive unit. As veterans from World War 2 returned, there was a strong sense of national unity against foreign enemies. This distributed tribalism above the conflict between parties.
At the same time, the two parties were very ideologically muddled, with conservative Democrats and progressive Republicans. The internal conflict within parties distributed tribalism below the conflict between parties.
This balance meant that each higher tier united competing factions on lower tiers (like conservative Southern and progressive Northern Democrats uniting against Republicans, which united against the Nazis), preventing tribalism being too concentrated.
During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, World War 2 grew ever more distant and the Soviets not only weren't as menacing, but also split the country internally between the left and the right. During this time, the country's parties become more ideologically pure. While both Republicans and Democrats had the Black and progressive votes before, the nomination of Barry Goldwater by Republicans, an open Southern racists who aimed to win the Southern states for the Republican party led to a swift decline in Black votes for the Republicans (the Republicans won 32% of the Black vote in 1960 and won 6% in 1964, the same year Barry Goldwater ran). In 1968, with the progressive Republicans gone, Nixon continued this "Southern Strategy", appealing to Southern whites and being careful to not criticize segregationists.
The Democrats, meanwhile, with the loss of their Southern bloc, got more progressive, especially as the extreme and violent New Left grew. Needing to rely on them, the Democrats alienated their conservatives who defected to the Republican party.
Both of these factors led to the conflict within parties and above them growing smaller, with more of the conflict between parties.
The second shift was the shift from concentrated tribalism (while things were bad in the 1990s, things are exceptionally bad today despite not changing much in terms of the distribution of tribalism) to hypercharged tribalism, with two reasons for this. The first one is the geographical relocation of people. While most people don't care much about what their neighbors think politically, people with the same political beliefs also share a lot in common (such as where they shop, where they get their news, etc.). Even with a small amount of bias most people end up surrounded with people with the same political beliefs.
While in the 1950s people still liked to live near similar people culturally the ideological overlap within parties led to a diverse range of political views.
With more people with similar political views living together, views have gotten more extreme, as studies have shown that 
Overall, this meant that the parties were not only purified ideologically, but also culturally. Landslide districts where one party wins easily have increased while competitive districts (or swing districts) have decreased.
The second reason is the media.
The news media used to be concentrated on a few major networks (mainly NBC, ABC, CBS, and later, Fox). These networks had to broadcast across the whole country, forcing them to be as unbiased as possible.
With the advent of cable news and the repealing of the Fairness Act in the 1990s, conservative cable media and radio shows exploded, with progressive media, most notably MSNBC, also coming up. These "news" networks don't have to broadcast to the whole country, but only to those who think politically like them. These networks often cherry pick, make up information, and present reality as Political Disney World. 
The internet made this even worse, with many hyper partisan websites and blogs.
To add to all of this, internet algorithms are designed to present content designed specifically to the viewer to maximize profits. This often means presenting false and politically extreme viewpoints, making the views more extreme. Social Media makes this even worse.
After all of this both the left and the right disagree on reality, or what is, far more than they should or expect to be.
With different views of reality, media fanning the flames of extremism, and internet algorithms leading to unprecedented levels of tribalism in history, or hypercharged tribalism, it allows people to feel bigotry and disgust towards the other sides, leading to normal people dehumanizing and being violent toward the other side.
Because of all of this, ideological overlap in congress has significantly decreased, political loyalty (whether districts voted for a congressional candidate of one party and a presidential candidate of the other and the average difference between them across all districts) has significantly increased, and even the Supreme Court has become more political.
The median Democrat and median Republican have gotten much more extreme. Even so, this increase in extremism only began in the 1990s. Concentrated tribalism wasn't enough to make things the way they were, it took hypercharged tribalism to. Views on abortion and religion, previously balanced, have skewed, and people are now much more consistently proggresive or conservative (before, someone's views on abortion didn't tell much about their stance on guns, but that has changed).
Everything has now become political. The American flag has been viewed by some on the left as a right wing symbol, whenever someone emphasizes the threat of a foreign power the other side downplays it, and even Covid only took a few days for both parties to take sides. Tim believes that it would take a disaster much larger than 9/11 to unite the courntry like it did in 2001.
It end with Tim saying that hypercharged tribalism is destroying liberal rules and norms.
== Chapter 4: Rise of the Red Golem ==
When Tim was a child, his class voted on who should win the 1988 election. Everyone, including Tim, voted for the Democratic candidate except for one who voted for Bush.
Tim notes how he lived in mostly blue or Democratic areas. As he grew up, Tim became an independent, wanting to avoid echo chambers and made friends with smart conservatives. Despite this, Tim continually found it impossible to find merits within the Republican Party, bringing up the Invasion of Iraq, Sarah Palin, and Trump's use of fear and anger to drive his campaign. The chapter then dives into the history of the Republican Party.
In the 1960s, the Republican party consisted of a few progressives, many moderates, some stalwarts and a small number of fundamentalists.
In the 1950s, the moderates were the most important wing, led by President Eisenhower. In the 1960s, the fundamentalists grew in power, and as the 1964 election approached, there was a struggle within the party during the primaries, and with only a left-right axis it looks like a struggle with the fundamentalists pulling it right and the moderates keeping it to the center. This is generally true, but the fundamentalists also behaved differently from the other Republicans, not just because of their far-rightedness, but by being low rung, such as being morally hypocritical and uncompromising in their beliefs.
These fundamentalists started hijacking the Republican party, using low rung tactics such as preventing discussion with noise, chaos, and disruptions to hijack the Young Republican chairman election, an influential group for the next generation of the Republican Party, making it impossible to count the actual votes.
They then conquered the Republican Party in California, following the moderates and calling them communists and traitors, issuing death threats, and refusing to support candidates unless they shared their beliefs.
They then set their sights on the presidential primaries. Barry Goldwater, one of the main leaders of the Republican Fundamentalists, encompassed many types of low rung thinking, with his proposals being the most vague despite him saying it with them most conviction, being the most rigid and negative of the Republicans in his messaging, and openly supported Southern segregationists.
While most of the Republican Party opposed him, several setbacks, including moderate Nelson Rockerfeller dropping out after personal scandals, led Goldwater getting enough momentum to be the likely nominee. In the convention, the moderates weren't even able to oppose Goldwater as Goldwater supporters jeered and prevented them from being heard. Attending the convention, Eisenhower decried Goldwater for being anti-democratic.
After winning, Goldwater continued his "Us vs Them" rhetoric and outright advocated extremism. While the Republican golem successfully beat the genies, Goldwater lost massively in the general election, a testament to America's strength.
The 1960s were a turbulent time, and that awakened many Primitive Minds, allowing Goldwater to rise. As the 1970s came and went, while the genies held the upper hand, the struggle within the Republican Party continued.
In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan, a very ideological conservative, won the election twice, with Tim noting that Reagan was a much more charismatic and successful politician in terms of appearances, and most importantly, using uniting rhetoric, usually speaking to the Higher Mind.
While many progressives criticized Reagan, most of these criticisms were horizontal disagreements, which is expected, given the conservatism of Reagan.
Overall, Reagan was a high rung politician who governed that way, getting a lot of things done. He became the ideal and founder of the current Republican Party, giving them a firm identity.
After Reagan, however, the Republican Party began drifting down on the ladder again with leaders like Newt Gingrich, who, while not as conservative as Reagan, was much lower rung, reframing congressional elections as a national tribal war between left and right, forbidding representatives from legitimizing their opposition, and .
While that was happening, Grover Norquist forced Republicans to sign a pledge saying that they would not raise taxes, with the idea that whoever did not sign it or broke it would have their career destroyed, using fear to enforce conformity, a low rung tactic.
Unlike in the 1960s and Barry Goldwater, most of the Republican Party supported these measures, using Us vs Them rhetoric and promoting conspiracy theories.
During Obama's presidency Republicans opposed anything Obama supported, even something the Republicans themselves created, and refusing to hold a hearing for a Obama's Supreme Court nominee with only a few months in his presidency (the idea being that it's unfit for presidents to appoint nominees so late in their presidency, and that the people should decide instead), despite confirming Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee with only a even less time left in his presidency.
The debt ceiling was another case of low rung rigidity, with Republicans abusing what was normally a routine administrative procedure to hold the country hostage and forced a strict fiscal policy, damaging the country's credit rating in the process.
Jefferson noted how while not every unspoken rule needs to be written down, all parties need to acknowledge them and play by those rules. While the abuse of the above rules was legal, it was also cheating as it broke unwritten rules, the liberal norms talked about earlier. In a high rung environment such cheaters are penalized, but in an era of hypercharged tribalism that isn't the case which is what makes it dangerous. This legal cheating is the beginning of the Power Games, in which no one ultimately benefits.
This abuse of technical rules was also done with gerrymandering, campaign finance rules, and the filibuster. While Democrats have broken and abused these rules as well, the Republicans seem to have done more and worse.
The reason why this is the case is because Democrats have a more diverse base, so they couldn't be as rigid in beliefs as the Republicans had. Another reason is due to how the senate and electoral college are biased towards rural areas, areas that are mostly Republican, Democrats need to win more votes than the Republicans to gain an equal majority in the Senate, forcing the Democrats to need to moderate towards the center and leaving the Republicans to grow more extreme.
This created the perfect environment for Donald Trump to come out of. The opposite of Reagan in almost every way, Trump broke almost every conflict-of-interest presidential tradition and constitutional protocol, embraced conspiracy theorists like Majorie Taylor Greene, and supported authoritarian leaders like Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Xi Jingping.
Most dangerously, Trump made it clear he would only accept the results of the election if he won, and when he lost in 2020, he spread the unfounded theory that the election was stolen, tried to force the vice president and state officials to overturn the election, and incited a riot at the Capitol.
In the end, political parties change over time, and the Party of Reagan has changed into the Party of Trump. All Republican politicians were forced to embrace Trump or lose. While Trump was closer to the center than conservative, he was the most low rung president in the country and the struggle within the Republican Party was primarily a vertical one. While no political party is perfectly high rung, the Republicans have defined themselves with low rungness.
Of course, Trump's election was also a reflection of other things in America that were taking place, and while the lower right is bad, low rungness encompasses the whole spectrum. The chapter ends by saying the low rung left will be looked at next.
== Chapter 5: Social Justice, High and Low ==
It starts with noting how in 2012 the left (or blue America) was united behind Obama, but over the past 10 years a new movement came on the scene, splitting the left into different factions, primarily over the topic of "wokeism". Tim says he won't use that word much, due to being only a temporary or fad term.
Tim then explains how he sees two types of social justice, Liberal Social Justice (LSJ) and Social Justice Fundamentalism (SJF).
Liberal Social Justice believes in and adheres to the country's founding liberal principles (the Constitution, Bill of Rights, etc. "liberal" will be used to refer to founding principles, not the left as before). It believes that the country's founding liberal principles are good, but that the country hasn't lived up to those ideals (for example, slavery and segregation). LSJ activists use the tools of the liberal system, such as free speech, protests, sit-ins, and petitioning to enact change.
SJF, on the other hand, wants much deeper change.
The origins of SJF begin with Marxism. While LSJ and Marxism both want to cause change, they are fundamentally at odds with each other. While progressive liberals and conservative liberals fight over institutions, norms, and laws but agree on the principles of liberalism, Marxism wants to change liberalism itself. Marxism believes liberalism is flawed and rather than making everyone equal, allows the ruling class to oppress the lower classes.
During the Great Depression in Frankfurt, a group of thinkers had Marxism evolve into Neo-Marxism, expanding oppression not just from economic class oppression but to oppression from pop culture, education, and institutions. This was known as Critical Theory. It also developed the idea of false consciousness, the idea that the lower classes supported facism and capitalism because they believed that was the natural order of things, unaware of their own oppression. A
fter the Nazis came, the thinkers fled to New York City, where their ideas were instrumental in developing the worldview of the New Left in the 1960s. The New Left was militant, hated capitalism, and was willing to silence the free speech rights of their opponents, and were illiberal. It was at this point that the idea of oppression by social class as in classical Marxism developed into oppression by demographics and ethnic groups, birthing identity politics.
At this point, fields of study centering around identity developed, such as African American Studies, applying Critical Theory to social justice, creating Critical Social Justice.
In contrast to LSJ, Critical Social Justice was much more cynical, disliekd liberalism, and looked for oppression everywhere and in unseen places. Still, the struggles in the social justice movement such as civil rights for LGBTQ people, blacks, and women were still separate and a new development was required to unite those struggles.
The concept of privilege was developed, the idea that people are born into a country of inequality, but don't realize it, believing that it is the status quo. This is similar to false consciousness and it is believed that this makes both the privileged and disadvantaged unaware.
Privilege allows a clear "upper class" to be formed, such as men vs women, people of color vs white, and albe vs disabled. The creation of an upper class is important, because that is an important tenet of Marxism. Still, the struggles were still separate.
An important development was the concept of intersectionality, the idea where someone is part of multiple marginalized groups at the same time, making them more disadvantaged than someone part of only one disadvantaged group. This united the different struggles of marginalized groups, and allowed the creation of an Intersectional Stack, with those most privileged at the top and those least at the bottom.
While liberals and Marxists disagree about liberalism, they both agree on the principle of modernity, the notion of objective truth using science that forms the basis of humanity. People who don't believe in modernity are called postmodernists, who believe that false consciousness spreads to every field, including objective truth, science, and every other element of society. Postmodernists would believe that the Thinking Ladder is an illusion, not actually finding objective truth but another dogma or narrative.
By the 1980s postmodernism and neo-Marxism have begun to wane in influence, but a new philosophical merger would merge Critical Social Justice and postmodernism.
Critical Social Justice and postmodernism were philosophically merged, taking the Marxist idea of society designed to oppress the lower class and combining it with postmodernism to include a much wider range of ideas and institutions.
This was the beginning of Social Justice Fundamentalism, the idea that everything, from science, to governments, to religion, was built to oppress marginalized groups and keep the dominant groups in power.
There are many subsets of SJF for different groups, but they all believe in the Force, the idea that a force flows through everything and is systemic, making everything designed to keep those higher on the Intersectional Stack dominant. SJF is much more narrow than LSJ. While LSJ sees the Intersectional Stack as a useful lens of seeing inequality, SJF views it as the only one. While LSJ tries to improve society through liberal solutions such as free speech and peaceful protesting, SJF views liberalism itself as part of the problem and believes it should be destroyed. The term isn't mentioned in SJF writings, but the ideas are prevalent throughout them.
The next part of the chapter then explains why SJF is not only far left, but also low rung.
It first notes how SJF is unscientific.
Instead of starting from "I don't know" and progressing towards truth like those on the higher rungs, SJF thinks like low rung thinkers. While LSJ asks "Did racism take place?", SJF asks "How did racism happen here?". When SJF proponents talk about the Force, it also oftens sounds more religious than scientific.
An example is equity. While LSJ understands how past inequality can lead to present inequalities because wealth is generational, positive discrimination or affirmative action policies should only be used cautiously where there is evidence that it works and that has definite positive effects. In contrast, SJF believes that any racial disparities can only be attributed to discrimination, ignoring other factors, and believes discrimination in the opposite way is the only solution, ignoring all others. It also only attributes racial disparities to discrimination when it fits the SJF narrative.
Tim also believes SJF creates an echo chamber. SJF has one narrative, with one specific worldview with rewards and penalties depending on your adherence to the narrative, much like in a golem. This is in contrast to LSJ, with many contrasting ideas, worldviews, and solutions.
Standpoint theory is the idea that different demographic groups have special access to different kinds of knowledge about their own identity group. Because the Force is the predominant narrative and oppressed groups are always fighting against it, their words carry more weight since they themselves are oppressed. This also means privileged groups have no right (or very little) in talking about groups they're not part of. 
While part of this is true, in that everyone's experiences are different, it is also true that as humans, we all share similar experiences. Because of this, Tim says that it's important to find a "humility sweet spot" in understanding each other. But in SJF being part of a group gives you full access to that group's experiences and not being part of it doesn't give you any access to it, not even a peek (Tim notes how while they're not the same and it's extrapolation, Tim can relate his shock at learning about anti Semitism as someone of Jewish heritage to hate crimes against blacks, while not the same, Tim gets a small peek at what's that like). Because of this, SJF discredits privileged speakers.
However, most proponents of SJF are themselves part of the privileged group, overwhelmingly white. Using standpoint theory, these people should have no right in speaking about matters of oppressed groups. But because they believe SJF, they make an exception. Using standpoint theory, they should defer to oppressed groups about such matters, including those who disagree with SJF. However, SJF categorizes people of color (or oppressed groups) who disagree with SJF as trained to uphold the dominant narrative, similar to false consciousness.
Overall, it appears what makes a person valid in the eyes of SJF is believing in it, the definition of an echo chamber.
A final reason why SJF is low rung is because it is morally inconsistent. In a society, there are two types of tolerance or freedom, legal and cultural. While the legal ones are written down in the Constitution and other documents, cultural intolerance can still ruin someone's life through ostracization and taboos. A mark of high rungness is applying similar standards to everyone. 
However, SJF views the actions of privileged and oppressed groups under different moral lenses, making more things tolerable for oppressed groups and less things tolerable for privileged groups. SJF views the Force as allowing these moral discrepancies, which is why racism towards whites is classified as okay and minor things (termed microaggressions by SJF) is considered bigotry.
While it's okay to be sensitive towards certain sacred objects in different cultures and not treat them with mockery or disrespect, SJF terms all items from different cultures as sacred items, and all usage mockery or disrespect. This applies only to privileged groups using items from oppressed groups, once again indicating SJF moral inconsistency.
In illiberal societies the usual rule in the court system in determining innocence or guilt was "believe the powerful person". In the Liberal Games the playing field was meant to be completely even in a perfect court system, but as no court systems are perfect in the past the court system has been biased one way or another such as the Jim Crow South's court system being "believe white people" or in the cases of sexual assault and rape being closer to "believe men" than it should've been.
While LSJ has made significant progress in levelling the playing field, SJF believes that the only way to solve this is by levelling discrimination in the opposite direction. When it comes to rape and sexual abuse, SJF proposes to "believe women''. 
This is unacceptably extreme, because while there are many sexual abuse and rape cases, and false allegations are rare, "believe women" in the eyes of SJF translates to "believe all women" instead of working each case out separately, which is equally unhelpful.
A final reason why SJF is low rung are different applications of forgiveness.
Times change, and what was considered bad in the past is now considered bigotry (this also applies to things considered normal in the present but awful in the future). 
This isn't because the people doing those things in the past were evil, but that they were ignorant.
Sometimes SJF agrees with this, such as when Martin Luther King Junior received a letter from a gay boy and wrote back what would be considered an insensitive answer, but other times, when it's committed by a member of a privileged group, it is considered unacceptable.
Instead of judging past actions as "other times, other customs" like with MLK, SJF judges actions of a privileged group through "other times, today's customs", resulting in many politicians, actors, and other famous people coming under fire for decades old offenses.
While SJF would defend this moral inconsistency, it depends on the Force being real, which it probably isn't.
Because of this, SJF's actions and values looks not so much lime justice and more like bigotry against privileged groups, punishing entire groups of people for what some members of that group (who often are dead) did. From a liberal, high rung perspective, the application of double standards against privileged groups seems less like justice and more like low rung revenge.
SJF also treats the oppressed groups condescendingly, treating them like children and committing what is essentially soft bigotry by setting low expectations for behavior, which is very patronizing and not helpful.
Tim concludes by saying that from every perspective, SJF matches with a low rung ideology completely. Tim admits that while he might be a bit biased as someone who believes in liberal values against an ideology that rejects them, and that he's not an expert on politics or SJF, so he might have gotten segments of it wrong. However, that doesn't matter. As a liberal, Tim welcomes SJF to the vast marketplace of ideas a liberal society offers. Tim might be totally wrong and that SJF has several high rung members and vital to society, and even if it's just a low rung Echo Chamber, Tim is okay with that. The Constitution protects such speech and thinking, even of the low rung, golem type. His only issue with SJF is when in 2013, it became an expansionist golem, and started using low rung tactics that's not supposed to exist in a liberal society.
== Interlude: The Tale of King Moustache ==
Once upon a time, in a land called Hypothetica, a flourishing society under a great king enjoyed great freedom, including freedom of speech, led by their excellent head of state King Longbeard.
King Longbeard died, however, and his successor King Mustache grew frustrated that people didn't cheer for him like they did for his father. He implemented a brutal decree, ordering that whoever criticized him would be put to death. If the army and police did not obey him, the threat would only be imaginary. But since they obeyed and actually killed people, the threat became very real. Soon, no one dared question his rule, not even when he forced the society to launch a war of aggression on neighboring Neverlandia.
Ignoring the Primitive and Higher minds, Tim writes that there are two "selves". The Inner Self, what someone thinks, and the Outer Self, what someone says out loud. If people are having an honest and productive discussion, their outer selves would match their inner selves.
On any given issue, we can stack the Inner Selves along the idea spectrum based on what they think. This is the Thought Pile, a visual representation of what people believe on any given issue. If a point on the Idea Spectrum is higher than another point, more people believe the first idea.
A speech curve can be laid on top of the thought pile, showing what citizens express on any given issue. In an ideal world and during King Longbeard's reign on Hypotheica, all citizens expressed what they believed, so the amount of citizens expressing a certain idea was the same amount as the amount who believed that idea, so the Speech Curve and Thought Pile were perfectly aligned.
After King Mustache took over, he prevented the population from expressing their true ideas on the Speech Curve. While citizens were still allowed to think whatever they wanted, the Speech Curve no longer matched the Thought Pile. This is what censorship is.
Because of this censorship, most people didn't say what they thought, preventing Hypotehtica's free flow of thoughts and ideas, making large portions of the Thought Pile dormant.
Meanwhile, in addition to viewpoints that criticized the king prevented from being expressed, viewpoints that praised the king were given much more attention and expression than they normally would've.
This creates an Echo Chamber, and while individual citizens can form mini Idea Labs with each other, as long as the whole society expresses the sacred viewpoint overall, regardless of what they think, the censorship policy remains in place.
Even if most of the population disliked the king and definitely could overthrow him if they banded together, if only one person spoke out they would die. This creates a dilemma. People will only speak out if they see a majority of the population do so, but one person needs to speak out by themself first to incite a revolution. Even if one person did, no one would want to join them because it's still not a majority. 
Because people's expression of viewpoints has been prevented from being expressed, each citizen believes that everyone else likes the king, even if the reality is that no one does. This is called pluralistic ignorance.
Eventually, as the Speech Curve continues to be distorted from the Thought Pile, people begin to believe it after hearing the belief repeated over and over, and the Thought Pile starts to shift in the direction King Mustache wanted.
If Hypothetica was like a giant, then censorship turns a superintelligent genie into a mindless golem.
Throughout human history, ruthless dictators and tyrants used this system to enforce control over their population, dictating what the population believed, such as their morals, who were the good guys, and who were the bad guys. The most effective dictators were those who could create a depiction of reality that tapped into the Primitive Minds of the people, using hateful and fearful rhetoric. Making the Primitive Mind take over prevented people from thinking clearly and effectively.
Because of all of these cases of censorship preventing humanity from acting effective, the Founding Fathers created the First Amendment, banning censorship.
Free speech allowed the creation of the Marketplace of Ideas. Like a real economic market, ideas compete for attention and influence like products, with the best ones being elevated and being supported by many, and the worst ones pushed to the fringes of society. 
This is how the US and other free speech democracies learn, with Tim citing how a gradual push using high rung thinking and tactics changed the thought pile towards supporting interracial marriage and believing that smoking is dangerous. 
The Overton Window is a part of the Thought Pile where the most mainstream ideas are. If your beliefs venture beyond the Overton Window, as a politician you won't be able to win. While most political debate is within the Overton Window, revolutionary change happens outside the window, with people testing to see the edges of the window and move it. Tim uses gay rights advocacy as an example, and as the nation's Thought Pile changed, so did the stances of politicians.
However, even though the whole country is supposed to be an Idea Lab, it only works that way if the norms and cultures are in place to complement the laws to allow it. Like in all democracies, there are pockets in the US that create Echo Chambers, slowing progress down. Despite this, free speech laws and national norms prevent progress from being stopped entirely and golems from expanding.
Tim concludes by saying that while that's how it normally works, hypercharged tribalism means that even the national Idea Lab is under threat of becoming an Echo Chamber, under the threat of the Social Justice Fundamentalism golem.
== Chapter 6: How to Conquer a College ==
The summary of this chapter was written by Claude-2-100k, a special AI particularly good at creative writing and capable of handling massive prompts, with revisions by Superbattleshipyamato.
Over the past decade, American universities have undergone a concerning transformation characterized by the spread of Social Justice Fundamentalism (SJF) and the imposition of idea supremacy. As progressive institutions, colleges were once bastions of liberal values like free speech, open discourse, ideological diversity, and truth-seeking. But in recent years, activist scholars and students have steadily eroded these principles, often justifying their actions in the name of social justice while in reality acting in ways antithetical to a healthy liberal society. 
The story of Evergreen State College provides an illustrative case study. In 2017, the school held its annual "Day of Absence" event, in which students and faculty of color would voluntarily stay off campus to highlight their importance. That year, organizers flipped the event, asking white students and faculty to stay home instead. Professor Bret Weinstein, a longtime advocate for social justice causes, protested this coercive approach, arguing that while voluntary absence can make a point, pressuring an entire racial group to absent themselves crossed a line. Weinstein's dissent was met with outrage, as he was branded a racist and mobs of students searched the campus to confront him, leading campus police to advise him to stay away for his own safety. Weinstein and his wife, also a professor, soon resigned from Evergreen, driven out of jobs they had held for 15 years simply for defending free speech.
The Weinstein story represents a pattern that has played out across U.S. campuses, as the ideology of Social Justice Fundamentalism has steadily imposed its will through coercion and intimidation. SJF underwent key mutations that primed it for this authoritarian turn. The rise of "victimhood culture" granted social status based on identity, vulnerability, and suffering. "Concept creep" vastly expanded definitions of harm, offense, trauma, abuse, and violence. Together, these trends both multiplied perceived oppression and justified suppressing the speech of "oppressors" as a moral duty. On the homogeneous and increasingly ideologically uniform campus left, charges of racism, sexism, homophobia and other bigotry from one's own political tribe grew exceptionally taboo and threatening. Thus primed to exploit vulnerabilities in increasingly one-sided academia, SJF adherents became idea supremacists, imposing their views and suppressing dissent.
Idea supremacy has manifested through restrictions on campus expression, research, and education:
Expression: Disinvitations and disruptive shutdowns of speaker events have become common methods of censoring disfavored views. An organisation called FIRE (the Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression) recorded that most instances of censorship are from the left, but it isn’t conservative. Most colleges have a student body that is highly progressive, which is why more censorship comes from them. FIRE is politically neutral organisation, calling out illiberalism from both the left and the right. Censorship and suppression of idea that you disagree with violates the right of students to hear diverse opinions in the university marketplace of ideas.
Research: Scholars whose findings contradict SJF dogma face outrage, punishment, firing, and suppression of their research, while studies confirming the ideology spread unchecked. This stifles free inquiry and open debate.
Education: Social justice classes based on "critical pedagogy" teach SJF as dogma while prohibiting dissent. SJF concepts are increasingly mandated across departments and majors. Professors engage in self-censorship and face sanctions or termination over perceived insensitivity. Job applicants undergo ideological litmus tests.
These amount to censorship, witch hunts, discrimination, coercion, and indoctrination in direct conflict with the very mission of higher education. The principles of free speech, rigorous debate, and viewpoint diversity that once strengthened universities' "immune system" against ideological threats have badly eroded. With left-dominated faculty sliding to ideological uniformity, there were few left to resist the spread of SJF, which as the dominant ideology of the left exploited this vulnerability. Charges of bigotry from the left also grew uniquely harmful in progressive environments. Thus, authoritarianism invaded in the name of social justice.
The consequences are severe. Students suffer under a failing system that no longer provides the open intellectual environment and liberal education they pay for, expect, and require to develop critical thinking skills. Graduating students emerge more close-minded, ideological, and politically tribal, transmitting illiberal thinking into society at large. Society's ability to discover truth suffers as corrupted research loses public trust. Being progressive institutions, with the farthest left colleges like Evergreen being most vulnerable to SJF, falling first, and used as chambers to develop better tactics to conquer more colleges, academia overall provided the perfect environment for SJF to evolve tactics to invade progressive spaces, portending further spread into government, media, and more. Overall, this reflects a broader societal shift away from liberalism toward tribalism and authoritarianism.
While the behavior of SJF adherents is highly concerning, some argue it is merely an extreme fringe despite the alarmed rhetoric from some critics. However, the evidence paints a far more systemic picture of a fundamentally altered academia. Alarm about antiliberal developments is well-founded, as campus trends reliably forecast societal shifts. Those concerned for the future of open discourse and liberal ideals ignore academia's troubles at society's peril.
One might hope universities would serve as a bulwark against encroaching illiberalism, but too often administrations have been complicit. With ballooning diversity bureaucracy and enrollment-justified hunger for tuition, administrations are overly beholden to student demands and complaints. And once an authoritarian culture rooted, self-censorship took over as even most faculty who rejected SJF thought it too risky to speak up. Universities abandoned their duty as defenders of academic freedom and liberal education.
Some argue that stories of sanctions on professors or shutdowns of campus speakers get overblown, as any large system will have some conflicts and extremes. But the sheer number of incidents, the rapid increase in recent years, and the coordination involved in some efforts suggest neither isolated cases nor fringe actors. The accounts span elite schools across geographic and institutional types, from Ivy League universities to top liberal arts colleges to flagship state schools. Lack of public hype for each case reflects the chilling climate far more than lack of cause for concern.
The evidence is clear in the proliferation of restrictive policies. Hundreds of colleges now require "diversity statements" from all new faculty, prioritizing these over research credentials. Many demand existing faculty diversity statements to receive promotions. Hundreds also have Orwellian "bias reporting" mechanisms encouraging students to report each other and professors for perceived slights. "Bias response teams" then interrogate the offending parties. Vague "speech codes" place all campus expression under administrators' watch to police "offensiveness." While perhaps well-intentioned, such policies chill speech through vagueness and lack of accountability. Their SJF ideological roots also introduce severe viewpoint bias in practice.
Those within academia provide further insight. Numerous professors report curating their teaching to avoid controversial material, however essential to their discipline. Any perceived misstep risks attack by "crybully" students wielding social media shaming. Job loss is no empty threat, as a steadily growing number of professors – now over 100 yearly – face firing or sanction over classroom speech. Even Nobel laureates and long tenured professors are not immune. Accusations from students are aggressively investigated but rarely found false or exaggerated. The accused often lack meaningful recourse.
Meanwhile, entire fields now incentivize or require adherence to Social Justice ideology. Scientific research hits roadblocks when findings challenge SJF dogma, as agitated scholars attack authors and suppress publication. Humanities disciplines revise canons, reading lists, and research agendas according to ideology rather than scholarly merit. Hiring priorities elevate activism above knowledge. In the social sciences, which students now overwhelmingly favor, partisan skew reaches insane ratios, like 40 registered Democrats for every 1 Republican at top schools. Research conclusions conveniently align with politics, prioritizing confirmation over truth. Objectivity, critical thinking, rigor, and viewpoint diversity suffer greatly under the increasing monopoly of an ideological orthodoxy obsessed with its own unquestionable virtue.
Those who claim concern over rising illiberalism is misplaced or conspiratorial should study this unprecedented transformation of academia. The narrowing of discourse, erosion of critical thought, and ideological purge of dissent should disturb Americans across the political spectrum. A healthy democracy requires citizens capable of open-minded inquiry, factual and ethical analysis, and mutual understanding. Schools are failing that civic duty. All of society pays the price. If a liberal society cannot preserve zones of open discourse and truth pursuit against tribal pressure, it contains the seeds of its own destruction.
== Interlude: The Digital Cudgel ==
The Interlude starts with Tim writing how in the early days of social media, when it first came out, it was a place of immense civility, noting the "de-shaming" atmosphere that was going around.
However, the systems of likes, retweets, and followers got the Primitive Mind involved. The Primitive Mind loves attention and approval, and the social media system interested it a lot. Unfortunately, studies have shown that the best way to get attention is tapping into negative emotions, especially anger. This led to social media becoming increasingly Primitive Mind dominated.
Meanwhile, a movement was taking place on social media, giving people a new way to share their stories to a larger audience than ever below, allowing tales of abuse and hate to become public without the fear of retaliation.
While this led to many benefits such as bosses who could sexually abuse their employees being revealed and being fired, there were also negative consequences because Primitive Minds were involved too. And when they couldn't find any villains to attack, they would make one up instead.
Using concept creep, new villains were manufactured and smeared. This is especially bad because many journalists cover what they see on social media, amplifying the smear online, onto Google searches. Even if the accusation is made up, the damage is very real.
The worse part, however, is the fact that a smear is made radioactive. This means that people are smeared even if they just interact with the smeared person or share similar viewpoints as them. This can easily spiral into a "smear web" where even smears on genuine bad people affect good, high rung people.
This was the birth of the digital cudgel, a weapon used by many low rung people on social media, with wide ranging consequences.
Tim concludes the interlude by writing that while social media is very unrepresentative of the real world and that most of the people wielding the digital cudgel make up a tiny portion of the US population, history has shown that small, radical groups can take over society. The digital cudgel gave SJF activists a potent new weapon to censor society with, using the same tactics they honed in college campuses.
== Chapter 7: How to Conquer a Society ==
The summary of this chapter was written by Claude-2-100k, a special AI particularly good at creative writing and capable of handling massive prompts, with revisions by Superbattleshipyamato.
The chapter discusses how Social Justice Fundamentalism (SJF), after taking hold in academia, has now spread its influence across many institutions in society at large. It has done so primarily through tactics of idea supremacy—imposing its ideology and worldview while suppressing dissenting perspectives. 
To illustrate the expanding authoritarian reach of SJF, the author introduces the concept of an "illiberal staircase," with three steps representing escalating degrees of illiberalism and loss of core liberal principles like free speech:
Step 1 - Speech Control: This step covers high-profile "cancellations" and punishments for expressions deemed unacceptable by SJF ideology. It also examines SJF's increasing control over major societal platforms to amplify its own views as undisputed truth while restricting conflicting narratives and inconvenient facts.
The author recounts several real-world examples:
- Veteran New York Times journalist Donald McNeil was forced to resign over a controversy about his use of a racial slur when quoting a student's words during a trip with high school students years prior. Despite intent clearly being key in distinguishing use from mention of offensive language, the Times stated they "do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent" in demanding his resignation.
- Alexi McCammond, a 27-year-old journalist newly hired as editor of Teen Vogue, was quickly ousted after old tweets with racist comments she had made at age 17 resurfaced. While youthful mistakes are typically forgiven for adults, SJF allows no room for growth.
- Google fired engineer James Damore for critiquing the company's diversity programs in an internal memo. Though dissent is part of Google's culture, Damore's reasonable questions about pursuing equality of outcome and ignoring average group differences were branded as misogyny.
- Staff demands led to The New York Times retracting an already-published op-ed by a U.S. Senator proposing military force to quell riots. This revealed the paper no longer upheld its stated standards for publishing diverse views.
- Conservative psychologist Jordan Peterson had a visiting fellowship offer rescinded by Cambridge University after student protests about his skepticism of political correctness.
Alongside high-profile cancellations, SJF polices everyday speech across industries. It dominates major media, university, tech, and other platforms to repeatedly amplify SJF ideology as undisputed truth while restricting conflicting narratives. For example, terms like "whiteness," "patriarchy," "white privilege," and "systemic racism" have rapidly entered headlines and academic writing despite being fringe concepts recently. Evidence contradicting SJF claims faces barriers to publication. This amounts to a distorted public discourse detached from reality.
Step 2 - Forced Listening: At this step, SJF penetrates institutions to make individuals sit through its ideology in mandatory trainings and lessons. Employees and students cannot opt out of forced exposure dressed up as "diversity education."
- Corporate trainings teaching SJF concepts like white privilege and systemic racism have spread across industries from Disney to American Express. Reflecting on privilege based on race and gender identity is common. Dissent is career-risky.
- K-12 schools incorporate SJF ideology from teacher training through curriculum. Lessons teach white children to view themselves as racially privileged oppressors while encouraging racial essentialism and discouraging colorblindness. Parents and teachers who object risk reputation destruction.
- SJF concepts similarly populate university classrooms beyond typical departments through general education requirements applying "critical pedagogy." This explicitly rejects objective truth and teaches a single political lens.
Subjecting captive audiences to a controversial ideology violates principles of secularism and liberal education. It often utilizes shaming and other manipulative techniques shown to increase prejudice. Evidence suggests diversity trainings are frequently ineffective or counterproductive.
Step 3 - Forced Speaking: Here, vocal allegiance to SJF doctrine is demanded under the mantra "silence is violence." Failure to actively affirm SJF beliefs is punished as complicity with racism and oppression.
- Employees report being pressured to proclaim support for Black Lives Matter and "antiracism" on social media, with "silence" seen as racism by default. This has impacted companies, sports leagues, and more.
- Students and faculty face coercion to publicly endorse SJF ideology. Teachers are pushed to "flag" non-compliant students. Dissenters like Paul Rossi face sanctions.
- Ibram X. Kendi argues "silence" and "not racist" stances uphold racism and should be considered racist. His influence shows SJF's aim is not neutrality but mandated support.
Such pressures compelling speech are quintessential authoritarianism, violating core liberal rights of conscience.
Overall, the author argues SJF idea supremacy - from censorship to indoctrination to coerced orthodoxy - makes society's collective "big brain" dysfunctional. Evidence, criticism, and oversight are stifled while misinformation spreads. SJF frequently undermines its own social justice goals:
- Research shows diversity trainings often fail or backfire, reinforcing bias. SJF alienates potential allies with flawed claims and anti-liberal means.
- SJF narratives like "defund police" likely increase crime and harm marginalized communities. Discouraging agency and hope fuels nihilism and dysfunction among the disadvantaged.
- SJF bans evidence-based discussion of real problems like violent crime and fatherless homes while pushing divisive falsehoods about an unchangingly oppressive America. 
Meanwhile, SJF provides fuel for right-wing outrage and conspiracy theories. Campuses banning speakers feeds narratives about threats to free speech. Discriminatory proposals like "diversity statements" in hiring lend credence to claims of anti-white bias. Each golem uses the other's authoritarianism to justify its own escalation, spreading illiberalism.
In conclusion, the unchecked rise of idea supremacy indicates the failure of the societal "immune system" that normally contains radical movements. With high-rung defenses broken down, SJF has steadily expanded its reach down the illiberal staircase. This reflects an alarming departure from liberal values across many institutions, enabled by excessive polarization. The breakdown nurtures tribalism and authoritarianism across the political spectrum. Understanding the corruption of specific institutions illuminates the broader deterioration of civic culture and reason necessary for democracy.
== Conclusion: Changing Course ==
So what can be done now?
Tim begins by writing how, in history, what often happens is that after a major, destructive, and depressing event (like war), the winners who emerge are often wise from their years of hardship, creating a system which leads to prosperity and good times. This produces complacent people who never had to experience the hard times, becoming foolish and plunging society back to bad times. In today's world of existential destruction via nuclear weapons, humanity cannot afford to go back to the bad times, with society needing to get more wise without a catastrophe.
Tim notes that while there has been a negative trend towards low rungness, there are reasons for hope, such as the internet allowing suppressed voices to speak out, that since most of these stories were very recent, it isn't the end and there is still a chance to change things for the better, and the "silent majority", the less politically active and less vocal majority who are exhausted of all the antics and screaming of both golems starting to push back, with Tim citing examples such as  an op-ed in the Washington Post criticizing the journalism world's decision to not push back against the firing of Donald Mcneil, the loss of every 2020 election denying Republican from any office in which they could interfere with election results, and the creation of many organizations dedicated to bridging the divide between the political parties.
Tim continues with what the readers can do about all of this, and describes the process for becoming more high rung and how to push back against low rungness.
Tim finishes by saying that while there were many ideas in his book, the most important one is that "Us vs. Them is always a delusion. The Story of Us isn’t a story of good guys vs. bad guys but one about the tug-of-war that exists within each human head, each community, each society. In this epic story, heading together toward an uncertain fate, there is no Them. Just one big Us."
== Cast of Characters ==
== The End ==
== Gallery: ==
File:Higher Mind.jpeg|The Higher Mind.
File:Primitive Mind.jpeg|The Primitive Mind.
File:Higher Mind vs Primitive Mind.png|The vertical spectrum, with each rung.
File:Thinking Ladder.jpeg|The “Thinking Ladder”, showing each rung and visual representations of the Scientist, the Sports Fan, the Attorney, and the Zealot, and their positions on the vertical spectrum.
File:Scientific Method.jpeg|A Scientist’s way of researching and coming to a conclusion.
File:Emergence.jpeg|Full display of emergence with the thinking ladder. Genies form supergenies and golems form bigger golems.
File:Full political axis.jpeg|The full political axis with the thinking ladder added. It’s the high rung left, the high rung right, the low rung left, and the low rung right.
File:Tribalism.jpeg|The shift from distributed tribalism to hypercharged tribalism. Things were still okay in the 1990s, and concentrated tribalism is natural. The advent of the internet and social media led to hypercharged tribalism, which us not okay.
File:Intersectionality.jpeg|The idea of intersectionality. Black women are more disadvantaged than white women or black men.
File:Pyramid.jpeg|The different layers of society.
File:Conservative vs progressives.jpeg|Conservatives and progressives who both believe in liberal values disagree on the top.
File:Marxists vs liberals.jpeg|Traditional Marxists disagree with both liberal progressives and liberal conservatives over systems of governments, the middle, but they both believe in science, morality, reason, and truth.
File:Postmodernism vs Marxist and liberals.jpeg|Postmodernists disagree with traditional Marxists and liberals, questioning everything in the world, including the bottom.
File:Intersectional Stack.jpeg|The Intersectional Stack as seen by SJF. The most privileged are at the top and most oppressed are at the bottom.
File:The Force.jpeg|The Force. It only goes in one direction, the privileged oppressing those at he bottom. There is never oppression in the other direction.
File:SJF path.jpeg|How SJF and LSJ developed over time.
File:King Mustache.jpeg|King Mustache.
File:Thought Pile.jpeg|The Thought Pile. The most popular and mainstream views are the highest, and the most extreme and fringe views the lowest.
File:Speech Curve.jpeg|The Speech Curve. In an ideal society with freedom of speech and everyone speaking their mind and what they believe honestly, the Speech Curve would align perfectly on top of the Thought Pile, like shown above.
File:Inner Self vs Outer Self.jpeg|The Inner Self and the Outer Self. In this example, someone is honestly expressing what they think.
File:Censorship.jpeg|How censorship leads to a dormant Thought Pile which can’t contribute to the advancement of society and the amplification of minority and extremist views.
File:Distortion.jpeg|If censorship policies are in place long enough, over time the Thought Pile itself distorts in the desired direction as people are bombarded by propaganda and children are indoctrinated to believe the sacred narrative.
File:Thought pile movement.jpeg|America’s Thought Pile moved as more and more people believed that smoking is dangerous.
File:Interracial Marriage.jpeg|This shows how over time, the nation’s Thought Pile completely moved with people changing their mind on the issue of interracial marriage.
File:Overton Window.jpeg| The Overton Window is like if you filled the Thought Pile to a certain level with water. Anyone not holding mainstream views (or above the waterline) with drown and can’t be a successful politician.
File:Shifting Overton Window.jpeg|As more and more people supported gay marriage, the Overton Window shifted and politicians followed suit.
File:Concept Creep.jpeg| SJF’s idea of concept creep making less extreme phenomena equally harmful as more extreme phenomena and making more types of phenomena count as harm cheapens the meaning of harm, making it harder to bring attention to actual harm, and unfairly targets people who didn’t actually do any harm under the liberal sense of the world.
File:Illiberal staircase.jpeg|Not all illiberalism is equally bad, and this chart groups the different instances of illiberalism into four descending tiers, with each step lower on the staircase being more illiberal and closer to dictatorship.
File:Smear web.jpeg|Social media in low rung hands leads to people with almost no relation to the original offender and who may be high rung themselves get unfairly punished, outlined here in this smear web.
File:Golems pulling down.jpeg|While the lower left and lower right ostensibly need despise each other, they also need each other’s illiberal actions to justify their own illiberalism. In that sense, they are working together to pull high rungness down, and the world with it.
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