The Suppression Feedback Loop

There is a less discussed feedback loop in action when things like guns or drugs are suppressed by laws, or ideas like, racism, misogyny and communism are suppressed by social ostracism.

As the law-abiding or socially respectable people stop touching those things or stop publicly supporting such ideas, it is largely the criminals, the misfits, the social outcasts who still keep doing so. There will be exceptions, but the average character of people associated with those things or ideas drops like a stone.

Thus, the suppression gets retroactively justified.

We were right in suppressing those things and ideas because just look what kind of scum are still associated with them! Of course, this is lousy thinking, but this is how most folks think: not causally, but associatively: if a thing X is loosely associated with people they feel bad about, they feel bad about that thing too and thus generally feel good about suppressing it.

As I am a European, I can attest to the fact that it really works like that with guns here. My basic instincts are haplophobic, because make a wild guess, with laws of the kind most European countries have, just what kind of folks have guns here?

As for drugs, well, it is not a very reactionary thing to say, but I really wonder about this. I’ve seen it on raves that most druggies there can’t handle their substances responsibly. Is it because average people are unable to handle such substances responsibly? Or is it because the kind of people reckless enough to break laws for a fun night out, and stupid enough to buy random white powder from shady dealers that could be cut with paint remover, are precisely the same kind of people who are unable to handle such substances responsibly? Don’t drug laws work as a selection mechanism putting the most reckless idiots into drug subcultures, who then of course spectacularly crash and burn?

Since racism got socially ostracized, the average quality of racists dropped like a stone. Is anyone even surprised by this?

In 1900, when it was socially acceptable, you could randomly select ten racists and have an intelligent conversation with one or two. Today, it is almost impossible, today racist ideas overwhelming attract the most screwed up folks.  I don’t really mind that, as I don’t believe in racism – I do believe in human biodiversity but HBD doesn’t mean brown folks cannot be civilized and I think our main race-related problem is not trying that hard enough plus a bunch of others, like immigration having a too high bandwidth and results in too undispersed settlement patterns – but still it seems like the reason why todays racists are largely hateful idiots isn’t mainly because only hateful idiots could ever believe in such a thing, but mainly because hateful idiots tend to be over-represented in the group of people who don’t care about social ostracism. If you “outlaw” racism, mostly “outlaws” will be racists.

Misogyny, or “misogyny”, now that is something I actually care about. You see, I think the whole Manosphere / Red Pill / PUA stuff is essentially correct ideas in the hands of the wrong kinds of men.

Why are they essentially correct? If you simply compare the potential reproduction limit of a man and a woman – thousands compared to scores – you can deduce the rest yourself. Even their most offensive ideas, like the idea that women have no honor, could be seen as correct if only they would not be formulated in such repulsive, little-prick ways. You see, honor in the sense of not lying is not a merely an utilitarian ethical rule. In fact, lying could often result in positive overall utility. The reason men find lying dishonorable is that it is a coward’s tactic: a honorable man is expected to charge his enemy head on, not to try to backstab and undermine him by deception, that is simply seen too easy and too cowardly, hence dishonorable, even when it would be ethical. Since women are not expected to have the same bullish come-at-me-bro attitude, since women are far more allowed to be cowards about everything but childbirth, they obviously have less reservations about deception potentially making them look like cowards. Both women and men don’t lie when they find it unethical, but men also try not to lie when they find it ethical due it making them look like dishonorable cowards, while women don’t really have this kind of inhibition.

So why do I say that while the Red Pill is largely correct, it is in the hands of the wrong kinds of men? Let me offer a simple demonstration. Go to /r/theredpill. On the sidebar there is a link to an article called The Misandry Bubble. Or you can just google that title. Aside from the problem that it has exactly the same whiny-aggressive tone as the Communist Manifesto, most feminist rants or just about anything from the Left, which should already be alarming, the article has an, er, interesting approach to indiscriminate mass murder.  The article quotes – approvingly – another blog post, now removed, that mentions the Sodini shooting, when a man randomly murdered three innocent women in an aerobic class.  This is  the last of the three paragraphs the article quotes from the blog post:

“You could stop this madness tomorrow by refusing to follow your vaginas straight into the arms of scumbags, and actually live up to your claims of wanting nice guys – but I doubt you will. You’ve made your bed, ladies – now sleep in it.”

Imagine any random African terrorist who murders innocent whites, the kinds that used to abound in South Africa, Kenya, or Rhodesia. Imagine a white liberal telling the white settlers “You’ve made your bed, whiteys – now sleep in it!” “Just stop oppressing them!” Would you consider such a liberal having a generally foul character? If yes, why exactly are these guys better? Women should change who they sleep with in order to avoid getting murdered by frustrated male near-virgins? Really?

I don’t think we can rebuild civilization with guys who think like this, as they plain simply don’t look like they belong into one. The 0th rule of civilization is that you hang murderers, instead of telling their victims they should have slept with them. I do understand that at some rate it was feminism that decivilized these men, but it doesn’t change the fact that they are decivilized.

Not all of the Manosphere is beyond redemption, of course, although it seems to have a certain adverse selection mechanism. My favorite – least whiny-aggressive, most self-aware, most fun and humanely warm – Manosphere blogger, “Francis Begbie”, hasn’t wrote for a year.

So my verdict: correct ideas, in the hands of wrong men. And why? The answer is simple:  because Red Pill ideas are largely “outlawed”,  “outlaws” are overrepresented in the sample of men who swallow the pill.

Now Communism is, of course, a terrible idea. It attracts the wrong kind of people on its own all right, but I suspect it being socially ostracized adds to the misfit factor as well. Although in a roundabout way – perhaps it attracts people who enjoy being edgy.

Anyway. The question is, how can such feedback loops be stopped, in the cases that deserve it, such as the Red Pill or guns in Europe deserve it stopped, while Communism doesn’t, and I am on the fence about drugs. How can good ideas or things be rescued from the hands of the wrong kind of men, and how can they be de-associated from the wrong kind of men, and it all without overshooting the goal i.e. without accidentally liberating the wrong kinds of things and ideas as well?

No, we are not going to change the brains of most people and make them think causally instead of associatively. Perhaps you could limit franchise to the actually intelligent but that does not sound like an immediately actionable plan either.

Perhaps, just perhaps, we can try to make being an “outlaw” “cool”. Thus “outlawed” things and ideas might as well attract some better folks as well, which means they won’t look so bad because now not only bad men, but also good men are associated with them. But good men generally hate associating with bad men. And when “outlawed” things are “cool”, you get College Communists. Idea scratched. Any other ideas?

Maybe repackaging? Drop terms like Red Pill or Manosphere, take the good ideas and call it evolutionary dating psychology? Instead of making guns and gun owners popular in Europe, focus on making Olympic shooting sports popular first, so that people can associate with the idea of being a shooting sport fan first, not a gun nut as such, and thus gradually accept a relationship between people and guns? After all if you can’t make a man who can ski – most of my friends can – spend an hour watching biathlon, they are pretty hopeless anyway.