NYT: Genetic Data From Over 20,000 U.S. Children Misused for ‘Race Science’

Posted on January 24, 2026 by Luke Ford

Given that anything that violates one’s hero system is experienced as harm, the category of “harm” governing academic research must be rife with abuse that advances one hero system over another.

Mike McIntire writes for the New York Times:

Genetic researchers were seeking children for an ambitious, federally funded project to track brain development — a study that they told families could yield invaluable discoveries about DNA’s impact on behavior and disease.

They also promised that the children’s sensitive data would be closely guarded in the decade-long study, which got underway in 2015. Promotional materials included a cartoon of a Black child saying it felt good knowing that “scientists are taking steps to keep my information safe.”

The scientists did not keep it safe.

A group of fringe researchers thwarted safeguards at the National Institutes of Health and gained access to data from thousands of children. The researchers have used it to produce at least 16 papers purporting to find biological evidence for differences in intelligence between races, ranking ethnicities by I.Q. scores and suggesting Black people earn less because they are not very smart…

Within weeks of Mr. Trump taking office, the N.I.H. made a little-noticed revision to the guidelines on access to a large genetic database. Its description of what constituted stigmatizing research no longer included any reference to skin color, ancestry and ethnicity.

When a research finding suggests that a core tenet of that system—such as the idea that all human outcomes are purely a product of effort or environment—is false, it is not processed as a simple data point. It is experienced as an assault on the “heroic” narrative that gives the individual’s life and society its moral order.

In this context, “harm” becomes a flexible and potent tool for exclusionary closure. If the NIH defines harm not as physical injury, but as the “disruption of social cohesion” or the “promotion of negative stereotypes,” they have essentially turned a subjective psychological reaction into a regulatory barrier.

The shift in research ethics from “protection against physical risk” (the Belmont Report model) to “protection against dignitary or social harm” allows institutions to pick a winning hero system.

The Individualist/Hereditarian Hero System: This system values the “truth at all costs” and the mastery of nature through data. It views the suppression of data as the ultimate harm (a “Galilean” harm).

The Egalitarian/Environmentalist Hero System: This system values social equity and the protection of vulnerable groups. It views research that suggests innate inequality as a “weaponized” harm that justifies systemic cruelty.

By codifying “harm” in their guidelines, the NIH is not acting as a neutral arbiter of facts. They are acting as the curator of the national hero system. They determine which “truths” are productive and which are “dangerous.”

The abuse of the “harm” category usually occurs through semantic expansion. In the ABCD study, the “harm” cited by Dr. Jernigan was that the science was “faulty” and “unethical.” However, in science, “faulty” is usually handled by peer review and counter-studies, not by banning the researcher and ordering the destruction of their copies of the data.

When the state (via the NIH) decides that certain conclusions are “evil,” they are doing exactly what you suggest: advancing one hero system by legally pathologizing the other.

The NIH treats these two frameworks with a stark asymmetry. Research that falls under the hereditarian risk category, such as the suppression of uncomfortable data, is usually dismissed as a standard scientific debate. The institution views the stagnation of knowledge or a lack of balanced policy as a minor cognitive harm compared to the alternative.

In contrast, the NIH categorizes environmentalist risks as significant social harms. If a study reinforces stereotypes or provides a justification for discrimination, the agency labels the work as misconduct or stigmatizing research. This leads to an institutional response involving legal sanctions and the removal of data access.

The current system essentially creates a one-way guardrail. Research that leads toward environmental conclusions remains pro-social and aligns with the heroic narrative of a perfectible society. Work that suggests biological limits is labeled anti-heroic because it threatens the institution’s fundamental goal of solving problems through social engineering.

Because the current elite hero system is built on the “blank slate” or environmentalist model, research that leaps to environmental conclusions—even if those conclusions are based on thin data—is seen as “pro-social.” It reinforces the heroic narrative that society can be perfected through the right interventions.

Conversely, research that suggests biological limits or innate differences is “anti-heroic.” It suggests that some problems may not be solvable through social engineering. In a bureaucracy dedicated to social improvement, the latter isn’t just a different perspective; it is a threat to the institution’s reason for being.

Status closure refers to the process where a dominant group restricts access to resources or legitimacy to maintain its own prestige and power. When you apply this to the NIH, you are describing a “gatekeeping” mechanism where the agency uses its control over massive datasets (the resource) to ensure only those who adhere to specific ethical or “mainstream” frameworks (the circle of eligibles) can participate.

The NIH essentially uses three mechanisms to enforce this closure against what it deems “unapproved” or “stigmatizing” research:

Credentialism: To access the ABCD data, you cannot just be a citizen scientist or a freelance researcher. You must be a tenure-track professor or a senior scientist at a recognized institution. This automatically excludes “outsiders” and ensures the NIH has institutional leverage (the threat of firing or loss of grant money) over the researcher.

The Data Use Certification (DUC): This is the legal “boundary work.” It isn’t just a set of rules; it is a contract that defines what constitutes “responsible” science. By including clauses against “stigmatizing research,” the NIH reserves the right to define what is a “scientific fact” versus “ideological harm.”

Methodological Monopolization: The NIH frequently argues that because race is a social construct and not a biological one, any study using the ABCD data to rank races is methodologically flawed by definition. By defining the correct way to do science as one that ignores or minimizes group-level genetic differences, they effectively close the door on hereditarian perspectives before a paper is even written.

Sociologists like Frank Parkin, who developed closure theory, would point out that the NIH is using exclusionary closure to protect the “sacralized” status of certain social groups.

The NIH treats environmentalist perspectives as the approved and default stance for research. This approach faces no restrictions and is actively encouraged through prompts and guidelines in all data applications. In contrast, the agency views hereditarianism as a stigmatized or fringe perspective. Researchers pursuing this angle must undergo strict responsible use training and face the threat of potential life-long bans from federal repositories.

The most severe category is race science, which the NIH categorizes as strictly prohibited. Engaging in this type of work triggers legal sanctions, formal orders to destroy compromised data, and institutional firing. By categorizing these perspectives in this manner, the agency ensures that only research fitting the preferred social framework receives the legitimacy of federal data.

Because the current elite hero system is built on the “blank slate” or environmentalist model, research that leaps to environmental conclusions—even if those conclusions are based on thin data—is seen as “pro-social.” It reinforces the heroic narrative that society can be perfected through the right interventions.

Conversely, research that suggests biological limits or innate differences is “anti-heroic.” It suggests that some problems may not be solvable through social engineering. In a bureaucracy dedicated to social improvement, the latter isn’t just a different perspective; it is a threat to the institution’s reason for being.

There are no binding guidelines from the NIH that penalize researchers for ignoring genetic data to focus solely on social or environmental factors. While the NIH recently updated its “Responsible Use” warnings for the ABCD Study to urge researchers to “account for social and environmental contexts,” it does not mandate the reverse.

This asymmetry stems from the specific ethical and legal frameworks that govern federal research data.

The NIH guidelines are focused on preventing informational risk and social harm. Under federal policy, “stigmatizing research” refers specifically to work that could promote negative stereotypes or lead to the marginalization of specific groups.

Genetic Leaps: When a researcher uses genetic data to suggest innate group differences, the NIH views this as a high risk for social detriment. This triggers the strict oversight seen in the Pesta case.

Environmental Leaps: When a researcher ignores genetics to focus on environment, the NIH generally sees this as a low-risk “scientific disagreement” rather than an ethical violation. Even if the research is considered incomplete by some, it does not carry the same historical baggage or potential for systemic harm as eugenics-related research.

While the NIH encourages “transdisciplinary research” that combines genetics and social science, the enforcement mechanisms are very different for each side:

For Geneticists: To even touch the data, they must sign a Data Use Certification (DUC). This is a binding legal document. If they use the data in a way that promotes “disrespectful reporting of disaggregated data” (such as race-based rankings), they can be banned for life, as Pesta was.

For Social Scientists: They are guided by “Responsible Use” callout boxes and checklists. These are suggestions for rigor rather than binding contracts. A social scientist who ignores a relevant genetic marker might have their paper criticized by peers for poor methodology, but they will not face federal sanctions or lose their access to the database.

The NIH maintains that its role is not to settle the “nature vs. nurture” debate, but to ensure that the data the public pays for is used responsibly. In their view, “responsible” means avoiding the weaponization of DNA. Because the social science tradition of focusing on the environment is not seen as “weaponizable” in a way that leads to group-based discrimination, it remains a “safe” path in the eyes of federal regulators.

Essentially, the NIH has built a one-way guardrail: it stops you from driving off the “genetic determinism” cliff, but it allows you to stay on the “environmental determinism” road as long as you like.

Social science and genetics often exist in a state of mutual suspicion. Most social science research operates on the assumption that environment explains nearly all variation in life outcomes. This creates a vacuum that researchers like Pesta and Kirkegaard seek to fill. They argue that because mainstream science ignores heritability, their work provides a necessary correction.

The friction lies in how one defines “heritable.” In behavioral genetics, the consensus holds that most complex traits, including intelligence, possess a significant genetic component. However, the “hereditarian model” used by the researchers in the story goes a step further by claiming that differences between groups are primarily genetic.

The researchers in the story did not just focus on genetics; they used a specific type of data called a Polygenic Score. This score aggregates thousands of tiny genetic variants to predict a trait.

The technical failure in their work, according to critics, is not that they looked at DNA, but how they accounted for the “noise” in that DNA:

Genetic Stratification: Genetic markers often cluster by geography and ancestry without having anything to do with the trait being studied. If a researcher does not properly control for these clusters, they might mistake a marker for “ancestry” as a marker for “intelligence.”

The Scarcity of Environmental Data: The ABCD Study and the Philadelphia data were designed to track brain development, not sociology. They lacked granular data on wealth, lead exposure, nutrition, and early childhood stress. By using the genetic data in isolation, the researchers essentially assigned all “unexplained” variation to DNA.

The raw data points—the IQ scores and the genetic sequences—were real. The children in the study did provide those samples and take those tests. The “lie” or “truth” depends on the inference.

If a child in a high-poverty neighborhood has a lower test score and a specific genetic marker, a social scientist might say the score is due to the poverty. A hereditarian might say it is due to the marker. Because the researchers lacked the data to prove the environment wasn’t the cause, mainstream scientists argue their “accurate” data was used to reach an unsupported conclusion. They essentially looked at a race where some people ran in sand and others ran on a track, then claimed the speed difference was entirely due to the runners’ lung capacity.

The question of “ideological guidelines” versus “scientific standards” is the central tension in this story. From the perspective of the NIH, these guidelines exist to prevent what they call “stigmatizing research”—studies that use federal data to promote negative stereotypes or social harm. Critics like the researchers in your story see this as a form of “cancel culture” or an ideological “no-fly zone” that prevents them from asking certain questions.

The NIH justifies these restrictions on two grounds: informed consent and scientific rigor.

Informed Consent: The families who joined the ABCD study in 2015 were promised their data would be used to help children, not to provide fodder for social media posts about racial inferiority. The NIH argues that allowing “race science” violates the fundamental agreement made with the participants.

Preventing Pseudoscience: The agency discourages research that uses “social constructs” (like race) as proxies for “biological predictors” (like specific genes). They argue that because “race” is a social category with huge environmental variables (poverty, education, discrimination), treating it as a pure biological variable is scientifically illiterate.

The “bad guys” in this Times narrative—Bryan Pesta and his collaborators—were found to have used deceptive tactics to get the data, but the accuracy of their findings is where the real debate lies.

Mainstream geneticists call this “playacting at science.” They argue the researchers didn’t “find” evidence; they tortured the data until it confessed to their existing beliefs. By ignoring the massive environmental gaps between different groups in America, the researchers essentially attributed social inequality to DNA.

The most direct lie wasn’t about the IQ scores themselves, but about the source of those scores. The researchers claimed the data showed innate differences, but because they failed to control for the vastly different lives those children lead, their “discovery” was effectively a measurement of American sociology, not human biology, according to the dominant narrative.

In the view of many independent creators, the mainstream media (MSM) functions as a centralized gatekeeper that maintains “elite oversight” by filtering information through established institutional and corporate lenses. The rise of bloggers, vloggers, and podcasters represents a decentralized counter-movement that seeks to bypass these traditional “gates.”

Mainstream institutions often operate under a “propaganda model,” where information is filtered through several layers before reaching the public. These filters are not necessarily conspiratorial; they are often the result of organizational routines and institutional norms.

Institutional Alignment: Large media firms are often part of corporate conglomerates. This creates a structural incentive to avoid topics that challenge the interests of parent companies or major advertisers.

Access Journalism: Mainstream reporters often rely on high-level government or corporate sources. This dependency can lead to “regulatory capture,” where the media is hesitant to criticize the very sources they need for “scoops.”

Narrative Homogeneity: Professional norms (such as “objectivity” or “standardized fact-checking”) can sometimes lead to a “view from nowhere” that ignores marginalized perspectives or alternative data that doesn’t fit the established “hero system.”

Independent creators use a different model—often called “gatewatching” or “collaborative gatekeeping”—to challenge these centralized narratives.

Disintermediation: Podcasters and bloggers remove the “middleman.” They speak directly to their audience, allowing for long-form, unedited discussions that bypass the 5-minute televised soundbite.

Niche Expertise: Independent creators often specialize in highly specific fields (e.g., specific scientific data, local government, or specialized tech) that mainstream outlets might find too complex or “fringe” to cover consistently.

Audience Accountability: While independent creators lack the legal and financial resources of the MSM, they are often more directly accountable to their “community.” If a creator loses the trust of their base, they lose their funding (e.g., through Patreon or Substack) immediately.

As independent media has grown, mainstream institutions have responded by emphasizing their own role as the sole “authenticators” of reality.

The “Misinformation” Label: Mainstream outlets frequently frame independent media as a source of “misinformation” or “fake news.” By defining independent voices as “unverified,” they reinforce their own status as the only “responsible” gatekeepers.

Platform Pressure: Many elite institutions push for social media platforms to “de-rank” or “shadowban” independent voices that step outside the “approved” guidelines. This is often framed as a way to protect the public from “harmful” content.

By bypassing elite oversight, independent creators are effectively creating an alternative public sphere. This sphere doesn’t just offer different facts; it offers a different “hero system” where the individual’s ability to parse data is valued over the institution’s authority to declare what is true.

The battle between hereditarian researchers and the scientific establishment illustrates the The Neutralization Theory of Hatred by transforming a data-driven conflict into a struggle for social survival. In this framework, the establishment views hereditarian research as a “toxic” threat that imposes a “net fitness cost” on society by undermining the current “hero system” of egalitarianism and social perfectibility.

The establishment uses exclusionary closure to neutralize these researchers, treating their existence within the academic community as a cost that must be mitigated. Access to the ABCD Study data is restricted to researchers with “valid institutional credentials,” effectively barring “citizen scientists” or freelance researchers who might challenge the prevailing narrative.

Because the NIH discourages “stigmatizing research,” hereditarian researchers like Bryan Pesta often feel forced into deceptive applications. This deception then provides the establishment with a non-ideological justification—”misconduct”—to neutralize them through career-ending bans and institutional firing.

By defining race as a purely social construct rather than a biological variable, the NIH creates a “no-fly zone”. Any researcher attempting to use the data otherwise is labeled “unscientific,” effectively depriving them of allies and social power.

There is a direct contradiction between White House mandates and NIH practices. While the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has mandated that federally funded research and data be “freely and immediately available” by 2026, the implementation remains stratified.

The “open source” mandate primarily targets peer-reviewed publications. However, the underlying “supporting data”—especially sensitive human genomic data like that in the ABCD Study—remains locked behind “controlled access” tiers.

The NIH maintains that data must be shared in a “responsible” manner. This “responsibility” includes protecting marginalized groups from “stigmatization,” a category that is expanded to justify blocking research that contradicts the dominant ideological agenda.

As the establishment attempts to neutralize these researchers, the researchers engage in their own information warfare. They bypass mainstream gates by using vlogs, blogs, and social media to appeal directly to a counter-public. This creates a “snowball effect” of reciprocal hatred, where any defense of the “toxic” individual is seen as a cost, leading the establishment to “hate the defender” as well.

The establishment’s claim that data is being “twisted to advance an ideological agenda” is mirrored by the researchers’ claim that data is being “sequestered to protect an ideological agenda.” Both sides are using science to protect their respective hero systems.

Alliance Theory suggests that the clash between researchers and the NIH is not a debate over abstract scientific values like objectivity or safety, but a social conflict driven by shifting alliance structures.

The theory argues that partisans use “propagandistic biases”—victim, perpetrator, and attributional biases—to support their allies and oppose their rivals.

Perpetrator Biases and “Misconduct”: The NIH’s focus on Pesta’s “misconduct” can be viewed as an outward-facing tactic to mobilize opposition to a rival. By framing the issue as a violation of safety protocols rather than a suppression of data, the institution downplays its own role in restricting research while maximizing the severity of the researcher’s transgression.

Victim Biases: The New York Times story highlights the grievances of families who felt “misused”. Alliance Theory suggests these victim biases serve a strategic function: they call attention to critical disadvantages to mobilize support from third parties and justify the neutralization of the researchers.

Status Closure as Alliance Strategy

The paper reframes the concept of “status closure” by showing that people do not simply cheer for ideologies; they rally for or against distinct ethnic, religious, and occupational groups.

Strange Bedfellows: The NIH represents a “bridging alliance” between intellectual elites (academics, journalists, scientists) and the groups they view as allies (vulnerable minorities).

Neutrality as a Signal: In this framework, “scientific consensus” is not a deep-seated moral value but a collection of ad hoc justifications designed to advance the interests of this complex alliance against its rivals.

The “Truth” vs. The “Ally”

The subject story notes that data is “twisted to advance an ideological agenda.” This paper explains why: ideological worldviews are not designed to literally view the world but to serve strategic functions like signaling allegiance.

Consistency is a Myth: The paper notes that political belief systems are collections of rationalizations and moralizations. The NIH’s “open science” mandate for peer-reviewed papers—while maintaining “controlled access” for raw data—is an inconsistency that serves the strategic function of maintaining oversight while appearing transparent.

Loyalty as Accuracy: For the partisans involved, motivated reasoning is not a cognitive shortcoming; it is an “honest signal of loyalty” to their side of the story.

Ultimately, the paper suggests that the primary difference between the NIH establishment and the rebel researchers is not a difference in values, but a difference in whom they view as their allies.

The concept of no-fly zones of inquiry, which relates to the sacralization of certain groups, explains why the academic focus remains asymmetrical. In this framework, certain topics or conclusions become socially and professionally off-limits because they threaten the status or perceived safety of groups that society has deemed protected or sacralized.

Academics often operate within a set of unspoken boundaries where questioning the agency or cultural habits of a minority group is viewed as an act of harm. Because these groups are sacralized, any data that might reflect poorly on them is frequently redirected toward an external cause, usually the dominant group. This creates a protective canopy over the minority group. To suggest that a problem originates from within that community violates the social taboo. It risks the researcher being labeled as a bigot or an agent of oppression.

By contrast, the dominant group—in this case, whites—is not sacralized in the same way within modern elite epistemics. Criticizing the dominant group or assigning them collective blame is not seen as an act of harm, but as an act of justice or “punching up.” This creates a dynamic where one side of the equation is open for rigorous, often harsh investigation, while the other side is protected by a no-fly zone. Researchers find it much safer for their careers to investigate the “sins” of the powerful than to explore the “failures” of the marginalized.

This asymmetry shapes the entire body of available research. When certain questions are never asked because they fall within a no-fly zone, the resulting lack of data is then used as evidence that those factors do not exist. If no one receives funding or tenure for studying the internal cultural drivers of crime in a specific neighborhood, the academic record will eventually only contain papers about the external structural drivers. The “truth” of the matter becomes a reflection of what was allowed to be studied.

The result is a closed loop. The no-fly zone prevents the inquiry; the lack of inquiry prevents the data; and the lack of data reinforces the consensus that the external, dominant group is the only variable that matters. This illustrates David Pinsof’s point that argument is often a tool used to hurt enemies and bolster allies. In this case, the academic framework serves to protect the sacralized ally and pressure the non-sacralized opponent.

Academics and public health researchers generally address high rates of STDs among gay men through the framework of Minority Stress Theory. This approach shifts the focus away from individual or group “blame” and toward the psychological and social toll of living in a heteronormative or exclusionary society.

The primary academic explanation suggests that chronic stress resulting from stigma, prejudice, and discrimination leads to higher rates of substance use and risky sexual behavior as coping mechanisms. Scholars argue that when a group is marginalized, they often lack access to supportive social institutions, which can lead to a breakdown in community health norms. In this view, the “root cause” of the disparity is not the behavior itself, but the societal hostility that drives it.

Structural factors also play a significant role in the academic literature. Researchers point to “medical mistrust” and unequal access to healthcare. They argue that gay men may avoid regular testing or preventative care like PrEP due to past negative experiences with healthcare providers or a fear of being judged. By focusing on these systemic barriers, academics can address the high rates without implying that there is an inherent or cultural problem within the gay community. This keeps the inquiry within the “safe” zone of institutional critique.

When applying the concept of no-fly zones of inquiry, a clear pattern emerges. Academics are often hesitant to investigate internal cultural drivers, such as the “sexual marketplace” dynamics or the impact of high partner turnover within certain subcultures, unless those factors can be linked back to external oppression. To suggest that the high rates might be partially driven by group-specific cultural norms or individual choices—independent of “white” or “straight” influence—often violates the protective canopy surrounding a sacralized group.

In this context, the “bad researchers” mentioned in the genetics debate are those who might look for biological or deep-seated behavioral predispositions. Mainstream academics view such research as a path toward pathologizing a marginalized group. Instead, they prioritize “resilience” frameworks and “upstream” social determinants. This ensures that the responsibility for the health disparity remains on the broader society and its institutions, rather than on the community experiencing the health crisis.

This leads to a research landscape where a great deal is written about “homophobia as a public health crisis,” but very little is written about the internal community norms that might contribute to the same statistics. The no-fly zone ensures that the sacralized group is viewed primarily as a victim of external forces, which maintains the epistemic moral high ground for the researchers and the group itself.

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Which Common Political Beliefs Signal Hatred Of Opponents?

Posted on January 24, 2026 by Luke Ford

Written with help from Grok/Chat GPT/Gemini: Beliefs that frame political opponents as existential threats to one’s group, values, or way of life foster intense negative emotions, including hatred, as they activate perceptions of others as “toxic” individuals or groups whose actions impose severe costs (drawing loosely from evolutionary psychology frameworks like the neutralization theory, where hatred evolves to counter perceived fitness threats).

The “Great Replacement” theory, which posits that elites are orchestrating demographic shifts to dilute or erase cultural majorities, often leads believers to view immigration advocates or multiculturalists as direct enemies, motivating efforts to “neutralize” their influence.However, hatred isn’t an inevitable outcome of any belief—it’s more about how the belief is interpreted and the social context. Many people hold strong views without hating opponents, emphasizing debate or reform instead. That said, certain ideologies, especially those with conspiratorial, zero-sum, or apocalyptic elements, correlate with higher levels of animosity toward outgroups, based on patterns observed in political psychology, surveys (e.g., from Pew Research or academic studies on polarization), and real-world conflicts.Below, I’ll list ten common political beliefs (or clusters of beliefs) that, in their more extreme forms, are statistically linked to heightened hatred of opponents. This isn’t exhaustive or ranked by “hate intensity,” as that’s subjective and hard to quantify precisely. Instead, I’ve prioritized prevalence based on global discourse, media coverage, and research on divisive ideologies (e.g., from sources like the Global Extremism Monitor or studies on affective polarization). I’ve aimed for balance across the spectrum—left, right, center isn’t the point; extremism is. For each, I’ll briefly explain the logic and why it might indicate hatred (e.g., viewing opponents as irredeemable threats).White Supremacy/Nationalism (e.g., Ethno-Nationalism): Believers often see non-white immigrants, minorities, or “globalists” as eroding racial or cultural purity, leading to hatred of multicultural advocates, civil rights activists, or perceived “race traitors.” This mirrors Great Replacement dynamics and has fueled events like Charlottesville.

Anti-Capitalism/Communism (Extreme Forms): Radical anti-capitalists may view capitalists, business owners, or free-market proponents as exploiters perpetuating class warfare, hating them as “enemies of the people.” Historical examples include Stalinist purges or modern antifa rhetoric against “fascist” corporations.
Religious Fundamentalism (e.g., Islamist or Christian Extremism): Adherents might hate secularists, apostates, or followers of other faiths as moral corrupters or infidels threatening divine order. This is evident in groups like ISIS or far-right Christian nationalists who demonize LGBTQ+ advocates or abortion supporters.
Conspiracy Theories About Global Elites (e.g., New World Order or QAnon): Believers often hate politicians, media, or institutions seen as part of a shadowy cabal controlling society, viewing opponents as complicit in child trafficking or depopulation plots. This breeds distrust and calls for “neutralization” via purges.
Anti-Zionism/Anti-Semitism (Extreme Variants): Some frame Jews or Israel supporters as orchestrating global conspiracies (e.g., controlling finance or media), leading to hatred of Zionists or perceived “Jewish lobbies.” This overlaps with both far-left and far-right extremism.
Cultural Marxism/Identity Politics Backlash: Conservatives who believe “woke” ideologies are destroying traditional values may hate progressives, academics, or diversity advocates as brainwashers imposing authoritarian “political correctness,” often escalating to dehumanizing language.
Eco-Fascism or Radical Environmentalism: Extremists might hate industrialists, climate deniers, or over-consumers as planet-destroyers, viewing them as worthy of elimination for humanity’s survival. This has appeared in manifestos like the Christchurch shooter’s.
Anti-Imperialism/National Liberation Extremism: In contexts like anti-colonial struggles, believers may hate “imperialists” (e.g., Western governments or their allies) as oppressors, leading to hatred in groups like certain separatist movements or far-left guerrillas.
Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism (TERF Ideology): Some feminists hate trans rights advocates or “gender ideologues” as erasing women’s rights or enabling male intrusion, framing them as threats to biological sex-based protections.
Authoritarian Populism (e.g., Strongman Worship): Supporters of leaders like those in illiberal democracies may hate “deep state” opponents, journalists, or liberals as traitors undermining national strength, often justifying violence or suppression.

These beliefs aren’t inherently hateful—many people hold moderate versions focused on policy (e.g., environmentalism without eco-fascism). But in surveys like those from the American National Election Studies or global polls on polarization, extreme adherence correlates with dehumanization, where opponents aren’t just wrong but evil or subhuman, making dialogue impossible. If a belief consistently portrays opponents as intentional destroyers of your world (rather than misguided), it’s a red flag for hatred.

If you treat opponents as illegitimate or as existential threats, hatred isn’t a bug of that worldview. It’s part of the psychology that comes with it. People who sincerely believe an election was stolen from their side often see opponents not as competitors but as enemies trying to destroy democracy. Research on the U.S. election denial movement shows this belief frames the other side as a hostile force undermining the political system.

Beliefs that frame the other side as existential threats tend to generate hatred rather than mere disagreement. Here are ten common ones.

The Great Replacement.
Belief that your people are being deliberately replaced. Opponents are not just wrong but destroyers of your future.

“Fascism is returning and must be stopped at any cost.”
If you think the other side is literally Nazis in embryo, compromise feels immoral and hatred feels virtuous.

“The ruling class is intentionally enslaving the people.”
Populist class-war frames on left and right. Elites are seen as predators, not rivals.

“The system is rigged and only force can fix it.”
Revolutionary worldviews. Anyone defending institutions becomes an enemy of liberation.

“They are destroying the nation’s culture and way of life.”
Civilizational decline narratives. Opponents are vandals of something sacred.

“They are corrupting children.”
Whether framed as grooming, indoctrination, or moral poisoning. This reliably produces rage and dehumanization.

“They want to erase our identity.”
Race, religion, gender, or national identity framed as under attack. Opponents become identity annihilators.

“They are traitors working for foreign or hidden powers.”
Conspiracy-inflected politics. Once people are seen as agents of hostile forces, hatred is natural.

“They are blocking justice for victims.”
Politics framed as protection of abusers. Opponents are not just mistaken but complicit in evil.

“They are preventing the moral progress of humanity.”
Teleological ideologies where history has a direction. Anyone in the way is not just wrong but morally obsolete.

All of these share one feature. The other side is no longer a competitor inside a shared system. They are a toxin that must be neutralized. That is when disagreement becomes hatred.

Here are ten other common political beliefs that tend to make hatred of opponents much more likely:

Belief that the other side intends to destroy the nation or its culture. When you think your opponents want your way of life wiped out, they stop being rivals and start being existential threats. Research on affective polarization finds that this perception fuels strong hostility.

Conspiracy beliefs about elites rigging the system against “the people.” Conspiracy narratives portray opponents as corrupt puppeteers or traitors. This stokes distrust and animosity.

Collective narcissism. When people feel their group is uniquely righteous and underappreciated, they become hostile toward anyone who challenges their group’s status or narrative. That dynamic helped fuel the “Stop the Steal” movement.

Belief that the other side supports immoral or evil policies that harm children or families. Framing opponents as morally corrupt or dangerous tends to turn disagreement into contempt.

Claims that opponents are traitors or loyal to foreign powers. Portraying rivals as disloyal inflames fear and hatred. Research shows that fear of the other side undermining democratic norms deepens polarization.

Identity annihilation narratives. If someone believes opponents want to erase their group’s identity—racial, religious, cultural—hatred becomes a defensive instinct. This is common in ethnic nationalist movements.

Belief that opponents are sabotaging public safety or health. Portraying rivals as actively endangering lives (for example on vaccines or crime) produces moral outrage, not mere policy disagreement.

Apocalyptic or revolutionary worldviews. If political conflict is cast as a battle between good and evil, compromise looks like betrayal and opponents become enemies.

“Accusation in a mirror” thinking. This psychological technique involves falsely attributing to the other side the intent or actions you yourself want or fear. It is a classic method of incitement.

Dehumanization frames. Describing opponents as animals, parasites, or other subhumans removes empathy and makes hatred socially acceptable. This is well documented in research on hate speech and polarization.

All of these convert political disagreement into moral conflict. When people see the other side as illegitimate, threatening, evil, or subhuman, they are far more likely to hate them rather than just disagree with them.

When a worldview frames an opponent as illegitimate or an existential threat, the mind shifts its goal from bargaining for better treatment to eliminating the cost the opponent imposes.

The neutralization theory of hatred clarifies how these ten beliefs activate specific evolved psychological programs.

Existential Threats and Association Value
Worldviews centered on national destruction, identity annihilation, or apocalyptic battles assign a deeply negative association value to opponents. Sell et al. argue that hatred triggers when the mind calculates that its life would be significantly better if the target did not exist or held no power. In these frames, the opponent is no longer a partner in a shared system but a “toxic entity” whose presence creates a net fitness cost for the hater.

The Recalibration of Moral Concern
Several of your points, such as dehumanization, evil policies toward children, and sabotaging public safety, describe the “re-coding” of welfare tradeoff ratios (WTR).

Negative WTR: Hatred orientates the mind to view harm to the target as a benefit to the hater.

Deactivation of Empathy: Dehumanization removes the “taste for fairness” that typically governs human interaction. This allows for the implementation of predatory aggression or social exclusion without the emotional friction of guilt or empathy.

Information Warfare and Status Destruction
Beliefs regarding conspiracy elites, traitors, and accusation in a mirror serve as tools for social neutralization.

Status Lowering: Because physical violence is often risky, humans use information warfare to lower the status of rivals. By labeling opponents as “traitors” or “corrupt puppeteers,” haters recruit allies and decrease the social value of the target.

Collective Narcissism: This dynamic uses hatred to protect the group’s perceived status. Anyone who challenges the group’s righteousness is viewed as a threat to the group’s social standing, triggering a defensive neutralization response.

The Internal Enemy and the “Defender” Trap
The “Stop the Steal” movement and narratives about “traitors” illustrate how hatred spreads through contagion.

Targeting Defenders: The theory predicts that those who defend a hated target—or even fail to attack them—become secondary targets. They are perceived as “obstructing the neutralization” of a toxic threat.

This explains why internal dissenters or “moderates” often face more intense hatred than the primary enemy; they are viewed as “poor cooperators” who allow the “toxin” to remain in the system.

Media and the “Alarm” State

The news often packages these ten beliefs because they trigger an “alarm” state. When people feel their survival or identity is under existential threat, they become willing to abandon democratic norms to achieve neutralization. In this state, silencing or deplatforming an opponent is not seen as a violation of free speech, but as a virtuous act of protecting the community from a perceived permanently harmful group.

Nature offers several examples where the existence of a single animal or a specific group represents a net fitness cost to others. In the framework of the neutralization theory, these are instances where an animal has a deeply negative association value, triggering specialized behaviors in others to avoid, exclude, or eliminate the threat.

Cuckoo Birds and Brood Parasitism

The cuckoo bird provides a clear example of an entity whose existence imposes a massive cost on another. Cuckoos are brood parasites; they lay their eggs in the nests of other birds. When the cuckoo chick hatches, it often pushes the host’s original eggs or chicks out of the nest.

The Cost: For the host parent, the existence of the cuckoo chick represents the total loss of their own genetic legacy for that season.

The Neutralization Response: Host birds have evolved sophisticated “no-fly zone” defenses. They learn to recognize foreign eggs and will mob adult cuckoos to drive them away from the nesting area. If they identify a cuckoo egg, they may puncture it or abandon the nest entirely to neutralize the cost.

The “Wolf” in the Ecosystem

Large predators like wolves or lions represent a permanent threat to the well-being of herbivores. The presence of a wolf pack in a valley changes the entire behavior of elk and deer.

Negative Association Value: An elk does not “bargain” with a wolf. The wolf’s existence is an immutable cost.

Strategies of Avoidance and Defense: Herbivores use “avoidance” as their primary neutralization strategy. They shift their grazing to less optimal but safer areas. However, when a predator is caught in a vulnerable position—such as a lone wolf cornered by a buffalo herd—the herbivores may switch to “predatory aggression,” attacking the predator not for food, but to remove a permanent threat from their environment.

Social Insects and the “Poor Cooperator”

In honeybee or ant colonies, the survival of the group depends on total cooperation. Occasionally, an individual may develop “selfish” traits, such as a worker bee attempting to lay its own eggs rather than tending to the queen’s.

The Toxic Agent: These “cheaters” impose a cost on the collective by diverting resources away from the queen’s offspring.

Worker Policing: Other bees act as a collective neutralization system. They identify the “toxic” eggs or the “cheating” worker and kill them. This “policing” is a functional equivalent to social neutralization; the cheater is an illegitimate actor whose existence harms the system.

Invasive Species

When an invasive species like the cane toad enters a new environment, it represents an existential threat to local predators that have no immunity to its toxins.

Information Warfare (Nature’s Version): While animals do not use social media, they use chemical and behavioral signaling. Some species of crows in Australia have learned to flip cane toads over to eat their non-toxic parts. They “spread” this information through social learning.

The Result: This social learning allows the crow population to neutralize the threat the toad poses to their food supply, turning a “no-fly zone” into a manageable environment.

In all these cases, the animal being targeted is not viewed as a competitor to be negotiated with, but as a source of permanent harm. The behaviors evolved to deal with them—mobbing, policing, or social learning of avoidance—match the “neutralization” strategies used by humans when they identify a person or group as toxic.

The Competitive Exclusion Principle (or Gause’s Law) states that two species competing for the exact same limited resource cannot coexist at constant population values. If one has even a slight advantage over the other, it will dominate in the long term, leading to the extinction of the competitor or an evolutionary shift toward a different niche.

In the context of the Neutralization Theory of Hatred, this biological reality provides the “deep time” logic for why the human mind is so sensitive to the presence of rival groups.

The “Pond Scum” Scenario: Exploitative Competition

In a pond, different types of algae (pond scum) do indeed compete for sunlight, nitrogen, and phosphorus.

The Tipping Point: If one subspecies of algae is 5% more efficient at absorbing sunlight or can survive on lower levels of phosphorus, it will reproduce faster.

Neutralization through Resource Depletion: The dominant algae doesn’t necessarily “attack” the other; it simply lowers the “association value” of the environment for its rival. By consuming all available resources, it makes the existence of the rival impossible.

The Result: Eventually, the pond may appear to be a monoculture. This is nature’s version of “cleansing” a niche to ensure maximum fitness for the winner.

Niche Partitioning: The Alternative to Exclusion

However, nature often finds a way to avoid total neutralization through niche partitioning. This is where sub-species adapt to use different parts of the same resource to avoid direct conflict.

Spatial Partitioning: One type of pond scum might thrive on the sunny surface, while another evolves to survive in the darker, cooler water at the bottom.

Temporal Partitioning: One might bloom in early spring, while the other waits for the heat of mid-summer.

The Human Parallel: Hatred as an Exclusionary Tool

The paper argues that hatred is the psychological adaptation that facilitates this biological exclusion in humans.

Perceived Niche Overlap: When two political or ethnic groups feel they are competing for the same “niche”—whether that is land, jobs, or the moral narrative of a country—the “Neutralization” system activates.

Negative Association Value: Just as one algae type makes the pond “toxic” for another by hogging resources, a human group uses information warfare to make the social environment toxic for their rivals.

The Goal of Singularity: Many of the “existential threat” beliefs you mentioned earlier (like the “Great Replacement” or “Identity Annihilation”) are essentially psychological expressions of the Competitive Exclusion Principle. They represent a fear that the “niche” (the nation or culture) is being taken over by a “toxic” sub-species, triggering a desperate drive to neutralize the competitor before exclusion becomes permanent.

When Exclusion Fails: Permanent Friction

In a pond, exclusion usually happens relatively quickly. In human society, however, groups are often too large or too resilient to be fully driven out.

Dormant Hatred: When exclusion is impossible, the hatred system stays in a high-cost “alarm” state.

Social Stagnation: Instead of the “peace” of a monoculture or the “cooperation” of a diverse ecosystem, the society enters a state of permanent social friction where both sides spend all their energy trying to neutralize the other’s status rather than growing the “pond” for everyone.

In the Arab-Israeli conflict, hatred functions as a rational response to the perceived permanent threat posed by the other side. When two groups compete for the same physical and symbolic niche—land, sovereignty, and historical legitimacy—the “Neutralization” system activates because each side views the other’s success as a direct and immutable cost to their own existence.

The paper defines hatred as an adaptation for individuals or groups with negative association value (AV). In this conflict, neither side views the other as a “poor cooperator” to be negotiated with (anger), but as a toxic agent whose existence imposes a net fitness cost.

Because land is finite, the gains of one side are experienced as the existential losses of the other. This triggers the counterfactual reasoning the paper describes: the belief that one’s group would be safe and prosperous if the other group did not exist or held no power.

Because hatred is socially contagious, individuals on both sides “copy” the hatred of their coalition. If an entity is toxic to your “people,” it is rationally toxic to you. This creates a self-reinforcing loop where the “alarm” state is never allowed to deactivate.

Because total physical neutralization is often impossible or too costly, the conflict relies heavily on the paper’s identified strategies:

Information Warfare as Status Destruction: Both sides engage in global-scale reputational attacks. The goal is to lower the Welfare Tradeoff Ratio (WTR) that the rest of the world holds toward their rival. By framing the opponent as “genocidal,” “terrorist,” or “illegitimate,” each side seeks to recruit the global “mob” to help neutralize the rival’s social and political power.

A striking feature of the conflict is the rejection of the other side’s historical context or threat perceptions. The theory explains this: if you “understand” your enemy, you might begin to “bargain” with them. The hatred system motivates a refusal to weigh competing claims because doing so would obstruct the goal of nullifying a perceived permanent threat.

Just as in the U.S. partisan divide, those who attempt to defend or humanize the “other” are often targeted by their own side. They are seen as “obstructing the neutralization” of a toxin, leading to the rapid social exclusion of moderates or peace activists.

Nature selects for hatred to deactivate when it is ineffective or too costly. However, in the Arab-Israeli conflict, the “cues” of toxicity are constant. Every act of violence or expansion serves as fresh evidence of the other side’s negative association value. This prevents the hatred system from ever entering a dormant state. Because hatred-based aggression is often predatory—timed to vulnerability and using deception—both sides live in a state of hyper-vigilance. This “alarm” state makes even minor gestures of peace look like deceptive traps, a rational conclusion within a hatred-activated cognitive frame.

Ultimately, this conflict illustrates that hatred is not a “glitch” or a lack of education; it is a specialized psychological program for managing an environment where another group is viewed as a source of permanent, existential danger. Understanding it as a neutralization strategy reveals why “empathy training” or “bargaining” often fails: the underlying psychology is not trying to fix a relationship, but to end a threat.

The Neutralization Theory of Hatred maps precisely onto Rony Guldmann’s analysis of conservaphobia. Both frameworks describe a shift from ordinary political disagreement to a cognitive mode aimed at the total social or moral nullification of an opponent perceived as toxic.

1. Negative Association Value and the “Toxic” Label

Sell et al. argue that hatred is triggered when an entity is perceived to have negative association value (AV)—the belief that the world would be better if that entity did not exist.

The Guldmann Parallel: Guldmann describes how liberals increasingly view conservatives not as rivals to be bargained with, but as toxic “atavisms of a barbaric past”. This perception of toxicity is the functional equivalent of negative AV; it justifies a shift from “bargaining” (anger) to “neutralization” (hatred).

The “Vision of the Anointed”: Guldmann identifies a social hierarchy where liberals (the “anointed”) view conservative dissent as a “sin” or “pathology” to be “disciplined away” rather than a valid viewpoint to be debated.

2. Information Warfare as Neutralization

The paper defines information warfare as a strategy to diminish a target’s social status to zero. Guldmann documents an “onslaught of personal attacks” and “verbal pogroms” intended to demoralize conservatives and render them “passive and deferential”. By slandering conservatives as “barely literate philistines” or “ignorant reactionaries,” the liberal elite engages in status destruction that aims to lower the Welfare Tradeoff Ratio (WTR) others hold toward conservatives.

3. Aversion to Context and the “Silencing” Motif

The theory predicts that hatred motivates an aversion to understanding the target’s motives, because explanation might lead to bargaining. Guldmann notes that liberals often dismiss conservative convictions as “unconscious hostilities” or “symptoms to be diagnosed” rather than positions to be understood. This “medicalization” of conservative thought serves the functional goal of silencing the opponent, ensuring the neutralization process remains effective.

4. Contagion and “Defender” Hatred

Sell et al. predict that those who defend a hated target will themselves be targeted to prevent them from “obstructing neutralization”. This maps onto the “Stockholm Syndrome” and “Uncle Tom conservative” motifs Guldmann explores. Conservatives who “crave liberal approval” must often turn on their own to avoid being contaminated by the “toxic” status of their group. Those who refuse to disavow the “toxic” entity are treated as equally harmful, reinforcing the “no-fly zones” in elite culture.

Genocide scholars have traditionally struggled with the “hatred” label, often seeing it as a reductive or non-scientific way to explain complex political events. Sell et al.’s work offers a bridge by providing a functional, evolutionary explanation that aligns with several key areas of modern genocide research.

1. Hatred as Strategic Neutralization (The “Rationality” Debate)

For decades, many genocide scholars (such as Manus Midlarsky or Robert Melson) have argued that genocide is often a “rational” response to existential threats, rather than a mindless emotional outburst.

The neutralization theory supports this “strategic” view. It provides the psychological mechanism for why groups switch from bargaining to elimination.

By framing hatred as a system designed to “neutralize” a negative association value, the paper explains the logic of “preventive” genocide: the belief that “if we don’t kill them now, they will kill us later.”

2. Essentialization and “Negative Identification”

Scholar Clark McCauley, in his work on mass political murder, has explored how perpetrators “essentialize” their victims—viewing them as having an “evil essence” that is permanent.

This maps directly onto Sell et al.’s concept of negative association value. If a group is “toxic” by nature (essentialized), then no amount of “bargaining” or “anger” can fix the problem.

The only logical solution provided by the evolved mind is neutralization, which provides a psychological foundation for the “total solutions” often seen in genocidal ideologies.

3. Information Warfare and the “Dehumanization” Phase

Genocide scholars often cite Gregory Stanton’s “Ten Stages of Genocide,” which includes “Classification,” “Symbolization,” and “Dehumanization.”

The neutralization paper provides a functional reason for these stages. “Dehumanization” is not just a random insult; it is a form of information warfare designed to lower the target’s social status to zero.

By lowering the “Welfare Tradeoff Ratio” (WTR) that the rest of the world holds toward the victims, the perpetrators ensure that neutral third parties will not “obstruct the neutralization”.

4. Aversion to Understanding and the “Moral” Barrier

One of the paper’s most striking predictions—that hatred motivates an aversion to understanding the target—is highly relevant to the study of propaganda.

Genocide scholars note that before a mass killing, the “other side’s” motives are systematically stripped of their context.

Sell et al. explain why: understanding the victim’s perspective might trigger empathy or “bargaining,” which would derail the “neutralization” program. In this light, “ignorance” and “dogmatism” are not failures of the perpetrators’ minds but active features of the hatred system designed to keep the neutralization process on track.

While some scholars from more traditional sociological backgrounds may resist the “evolutionary” framing, those focused on the psychology of the perpetrator are finding that the “neutralization” model provides a missing link. It explains why normal people can suddenly view the elimination of another group as a “virtuous” and “necessary” act of defense.

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The Gavin Newsom Trajectory

Posted on January 24, 2026 by Luke Ford

ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory would analyze Gavin Newsom not in terms of charisma, policy, or “electability,” but in terms of his position inside the dominant Democratic super-alliance and whether he can become its focal coordinator rather than just one more high-status node.

His current alliance position.

Newsom sits at the intersection of:

Progressive cultural elites
Public-sector unions
Environmental and climate NGOs
Tech and finance donors
Urban professional classes
National media institutions

This is the core governing coalition of the contemporary Democratic Party. It controls most credentialing systems, cultural prestige institutions, and narrative production. Newsom is deeply embedded, trusted, and fluent in its moral language.

Alliance Theory says this gives him three advantages:

High transitivity. Everyone in the coalition recognizes him as “one of us.”
High similarity signaling. His style, rhetoric, and social markers match elite expectations perfectly.
Institutional interdependence. He advances their interests and they advance his.

This is why he is constantly defended by media and party infrastructure even when California’s outcomes are attacked. Perpetrator bias protects allies.

Why he is not yet the coalition’s natural leader.

Every alliance needs a focal point who can coordinate loyalty and suppress internal rivalry. Biden filled this role largely by being an acceptable compromise node, not a charismatic one. Obama filled it by personal magnetism and narrative authority.

Newsom currently lacks two things Alliance Theory says are necessary for coalition leadership:

First, mass-level emotional anchoring.
He is an elite signaler, not a tribal totem. The base sees him as competent, not as “our champion.” Coalitions follow symbols before they follow managers.

Second, cross-faction bridging.
He is strong with urban professionals and progressive activists, but weaker with culturally moderate minorities, religious Democrats, and non-college voters. That limits his ability to stabilize the whole super-alliance under stress.

His anti-red-state rhetoric, culture-war posturing, and performative moralism make sense through Alliance Theory. He is not trying to persuade out-groups. He is signaling loyalty and dominance inside the in-group. That raises his status among activists and donors but does little to expand the coalition.

Future prospects.

Alliance Theory would say Newsom’s path to the presidency depends on whether the Democratic alliance enters a phase of:

Elite consolidation
or
Coalitional fracture.

Scenario one. Elite consolidation.

If the party’s core institutions conclude that stability, technocratic competence, and narrative discipline are paramount after Biden, Newsom becomes very attractive. He is legible to donors, media, unions, courts, and global partners. He can coordinate them without threatening their internal hierarchy. In that world, he could become the alliance’s chosen coordinator and thus president.

Scenario two. Coalitional fracture.

If inflation, migration, crime, war, or legitimacy crises intensify, the Democratic alliance may need a leader who can re-mobilize emotionally, bridge working-class factions, and neutralize populist rivals. In that environment, Newsom’s elite polish becomes a liability. The coalition may seek a different type of focal point, perhaps a minority populist, a security figure, or a crisis manager with cross-cutting appeal.

Structural weakness.

Alliance Theory highlights one danger for Newsom. He is over-identified with a single high-status sub-coalition. That makes him strong in primaries and weak in realignment moments. If the alliance boundary shifts, if tech splits from labor, if minority blocs realign, if institutional trust collapses, he may find himself perfectly positioned for a coalition that no longer exists.

Bottom line from Alliance Theory.

Newsom is not an insurgent.
He is not a bridge between rival camps.
He is an internal consolidator of the current Democratic elite order.

If that order remains dominant, he has a serious shot at the presidency.
If the order destabilizes, he becomes a high-status relic of a coalition past.

Gemini says: Gavin Newsom faces a structural challenge that goes beyond his personal style. Alliance Theory suggests his strength remains his greatest risk. He functions as a perfect mirror for the current Democratic establishment. He uses the specific moral and cultural language that the donor class and media elites require. This makes him a high-status node within that network. He currently enjoys a strong position as a primary contender because he signals total loyalty to the coalition. He has spent the last year positioning himself as the chief coordinator of the institutional response to the current administration.

His promotion of Proposition 50 and the formation of the Governors Public Health Alliance serve as evidence of this role. He is not merely a governor but a focal point for a multi-state alliance. This coordination helps him maintain the trust of the progressive cultural elite and the tech donors who recently backed his redistricting efforts. However, recent data indicates some friction within this sub-coalition. Several high-profile Silicon Valley and Hollywood donors did not contribute to his recent ballot measure campaign. This suggests that the institutional interdependence he relies on may be softening as specific interests within tech and finance begin to diverge from the broader party line.

Newsom still lacks a broad emotional anchor with the base. He remains a manager of an alliance rather than a champion for a movement. Polling from late 2025 shows him leading the 2028 Democratic primary field, yet a majority of voters in his own state do not want him to run for president. This gap reflects the theory that he is an elite signaler who fails to bridge the divide with culturally moderate or working-class voters. His recent attempts to use more aggressive social media tactics and host conservative figures on his podcast show an effort to fix this. He wants to appear as a fighter rather than just an administrator.

His path depends on whether the Democratic alliance consolidates or fractures. If the party prioritizes technocratic discipline and stability after recent losses, he is the natural choice. He represents the existing order. If the coalition fractures further under pressure from economic or cultural shifts, his elite polish will likely alienate the very voters the party needs to win back. He is the guardian of a specific coalitional boundary. If that boundary shifts to include more populist or security-focused elements, he may find himself leading a network that is no longer large enough to win a national election.

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The JD Vance Trajectory

Posted on January 24, 2026 by Luke Ford

ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory would read JD Vance’s rise as the successful emergence of a new bridging figure inside the post-Trump coalition, and his future as depending almost entirely on whether he can remain a trusted transitivity node between factions that do not naturally like or trust each other.

His origin position.

Vance starts in one alliance world:
Coastal elites, venture capital, Yale Law, tech libertarianism, anti-Trump conservatism. That is one coalition with its own status system, moral language, and rival set.

Then he defects and realigns into a very different super-alliance:
Working-class white populists, cultural traditionalists, post-liberal intellectuals, anti-globalist nationalists, and the MAGA base. This is not just an ideological shift. It is an alliance migration. His enemies change. His friends change. His moral language changes accordingly.

Alliance Theory predicts that once a person sincerely reassigns their primary allies, their beliefs will reconfigure fast and deeply. That is exactly what we see. Markets go from sacred to predatory. Tech goes from innovative to decadent. Foreign policy goes from interventionist to civilizational realist. Elites go from mentors to traitors. None of this requires hypocrisy. It requires loyalty updating.

Why he rose so fast.

Vance occupies a rare structural niche. He is a bridge between:

Populist masses and elite credentialing
Nationalist voters and institutional respectability
Post-liberal theory circles and electoral politics
Silicon Valley money and Rust Belt grievance

Alliance Theory says such figures become powerful when a coalition needs internal coordination more than external persuasion. After Trump, the right’s problem is not beating the left. It is stabilizing itself. Who leads. What the doctrine is. Which factions dominate. Vance offers a narrative that allows high-status defectors and low-status resentful voters to see each other as natural allies in a shared civilizational fight.

His rhetoric performs three alliance functions.

First, purification without schism.
He attacks “the regime,” “the elites,” “the NGOs,” “the permanent bureaucracy,” but does so in a way that keeps donors, courts, and the military inside the tent. This is boundary sharpening without total rupture.

Second, elite conversion signaling.
His own biography is propaganda. It tells ambitious young professionals: you can defect from the old order and still retain status inside the new one. Alliance Theory predicts this kind of role model is crucial for coalition expansion upward.

Third, moral re-centering.
He supplies a story where economic nationalism, religious traditionalism, and state power all become morally coherent parts of one project. That coherence is not philosophical. It is coalitional.

Why his future is uncertain but promising.

Alliance Theory says his prospects hinge on transitivity and trust.

Populist voters trust him because he performs grievance authentically.
Institutional conservatives tolerate him because he speaks their language and does not threaten their core interests directly.
Donor elites hedge because he is smart, disciplined, and legible.
Post-liberal intellectuals see him as their first real chance at state power.

If he maintains transitivity among these groups, he becomes extremely powerful. Possibly the post-Trump coalition’s long-term standard bearer. A man who can outlive Trump the way Reagan outlived Goldwater.

But there are two structural dangers.

First, authenticity tests.
Populist coalitions punish perceived elite reversion brutally. Any sign that Vance is “really Yale,” “really tech,” “really donor-captured” will trigger alliance defection. The victim narrative will flip from “we” to “you betrayed us.”

Second, factional war.
As the MAGA alliance institutionalizes, internal enemies will replace external ones. Evangelicals, nationalists, tech populists, and security hawks will compete for dominance. Vance will be forced to choose sides. Alliance Theory predicts that bridging figures often fall when coalitions polarize internally because transitivity becomes impossible.

Long-term forecast.

If the post-liberal, nationalist, working-class coalition becomes the dominant governing bloc of the 2030s, Vance is structurally positioned to be its prime minister type. Not a charismatic Caesar like Trump, but a coordinator of elites and masses. A system builder.

If the coalition fragments, radicalizes, or loses electoral viability, Vance will either be:

Absorbed back into a softer conservative elite world as a “reformed populist,” or
Sacrificed by populists as another elite who “used us and left.”

Alliance Theory’s blunt summary:

JD Vance is not rising because of his ideas.
He is rising because he sits at the intersection of multiple alliance streams and can plausibly say to each: I am one of you, and I am your translator to the others.

His future depends on how long that claim remains credible.

Gemini says: Vice President JD Vance serves as the connective tissue for a coalition that remains solid despite internal friction. His position as the 50th Vice President of the United States and his unprecedented appointment as the finance chair of the Republican National Committee place him at the center of power. This dual role allows him to manage the populist base while simultaneously securing the financial and institutional support of the donor class. He uses his background in venture capital to maintain ties with Silicon Valley investors, like David Sacks and Peter Thiel, who see him as a sophisticated advocate for their interests in AI and crypto.

The alliance migration you noted is visible in his policy execution. He recently announced a significant expansion of the Mexico City Policy to restrict foreign aid for groups promoting diversity and transgender policies abroad. This move satisfies cultural traditionalists and the anti-abortion movement, who increasingly view him as their most reliable advocate within the administration. By framing these actions as a fight for life and a rejection of radical ideologies, he strengthens his bond with the MAGA base and post-liberal intellectuals.

His future depends on balancing these competing factions as they move toward the 2026 midterms. While he successfully translates populist grievances into institutional policy, the rift between the tech right and the religious right presents a constant challenge. Christian conservatives express deep skepticism of the transhumanist and AI-driven goals of his tech allies, and some populist voices fear a takeover by a profit-obsessed tech oligarchy. Vance navigates this by remaining diplomatic, sometimes signaling support for tech regulations to appease the populist wing while keeping donors close through his RNC leadership. He is effectively running a shadow campaign for 2028, positioning himself as the post-Trump standard bearer who can maintain coalition transitivity.

Alliance Theory suggests JD Vance is the most likely Republican nominee. He occupies the role of the focal coordinator for the new MAGA-nationalist super-alliance. He enjoys high transitivity with the party’s base because he mirrors the aesthetic and rhetoric of the current leadership. His position as vice president provides him with the institutional interdependence he needs to maintain donor support and party infrastructure. Recent polling confirms this structural advantage. He leads potential rivals with 51 percent support. He has also secured key endorsements from influential groups like Turning Point USA. This makes him the primary heir to the dominant Republican coalition.

Gavin Newsom is the most likely Democratic nominee. He functions as the internal consolidator for the current Democratic elite order. He sits at the center of a network that includes tech donors, national media, and progressive cultural institutions. He holds a significant lead in early 2028 polls with 25 percent support and a high electability rating among party members. His strategy involves building deep ties with state party leaders through his leadership PAC. While candidates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hold a stronger emotional anchor with younger voters, Newsom is the preferred choice of the establishment. He is the safest bet for those who prioritize technocratic discipline and coalition stability.

The winner of the presidency depends on whether the current alliance structures remain stable or face a realignment. If JD Vance can maintain the current populist-nationalist super-alliance, he holds a structural advantage. The Republican Party currently appears more united than the Democratic Party. Voters see the GOP as more cohesive and focused on a clear set of rivals. If the economy remains the primary concern, Vance’s position as the defender of the current order may be enough to win.

If the Democratic alliance enters a phase of elite consolidation, Newsom is well-positioned to take the presidency. He is legible to the global partners and institutional actors who seek a return to a more predictable governing style. However, if the Democratic coalition fractures due to internal rivalries or a failure to bridge the gap with culturally moderate voters, Newsom’s elite signaling becomes a liability. In that scenario, the alliance might seek a different focal point who can bridge those divides.

ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory says the most likely nominees and eventual president are the people who can hold together the broadest, most transitive coalition within their party and then between party coalitions.

Republican nomination

Right now the Republican nominal frontrunner for 2028 is Vice President JD Vance. He has institutional support from Trump loyalists and from the party establishment that still respects Trump’s coalition. Vance is in a position to coordinate major factions: MAGA populists, cultural conservatives, small-government conservatives, and Trump’s base veterans. He is widely seen as the early leader “to win or lose” the race because he can tie disparate GOP blocs together around shared enemies and shared grievances, and because he is already the sitting vice president in a GOP trifecta federal government.

Other Republicans could run. Figures like Ted Cruz, Ron DeSantis, and others are discussed as possible contenders, but none yet have the same broad structural alliance as Vance.

From an Alliance Theory lens, Vance wins the nomination if he can keep the mainstream, grassroots, and former Trump factions coordinated rather than letting any faction break off and define its own rival set.

Democratic nomination

The Democratic field is more open. There is no clear heir to the post-Biden coalition right now. Potential contenders include:

Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris as current high-status figures with name recognition.

Pete Buttigieg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as personalities with strong ideological followings.

Josh Shapiro as an emerging governor with appeal to more moderate voters.

Poll averages suggest Newsom and Harris are currently leading in early preference, with Ocasio-Cortez and Buttigieg also competitive.

Alliance Theory suggests the nominee will be the person who best bridges the party’s internal factions: progressive activists, labor unions, minority voters, moderates, and establishment donors. Newsom has elite backing and profile but may struggle to unify moderates with progressives. Harris has residual national brand recognition. A candidate like Shapiro could emerge if he demonstrates appeal across demographic groups and is seen as a coalition unifier.

General election prospects

On the GOP side, if Vance holds the Republican alliance together and avoids a fracturing primary, he is structurally positioned to be strong in a general election because he will carry the majority of the conservative coalition.

On the Democratic side, the nominee who can unify both the activist base and the broader electorate, especially skeptical independents, stands the best chance of rebuilding a cross-faction alliance.

Alliance Theory would project that:

If the Republican coalition stays cohesive and does not splinter into hard-right versus traditional conservatives, JD Vance is the most likely GOP nominee and likely nominee to win the presidency.

If the Democratic Party can unify around a figure who appeals beyond elites to working-class voters and disillusioned independents, someone like Josh Shapiro or Gavin Newsom could rebuild the coalition necessary to challenge a Vance ticket.

The ultimate outcome between a Vance Republican and a Democratic coalition nominee will depend on whether either coalition fractures internally or attracts new allied groups between now and 2028.

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The Bibi Netanyahu Trajectory

Posted on January 24, 2026 by Luke Ford

ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory reads Netanyahu as a master alliance broker whose power has always come from maintaining a very specific coalition geometry, and whose vulnerability now comes from that geometry collapsing.

His rise.
Netanyahu’s core super-alliance combined four blocs:

Security hawks and the IDF old guard
Religious Zionists and settlers
Mizrahi and traditional working-class voters
Free-market, pro-US, pro-tech elites

This was a classic bridging alliance. High-status institutions plus status-resentful masses, united by shared rivals: the Arab world, the Iranian axis, the Israeli left, Oslo technocrats, and later global liberal NGOs and courts. Netanyahu’s genius was transitivity management. He made each faction believe the others were indispensable allies against existential enemies.

Alliance Theory predicts his long survival because he satisfied all three alliance conditions.

Similarity through identity language. Jewish survival, security, and history.
Transitivity through enemy alignment. Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, the UN, the Israeli left.
Interdependence through patronage and protection. Budgets for settlers and yeshivas, deregulation for tycoons, prestige and autonomy for security elites.

His moral language always followed ally defense. Judicial reform, for example, was not about abstract constitutional theory. It was about weakening an institution aligned with his rivals and strengthening institutions aligned with his coalition.

The fracture.
October 7 shattered transitivity. The security establishment, once a core ally, became a latent rival. Families of hostages, reservists, tech elites, and centrist voters now see him as personally responsible. In alliance terms, he is no longer the focal point that coordinates loyalty. He is a contested node.

At the same time, his dependence on the religious-nationalist right has deepened. This narrows the coalition and raises its commitment costs. Alliance Theory says this is dangerous. Narrow coalitions are intense but brittle. They lack bridging capacity. They alienate swing allies and provoke counter-coalitions.

His current rhetoric shows classic late-stage alliance psychology.

Extreme victim framing. Israel as uniquely besieged. Netanyahu as uniquely persecuted.
Moral absolutism. Any internal dissent equals betrayal.
Rival demonization. Courts, media, Biden administration, intelligence chiefs.

These are not signs of ideological radicalization. They are signs of coalition contraction.

Future prospects.
Alliance Theory would forecast three possible paths.

First, coalition re-bridging.
If Netanyahu can reconstruct transitivity with security elites and centrists by delivering a decisive military and diplomatic outcome, he could re-establish himself as the indispensable coordinator. This requires visible success and a face-saving exit for rival factions. It is difficult but not impossible.

Second, factional entrenchment.
He doubles down on the religious-nationalist bloc, turning himself into the leader of a hard, loyal, minority super-faction. This preserves personal survival for a time but guarantees eventual electoral defeat and institutional isolation. Think late-stage populist caudillo.

Third, elite defection and replacement.
Once key bridging allies conclude he is now a liability rather than an asset, Alliance Theory predicts rapid collapse. Loyalty will flip quickly. The same institutions that once defended him will reinterpret him as reckless, corrupt, and dangerous. Moral narratives will update after alliances shift, not before.

Netanyahu’s fate will not be decided by courts, protests, or even elections in the first instance. It will be decided by whether the Israeli security-technocratic elite and the US-Israel strategic network continue to treat him as a necessary ally or reclassify him as an obstacle.

Alliance Theory’s blunt prediction:
If he remains the best coordinator of Israel’s dominant alliance structure, he survives.
If a rival can assemble a broader, more transitive coalition that includes security elites, centrists, and international patrons, Netanyahu’s support will evaporate with stunning speed.

Gemini says: Benjamin Netanyahu built his political longevity on a geometric arrangement of power that unified conflicting social strata. He functioned as the central node in a network that connected high-status economic elites with populist masses through the shared language of existential threat. This structure relied on the concept of transitivity, where the interests of tech moguls in Tel Aviv and settlers in the West Bank aligned because both viewed the same external and internal actors as rivals. He maintained this balance by distributing specific rewards, such as deregulation for the market-oriented and land or funding for the religious Zionists, while positioning himself as the only leader capable of managing these disparate demands.

The events of October 7 broke the fundamental promise of security that held this bridge together. When the security establishment and the tech-driven middle class began to view him as a source of instability rather than a protector, the coalition lost its bridging capacity. This forced Netanyahu into a state of factional entrenchment where he now relies almost exclusively on the religious-nationalist right. This narrowing of support increases his immediate dependence on extremist elements and makes his position brittle. He uses victim framing and the demonization of dissent to maintain the loyalty of this remaining base, which is a common psychological shift for a leader whose alliance structure is contracting.

His survival now depends on whether he can re-establish transitivity or if a rival can present a more stable alternative. If a new figure successfully bridges the gap between the security elites and the centrist voters while maintaining international support, Netanyahu’s remaining allies may quickly reclassify him as a liability. In Alliance Theory, loyalty follows the most effective coordinator. When the cost of maintaining the current leader exceeds the benefits of the alliance, elite defection typically happens with sudden and decisive speed.

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The Nick Fuentes Trajectory

Posted on January 24, 2026 by Luke Ford

ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory would explain Nick Fuentes less as an ideologue and more as a hyper-factional coalition engineer who is trying to carve out a high-status niche inside a collapsing and recombining right-wing alliance system.

His starting position was inside the post-2016 populist super-alliance:
Trump voters, online dissidents, young male status-decliners, anti-woke culture warriors, and nationalist media figures. This coalition was broad, emotionally unified, and bound by shared enemies: liberal elites, legacy media, Big Tech, the national security state, and progressive moral authority.

But within that bloc, there was an unresolved internal hierarchy problem. Who would define its moral center? Evangelicals. Civic nationalists. Libertarians. Jews. Ethno-nationalists. Catholic integralists. Fuentes’s project is best understood as an attempt to push a particular subgroup to the top of the status stack by redefining who the “real” in-group is.

Alliance Theory predicts this move. When a coalition becomes large, internal rivalry replaces external rivalry. Faction leaders then try to redraw alliance boundaries to elevate their sub-clique and demote rivals.

Fuentes’s strategy has three alliance functions.

First, purification.
He tries to shrink the in-group so that loyalty becomes more intense and hierarchy clearer. Civic nationalism becomes “fake.” Conservative Jews become suspect. Israel becomes a wedge. Mainstream Republicans become traitors. This is classic alliance narrowing: reduce similarity requirements, raise commitment costs, and create sharper friend–enemy distinctions.

Second, status inversion.
Groups that had prestige in the broader right coalition, Fox conservatives, donors, Zionists, institutional Republicans, are reframed as morally corrupt or cowardly. Meanwhile, marginal young men, online radicals, and religious hardliners are elevated as the “true” defenders of the civilization. This is an attempt to reorder rank inside the alliance.

Third, competitive victimhood.
Fuentes relentlessly frames his faction as uniquely persecuted: deplatformed, surveilled, silenced, betrayed by conservatives as much as by liberals. Alliance Theory predicts this. Victim narratives mobilize loyalty, justify radical tactics, and create moral insulation against criticism.

His fixation on Jews and Israel is not primarily theological or racial. It is alliance-structural. In the current American right, Jews and pro-Israel networks occupy high transitivity positions. They connect evangelicals, donors, neocons, and populists. To challenge the coalition’s hierarchy, you attack its most central bridging node. That forces a sorting process: who is really with us?

The reason Fuentes keeps getting ejected from platforms and coalitions is not that his ideas are uniquely “extreme” in abstraction. It is that he violates transitivity. He forces people to choose between existing allies and him. Alliance systems punish that.

When he praises Putin, Orban, or other illiberal leaders, the function is the same. These figures are enemies of his enemies. They serve as external anchor points for an alternative alliance universe in which liberal democracy, pluralism, and American elite institutions are all out-groups.

Psychologically, his certainty, aggression, and performative bravado are also predicted by Alliance Theory. Young males in unstable coalitions over-signal dominance, purity, and loyalty. The goal is not persuasion. The goal is sorting and consolidation.

So Fuentes is not trying to win America.
He is trying to become the nucleus of a smaller, harder, more ideologically homogeneous super-alliance that could someday challenge the existing one.

Alliance Theory would predict his future this way:

If the populist right stabilizes into an institutional, electorally successful coalition, he will be marginalized as a factionalist who failed the transitivity test.
If the coalition fractures under pressure, he or figures like him become more relevant as identity-hardening entrepreneurs who offer sharp boundaries and total loyalty.

His trajectory is therefore not mainly about antisemitism, Catholicism, or race theory. It is about coalition re-founding under conditions of status anxiety and alliance realignment.

Gemini says: Fuentes’s project is an attempt to define a new “focal point” for coordination, shifting the in-group’s moral center away from civic nationalists and libertarians toward ethno-nationalists and Catholic integralists.

Purification through Narrowing: Fuentes attempts to shrink the in-group to raise the costs of commitment and intensify loyalty. By labeling mainstream Republicans as traitors and conservative Jews as suspect, he uses exclusionary closure to create sharper friend-enemy distinctions.

Status Inversion: His rhetoric attempts to reorder the rank inside the alliance. Prestige is stripped from established nodes like “Fox conservatives” and Zionists, while marginal young men (the “Groypers”) are elevated as the true defenders of civilization.

Competitive Victimhood: Fuentes frames his faction as uniquely persecuted by both liberal elites and “betraying” conservatives. This narrative serves to justify radical tactics and provide moral insulation against criticism from within his own super-alliance.

Antisemitism as an Alliance-Structural Tool

In this framework, his fixation on Jews and Israel is alliance-structural rather than purely ideological. Because pro-Israel networks occupy high transitivity positions—connecting donors, neocons, and evangelicals—they are the central bridging nodes of the current right-wing coalition.

Challenging the Bridge: To challenge the hierarchy, Fuentes attacks these bridging nodes to force a sorting process. This forces individuals to choose between his faction and the existing coalition structure.

The Transitivity Violation: His ejection from mainstream platforms is not just about the extremity of his ideas, but about his violation of transitivity. Alliance systems punish figures who force allies to turn on one another.

The “Coalition Entrepreneur” and the Future

Fuentes’s performative bravado and aggression are predicted by Alliance Theory as over-signaling of dominance and purity, designed for sorting and consolidation rather than broad persuasion. He is acting as an identity-hardening entrepreneur under conditions of status anxiety.

The Fragmentation Scenario: If the broader populist right fractures under institutional pressure, figures like Fuentes may become more relevant as they offer the sharpest boundaries and the highest perceived loyalty.

The Marginalization Scenario: If the coalition stabilizes into a successful electoral bloc, his transitivity violations will likely lead to his permanent marginalization as a factionalist.

Ultimately, his trajectory suggests that belief systems follow the needs of the alliance. His nihilistic shifts are less about a “principled evolution” and more about his search for a stable ally set that can sustain his desired status.

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The Rise & Fall Of Richard Spencer

Posted on January 24, 2026 by Luke Ford

ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory would read Richard Spencer’s rise and collapse almost entirely in terms of failed coalition building.

Spencer tried to found a new super-alliance: white identitarians, disaffected young men, race realists, paleo-conservatives, anti-liberal intellectuals, and anti-globalist populists. In 2015–2017, the Trump moment created temporary transitivity among these groups. They shared enemies: liberal elites, mass immigration, multicultural ideology, legacy media. For a brief window, “the enemy of my enemy” logic made them appear like one emerging bloc.

Spencer’s mistake was confusing temporary coordination with durable alliance.

Alliance Theory says coalitions stabilize only when three conditions hold:
Similarity.
Transitivity.
Interdependence.

Spencer’s coalition failed all three.

Similarity.
The populist right was ethnonationalist only in a loose, symbolic sense. Most supporters cared about borders, status loss, cultural humiliation, and elite betrayal, not biological race theory. Spencer’s core doctrine was too narrow and too abstract to serve as a mass coordination tag.

Transitivity.
The wider right did not share Spencer’s rival map. Evangelicals, Zionists, libertarians, and working-class nationalists did not see Jews, interracial marriage, or democracy itself as enemies. When forced to choose, they sided with their existing allies against Spencer. The transitivity test failed.

Interdependence.
Spencer’s movement offered no material, institutional, or protective benefits. No jobs, no churches, no unions, no media platforms, no electoral machinery, no legal defense network. Alliance psychology abandons leaders who cannot provide reciprocal advantage.

Trump then reconfigured the alliance structure. The new dominant coalition became: nationalist but civic, populist but not racialist, anti-elite but pro-Israel, anti-woke but not anti-democracy. Spencer suddenly found himself misaligned with both sides. He was too radical for the mass right and too right for the liberal order. He had no stable ally set left.

Once his allies evaporated, the psychological pattern Alliance Theory predicts kicked in:

Loss of moral certainty.
Fragmentation of narrative.
Status collapse.
Bitter re-signaling.
Attempts to defect or invert loyalties.

His later ideological zigzags, Ukraine stance, flirtations with anti-Trump positions, and rhetorical nihilism look less like principled evolution and more like a stranded coalition entrepreneur searching for a new alliance niche that never materialized.

In alliance terms, Spencer’s trajectory is not the story of a thinker who was “refuted.” It is the story of a leader whose proposed coalition failed to achieve scale, stability, and transitivity, and who therefore lost the social oxygen that sustains ideological confidence itself.

Beliefs did not collapse first.
Alliances collapsed first.
The beliefs followed.

Gemini says: Richard Spencer’s doctrine of biological race theory served as a “tag” that was too narrow for the broader populist right. While the “Trump moment” created temporary transitivity through shared enemies like liberal elites and legacy media , the wider right prioritized cultural and religious markers over Spencer’s abstract racialism. Because his doctrine failed to serve as a “focal point” for common knowledge, it could not generate a durable super-alliance.

The Transitivity Trap

The collapse you describe illustrates the risk of betrayal when an ally’s rival map does not align with the broader group. Alliance Theory suggests that individuals adopt their allies’ social preferences. Spencer’s mistake was assuming the broader right would adopt his specific rivalries against democracy or Jewish people. Instead, when forced to choose, established groups like Zionists and working-class nationalists practiced exclusionary closure against him. They viewed Spencer as “toxic” because his presence imposed a net fitness cost—specifically a reputational and social cost—on their own coalition.

The Necessity of Interdependence

Perhaps the most significant failure was the lack of interdependence. Alliances stabilize when partners reliably provide benefits like protection, resources, or status. As your analysis notes, Spencer offered no institutional or material advantages. Because alliance psychology abandons leaders who cannot provide reciprocal benefit, his supporters defected once the “excitement” of the 2016 cycle gave way to the reality of status loss and legal pressure.

Beliefs Following Alliances

The most compelling part of your argument is the claim that alliances collapsed before beliefs did. Alliance Theory suggests that prior party or group identification predicts subsequent moral values.

Status Collapse: Once Spencer’s ally set evaporated, he lost the social oxygen required for “propagandistic biases” to function.

Bitter Re-signaling: His ideological zigzags are classic examples of “signaling similarity to new potential allies”.

Neutralization: As a “failed leader,” he was neutralized by both the left and the right, leading to a total loss of formidability.

Spencer’s trajectory proves that in politics, “loyalty is an honest signal of reasoning”. Without a coalition to be loyal to, his reasoning became nihilistic because it no longer served a strategic function.

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The Neutralization Theory of Hatred

Posted on January 23, 2026 by Luke Ford

This 2021 paper provides a useful framework for understanding anti-Israel activism after 10-7-23.

We argue herein that, while often conceptualized as an extreme form of anger, hatred is a human emotion distinct from anger, with unique triggers, conceptual orientations, and terminating conditions. An examination of the social conditions of our species’ evolutionary history reveals that hatred evolved to address its own distinct adaptive problem: individuals whose existence was — on balance — costly to the hater. Because a well-designed system for solving this problem would have been tailored toward neutralizing those costs, we call this hypothesis ‘the neutralization theory of hatred.’ This theory places the features of hatred within a functional framework. Specifically, we argue that hatred is triggered by cues that an individual’s existence causes fitness decrements for the hater. Cognitively, hatred orients the mind so as to view costs heaped onto the hated person as benefits to the hater — thus motivating spiteful behavior — and can be characterized as maintaining a negative intrinsic welfare tradeoff parameter toward the hated person. Behaviorally, hatred can motivate either avoidance or a predatory style cost infliction strategy that is designed to weaken, incapacitate, or terminate the target…

One of the effects of hatred is to heap costs upon the target. This means that a hateful person will likely have a negative association value toward their victim. In other words, if someone hates you, they will lie about you, look for costs to put on you, and fantasize about harming you. As a result, your life is likely to be worse off for their existence. Thus, hatred should be reciprocal. This has important implications for how hatred should express itself (see below).

Interestingly, this creates a perverse – but empirically verified prediction (Schopler & Compere, 1971) – which is that we should hate those that we have unjustly harmed. If you harm a person – you are presumably triggering hatred in them – which means that they are now an enemy who will likely work against you in the future. Thus, their continued existence is bad for you, triggering hatred.

On the face of things, it was weird that anti-Israel activism exploded at Harvard and at other universities after the Hamas massacre of Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, but if you think about it, you know that once your group has committed a massacre against a capable out-group such as Israel, your enemy will retaliate with ferocity.

The paper “The Neutralization Theory of Hatred” proposes that hatred is an evolved emotion distinct from anger, designed to address the adaptive problem of “toxic” individuals—those whose ongoing existence imposes net fitness costs (e.g., harm to one’s well-being, resources, or kin) on the hater. These costs are framed in terms of negative “association value” (AV), where the hated person’s presence predictably reduces the hater’s reproductive or survival prospects over time. Once triggered, hatred recalibrates cognition and behavior to “neutralize” this threat by viewing harm to the target as a personal benefit, motivating strategies like avoidance, information warfare (e.g., spreading damaging rumors), low-level cost infliction (e.g., sabotage), or predatory aggression (e.g., weakening or eliminating the target).

This framework, while focused on individuals, can be extended to collective entities like states or groups, especially in contexts of intergroup conflict (as briefly noted in the paper), where a nation or its representatives are perceived as a singular “toxic” actor imposing widespread costs.Applied to anti-Israel activism following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks (and Israel’s subsequent military response in Gaza), the theory offers a lens for understanding the emotional underpinnings of such activism as a manifestation of hatred rather than mere anger or ideological disagreement.

Here’s how it might illuminate key aspects:

The theory posits that hatred activates in response to cues signaling future fitness decrements, often based on past or perceived harms that predict ongoing costs. For activists, the events of 10/7 and Israel’s retaliatory actions (e.g., bombings, displacement, and high civilian casualties in Gaza) could serve as acute cues amplifying perceptions of Israel as a “toxic” entity. This aligns with the paper’s emphasis on counterfactual reasoning: activists might mentally simulate a world without Israel’s existence (or its current policies), concluding that global or personal “fitness” (e.g., justice for Palestinians, reduced conflict, or moral alignment) would improve absent Israel’s influence.

Pre-existing narratives of occupation, settler expansion, or historical grievances (e.g., Nakba) provide a backdrop of repeated small or large costs, making Israel’s post-10/7 response a tipping point. Unlike anger, which responds to immediate slights and seeks renegotiation (e.g., protests demanding ceasefires), hatred orients toward long-term neutralization, explaining the persistence and escalation of activism even months later.

Hatred flips the script on normal social cognition, setting a “negative intrinsic welfare tradeoff ratio” (iWTR) where costs inflicted on the hated target feel like gains. In activism, this could manifest as moral justification for spiteful actions: boycotts, divestment, or sanctions (BDS) are framed not just as pressure but as inherently rewarding because they weaken Israel’s economy or global standing. Calls for “global intifada” or dismantling the state (“from the river to the sea”) reflect a predatory mindset, where Israel’s diminishment or hypothetical “termination” is seen as a net positive for the activists’ in-group (e.g., Palestinians or broader solidarity movements).
This helps explain why some activism appears calculated and unrelenting, rather than explosive like anger. The paper’s opening example of Leon Gary Plauché’s calm execution of his son’s abuser mirrors the composed, strategic elements of activism—e.g., organized campus encampments, social media campaigns, or legal challenges—aimed at long-term incapacitation rather than immediate confrontation.

The paper outlines hatred’s toolkit: avoidance, information warfare, surreptitious harm, and aggression. Post-10/7 activism fits this pattern when extended to a state-level target:

Avoidance: Cultural boycotts or refusals to engage with Israeli institutions/academics, minimizing “costs” from interaction.
Information Warfare: Viral social media narratives portraying Israel as inherently oppressive (e.g., “genocide” accusations), designed to erode its reputation and social power globally, much like diminishing a toxic individual’s status in ancestral groups.
Low-Level Cost Infliction: Economic pressures like BDS or protests disrupting events, incentivizing distance and weakening Israel’s influence without direct confrontation.
Predatory Aggression: More extreme rhetoric or actions advocating for Israel’s isolation or dissolution, akin to the paper’s lethal examples in animals (e.g., siblicide), though human constraints (e.g., laws, reputational risks) make full “termination” rare and symbolic.

This mix explains the diversity in activism: from peaceful marches to disruptive tactics, all unified by the goal of reducing Israel’s capacity to impose perceived costs.

The theory suggests hatred’s dangers—it’s efficient for ancestral survival but can fuel cycles of conflict in modern societies, where miscalibrated cues (e.g., biased media, echo chambers) amplify perceived toxicity. Post-10/7, this might illuminate how activism, while rooted in genuine grievances, risks dehumanizing Israelis or Jews, treating them as extensions of the “toxic” state and motivating spite over reconciliation.

However, the paper is pre-10/7 (2022) and individual-focused, so applying it to group-level phenomena like nationalism or tribalism requires analogy. It doesn’t address cultural/institutional amplifiers (e.g., social media’s role in spreading cues) or how hatred interacts with other emotions like envy (e.g., over power imbalances). Empirical testing, as the authors note, is needed to validate extensions to collective hatred.

Ultimately, the framework encourages viewing such activism not as irrational but as an evolved response to perceived existential threats, potentially informing de-escalation strategies like reducing cues of toxicity (e.g., via diplomacy) to recalibrate association values.

This application treats the theory as a starting point for analysis, highlighting hatred’s functional logic without endorsing or moralizing the activism itself.

Sell et al. argue that because physical killing is often impractical or costly, humans utilize “information warfare” to diminish a target’s social power. This involves spreading information—regardless of truth—to lower the WTR that others hold toward the target. Accusations of genocide or total delegitimization serve this functional goal by portraying the target as a “poor cooperator” or an entity that does not deserve the concern of the group.

The paper explicitly predicts that hatred spreads socially. It notes that individuals who defend the hated target are perceived as preventing the “neutralization” of a toxic threat. Consequently, the “mob” lowers their estimation of the defender’s value, leading to the “contaminating” effect you noted where defenders are hated as if they were the primary target.

A central prediction of the theory is that hatred creates an active aversion to understanding the target’s perspective. The paper explains that understanding motives might lead to negotiations or apologies, which are “incompatible with the function of hatred”. If a hated target is allowed to explain their behavior, they might diffuse the hatred or recruit allies; therefore, the hatred system motivates the silencing of the target to ensure the neutralization process remains effective.

ChatGPT says:

Applied to post-10/7 anti-Israel activism:

Israel as a “toxic entity” in the cognitive frame

After the massacre, many activists did not process Israel as a state in conflict but as a permanently harmful agent whose very existence is construed as oppressive. This maps exactly onto the paper’s trigger condition of “negative association value,” where counterfactual reasoning runs: the world would be better if this entity did not exist or were radically weakened.

Moralization as neutralization

The theory predicts that hatred reorients welfare tradeoff ratios so that harm to the target is intrinsically rewarding. This explains why civilian suffering in Israel is often minimized or even framed as deserved, while violence against Israelis is reinterpreted as “resistance.” The emotional logic is not bargaining, which is anger, but neutralization, which is hatred.

Information warfare and status destruction

Sell et al. argue that hatred expresses itself primarily through coalition building and reputational attack, not just physical aggression. Post-10/7 activism shows intense focus on delegitimization, deplatforming, genocide accusations, and narrative control. The function is to lower the target’s perceived moral and social standing so that others’ welfare tradeoff ratios toward it also become negative.

Contagion and defender hatred

The paper predicts that those who defend a hated target become secondary targets because they are perceived as obstructing neutralization. This fits the rapid moralization of “Zionist” as a contaminating identity and the hostility toward Jews who refuse to disavow Israel. Hatred spreads socially, and opposition to it is reinterpreted as further evidence of toxicity.

Aversion to context and explanation

A striking prediction is that hatred actively resists understanding the target’s motives, because explanation enables bargaining and moral recalibration. This illuminates why historical context, security dilemmas, and Israeli threat perceptions are often treated as illegitimate or morally obscene to raise at all. The emotion is structured to block empathy and negotiation, not to weigh competing claims.

In short, the paper frames post-10/7 anti-Israel activism not primarily as policy disagreement or even righteous anger, but as a large-scale activation of a hatred system whose evolved function is to justify exclusion, moral nullification, and coalition-level neutralization of a perceived permanently harmful group.

Clarity on the neutralization theory of hatred provides a tactical advantage by moving beyond the hope for empathy or bargaining, which are ineffective once the hatred system activates. Understanding this mechanism helps identify why certain social dynamics occur and how to counter them effectively.

Because hatred functions to neutralize an entity perceived as having negative association value, Jews can recognize that certain activism is not a request for policy change but a drive for social or physical expulsion.

Anger is a bargaining emotion that seeks better treatment, but hatred seeks to end the target’s influence entirely. Recognizing that the “negotiation” phase has ended allows for a shift toward defensive measures rather than futile appeals to shared values.

Hatred recalibrates the mind to see the target’s suffering as a benefit. This explains why logic or moral appeals often fail; the hater is intrinsically incentivized to reject the target’s welfare.

The paper identifies information warfare as a primary strategy to lower a target’s social status and recruit allies against them.

Defense involves actively demonstrating “association value” to third parties—showing that one’s presence in a social or political group is a net benefit rather than a cost.

Hatred motivates a desire to silence the target because explanations or apologies might allow the target to bargain and diffuse the hatred. Jews can anticipate and fight deplatforming attempts as a functional component of the neutralization process rather than mere “unfairness”.

The theory predicts that defenders will be targeted to prevent them from obstructing the neutralization of the “toxic” person. Jews can defend themselves by building more resilient coalitions and acknowledging that allies require social “cover” to avoid being labeled as toxic by association.

The paper distinguishes predatory aggression from ritualized or signaled aggression.

Ignoring Signaling: Unlike anger, which uses facial expressions and threats to signal intent, intense hatred uses deception to minimize the victim’s chance to prepare. Defense must therefore rely on objective threat assessments rather than waiting for vocalized warnings.

Vulnerability Management: Predatory aggression is timed to when the victim is most vulnerable. Defensive strategies should focus on eliminating points of vulnerability and maintaining group formidability, as groups of like-minded people increase the perceived cost of an attack.

Hatred is costly for the hater as well, squandering attention and resources. The theory suggests that nature selects for hatred to deactivate if the target cannot be cost-effectively neutralized. By becoming too costly to war against—socially, legally, or physically—Jews can force the deactivation or dormancy of the hatred system in their opponents.

LF: “Let’s say you are an outspoken polarizing public figure, how can you use this paper to navigate?”

As a polarizing public figure, your existence is frequently framed by opponents through the lens of negative association value (AV)—the idea that your presence in the social or political landscape imposes a net cost on others. The Neutralization Theory of Hatred suggests that once this perception takes hold, your adversaries shift from “bargaining” (anger) to “neutralization” (hatred).

To navigate this, you can apply the paper’s findings to anticipate attacks and engineer your defense.

1. Identify the “Neutralization” Shift

You must distinguish when critics are genuinely angry (seeking to change your behavior) versus when they hate you (seeking to remove you).

Watch for Silencing: If opponents actively block your attempts to explain your motives or context, they are using a hatred-based strategy to prevent you from “bargaining” your way back into social favor.

Predict Information Warfare: Expect adversaries to spread negative information regardless of its truth; their functional goal is to lower the Welfare Tradeoff Ratio (WTR) others hold toward you, effectively recruiting a “mob” for your neutralization.

2. Guard Against “Contagion”

The paper notes that hatred is socially learned and contagious. This creates a “contaminating” effect for your allies.

Allies as Targets: Recognize that your defenders will be targeted because they are seen as “obstructing the neutralization” of a toxic entity.

Build Social “Cover”: To keep your coalition intact, provide your allies with independent reasons to maintain high association value with you, which can offset the social costs they face for defending you.

3. Strategic Responses to Hatred

Once hatred has activated in a large group, standard appeals to empathy or “reasoned debate” may fail because the hatred system is specifically designed to bypass empathy.

Demonstrate High Association Value: Counter the “toxic” label by visibly bestowing benefits onto the group or broader society. If you can move your perceived association value toward zero or positive, you trigger the “terminating conditions” that cause hatred to deactivate.

Increase the “Cost” of Neutralization: Hatred may deactivate if the hater realizes that neutralizing you is too expensive in terms of time, resources, or social blowback. By becoming a “costly target”—legally, socially, or through a resilient platform—you can force opponents to move from active hatred to a state of dormancy.

Challenge the “Predatory” Style: Since hatred-based aggression is “predatory” (timed to your vulnerability and using deception), avoid public displays of weakness that might “excite” a predatory attack.

4. Tactical Communication

Avoid the “Bargaining” Trap: If you are being hated rather than just being the object of anger, offering apologies or concessions may be viewed as a sign of vulnerability rather than a bridge to peace.

Fact-Check the Narrative: Since information warfare is a primary tool of hatred, prioritize rapid, fact-based corrections to prevent the “snowball effect” of copied hatred from reaching a tipping point.

A public figure who understands the mechanics of hatred can stop acting as a victim of “cancel culture” and start acting as a strategic counter-force. Sell et al. make it clear that hatred is a coordinated system of cognitive and behavioral procedures designed to minimize the negative fitness consequences of your existence.

Control the Information Space

Hatred uses information warfare to diminish your social power by recalibrating the status-seeking machinery in the minds of others. To navigate this, you must realize that your opponents are not engaged in a search for truth; they are engaged in a hunt for information that can be weaponized.

Neutralize the Mob Early: Because hatred is contagious and spreads through “hate copying,” an error in perception can create a snowball effect. You must correct false narratives rapidly before they reach a tipping point where third parties hate you merely to avoid the appearance of defending you.

Bypass the Silencing: Hatred motivates your enemies to prevent you from offering explanations or apologies because negotiation is incompatible with the function of hatred. You must maintain independent channels of communication that your enemies cannot shut down.

Manage your Alliances

The theory predicts that those who defend a hated target often become hated themselves because they obstruct the neutralization process.

Provide Social Cover: Your allies face high social costs for standing with you. To help them, you must consistently demonstrate high association value—becoming an asset so valuable that the benefits of your existence outweigh the social costs of defending you.

Reciprocity and Loyalty: Hatred should be reciprocal; if someone hates you, they will work against you, making their existence bad for you. You must identify your true enemies and focus your resources on those who actually maintain a positive association value with you.

Force the Deactivation of Hatred

Nature selects for hatred to deactivate when the strategy fails or becomes too costly. You do not win by being “liked” by everyone; you win by making the campaign against you a net loss for the haters.

Increase the Cost of Attack: If you cannot be eliminated, diminished in power, or avoided, the hater squanders attention and resources on an ineffective strategy. By building legal, financial, or social resilience, you can force hatred to become dormant.

Resist the Predatory Style: Predatory aggression is timed to your vulnerability. A public figure should avoid projecting weakness or fear, as these signs serve as evidence that you are in a good position to be attacked.

From Mark Halperin’s Sep. 12, 2025 2 Way show:

Jacob: I’m a Princeton student, currently on a two-year break working in marketing for my professor. I’ve been a conservative my whole life. I grew up in Seattle—that’s where I am now.

When I was in the Ivy League, which is very left-wing, there was this unspoken rule: you had to lie to your teachers and professors, it was harder to make friends, you had to keep a tight circle.

The way I saw this [Charlie Kirk] story, I felt it on three levels. First, the grief for his family and friends—especially his daughter, who will never see her father again. Second, the thoughts about stochastic terrorism, why this happened, and how he got shot. But the third, which I didn’t expect, was people I knew telling me he deserved to die.

When I asked them why, young Gen Z people said it was because of his opinions—on abortion, on guns, views that I’ve held my entire life. One person even refused to answer whether I deserve to die. That shocked me.

Scrolling through Twitter and Reddit, glued to my phone these past few days, I’ve seen people openly say these things. I don’t know the percentage—maybe it’s 5%, maybe 25%—but it’s a huge number of people. They don’t just want assassinations of other people; they’re at least undecided on the assassination of me.

Mark Halperin: Wow, Jacob. These aren’t people you know, right? These are social media interactions?

Jacob: There was one person I knew who refused to answer, and then thousands more I’ve seen on social media. Honestly, my question to you is: what do I do with that information? I never realized how many people are this violent and hateful. I don’t know what to do with that.

Gemini: The neutralization theory of hatred explains why political disagreements can escalate into what Jacob describes: an environment where a student feels he must lie to professors, hide his identity, and face the reality that peers consider his death a potential “benefit”. This shift happens when an opponent moves from being a person to bargain with (anger) to a “toxic” entity that must be neutralized (hatred).

The “Deserved to Die” Logic as Negative WTR

Jacob’s shock at people saying a victim “deserved to die” or being “undecided” on his own assassination maps directly to the paper’s definition of a negative Welfare Tradeoff Ratio (WTR).

In the hatred system, the mind is oriented to view costs heaped onto the hated person as benefits to the hater.

When Gen Z peers say someone deserves to die because of their opinions on guns or abortion, they are not expressing anger at a policy; they are expressing a desire for the “neutralization” of a person whose existence they perceive as a net fitness cost to their own social or moral world.

This explains the “violent and hateful” nature Jacob observed: if the WTR is negative, any harm to the target is experienced as a “gain” for the group.

Why the Ivy League Environment Becomes a “No-Fly Zone”

Jacob describes having to keep a “tight circle” and lying to professors. The paper explains this through the lens of information warfare and contagion.

Hate Copying: Hatred spreads socially, especially among peers with shared interests. In a left-wing Ivy League environment, hating “MAGA” or conservative views becomes a coalitional signal.

The Cost of Defense: The paper predicts that those who defend a hated target—or even just associate with them—become targets themselves because they are seen as “obstructing the neutralization” of a toxic threat.

Jacob’s need for a “tight circle” is a rational response to this “contaminating” identity; his peers are incentivized to hate him merely to avoid the appearance of defending a “toxic” person.

Aversion to Context and the “Refusal to Answer”

The person who refused to tell Jacob whether he “deserved to die” illustrates the paper’s point about the aversion to understanding motives.

Hatred actively resists empathy or negotiation because “understanding” would lead to “bargaining,” which is incompatible with the goal of “nullifying an enemy”.

By refusing to engage with Jacob as a human with valid (even if different) motives, the peers maintain the “neutralization” frame.

What Jacob Can “Do” With This Information

The paper suggests that nature selects for hatred to deactivate when the strategy of neutralization fails or becomes too costly.

Demonstrate Association Value: Hatred deactivates when a target’s “association value” becomes positive. This is difficult in a polarized environment, but finding ways to be “useful” to the broader group can sometimes trigger a recalibration.

Resilience and Cost: If the “mob” realizes that Jacob cannot be easily silenced, expelled, or morally nullified, the “costs of monitoring and spiteful actions” may eventually lead the hatred to become dormant.

Predatory Awareness: Jacob’s realization that a “huge number of people” are “undecided” on his death is a recognition of the “predatory” style of hatred-based aggression, which is timed to victim vulnerability. Understanding this helps a public figure or student prioritize personal security and coalitional formidability rather than waiting for an apology that the hatred system is designed to block.

Posted in Anti-Semitism, Hate, Israel | Comments Off on The Neutralization Theory of Hatred

Our Emotions Help Us Navigate Reality

Posted on January 23, 2026 by Luke Ford

From a 2015 Paper: The function of anger, for example, is to orchestrate bargaining tactics when others put too low a weight on the individual’s welfare; the function of gratitude is to consolidate a higher level of cooperation when the system detects that an unexpectedly high weight has been put on one’s welfare; the function of pride is to motivate the individual to publicize (and achieve) traits or acts that enhance valuation by others; the function of shame is to limit reductions in the weight placed on one’s welfare by an audience; the function of guilt is to prevent or remedy events where one put too low a weight on the welfare of another (often unintentionally), independent of whether the other will know it. Within this framework, one can distinguish guilt and shame while seeing why they are related. In guilt, the outcome to be avoided is imposing harm on valued others, something that remains even if they never discover it. In shame, the outcome to be avoided is being devalued by others. One can feel both shame and guilt about the same act, but the functions, internal recalibrations, and outputs are distinct. For example, someone who felt guilt and shame about infidelity might refrain from it, whereas someone who felt shame but not guilt about infidelity might practice it but conceal it. Future work may profitably assess similarities and differences between shame and other emotions, such as guilt and embarrassment.
Because shame (like pain) causes personal suffering and sometimes leads to hostile behavior, this emotion has been called “maladaptive” and “ugly”. However, an evolutionary–psychological analysis of the existing evidence suggests a different view: this ugly emotion may be the expression of a system that is elegantly designed to deter injurious choices and to make the best of a bad situation.

Posted in Anger | Comments Off on Our Emotions Help Us Navigate Reality

‘The same skills that made you a good student may make you a bad employee.’

Posted on January 23, 2026 by Luke Ford

I just read that claim. Hmm. Good grades and good things such as earning correlate. If I had to rate the statement as true or false, I’d say false.

If the statement were true, however, how might it be true? Success in a classroom relies on a predictable system. You receive a syllabus, follow clear instructions, and wait for a grade. This structure rewards the ability to solve predefined problems within a set timeframe. The workplace functions differently. It values autonomy over obedience and progress over perfection. Many habits that earn high marks in school create friction in a professional environment.

Academic environments prioritize the individual. You study alone, take tests alone, and receive a personal GPA. This isolation encourages a mindset where you view colleagues as competitors or obstacles. In a career, your value depends on how well you collaborate. A brilliant worker who refuses to share information or support the team becomes a liability. If you focus only on your personal output, you miss the broader goals of the organization.

The pursuit of a perfect score often leads to paralysis. Students spend weeks polishing a paper to ensure they do not lose a single point. In a fast-paced firm, speed usually beats a flawless finish. A draft delivered today is often more used than a masterpiece delivered next week. The fear of being wrong, which keeps a student’s hand down in class, prevents an employee from suggesting the risky idea that might save a company.

School teaches you to wait for permission. You do not move to the next unit until the teacher says so. This passivity kills momentum in a professional setting. Managers do not want to hand-hold every step of a project. They want people who identify a gap and fill it without being asked. If you wait for a syllabus to tell you how to grow, you remain stagnant while others innovate.

Teachers provide the questions. In a job, you must find the questions yourself. A good student excels at giving the right answer to a prompt. A good employee recognizes when the prompt itself is flawed and suggests a better direction. This shift from reactive to proactive behavior marks the difference between someone who performs tasks and someone who leads.

To understand work in America today, look to the writers who examine the friction between human nature and the modern economy. The most insightful voices do not just report on labor statistics; they analyze the psychological and sociological shifts in how we find meaning through what we do.

The Futurists and Technologists

These writers focus on the intersection of work and artificial intelligence. They ask how technology changes the value of human skills.

David Autor: An economist at MIT who writes clearly about how AI might restore middle-class jobs. He argues that technology can distribute expert-level knowledge to a broader workforce, making human judgment more valuable rather than obsolete.

Erik Brynjolfsson: A Stanford professor who looks at the “productivity paradox.” He explores how we must redesign our organizations and skills to actually benefit from new technologies.

The Labor Historians and Journalists

These writers document the lived experience of the working class and the evolution of labor movements.

Sarah Jaffe: Author of Work Won’t Love You Back. She is a critical voice on the “labor of love” myth. She argues that the expectation to be passionate about our jobs often leads to exploitation and burnout.

Kim Kelly: A journalist who focuses on the resurgence of unions and the history of marginalized workers. Her book Fight Like Hell provides a modern look at the people who built the American labor movement.

Mike Elk: Through his outlet Payday Report, he provides deep reporting on strike waves and labor organizing in the South and other regions often ignored by mainstream media.

The Organizational Psychologists

These thinkers analyze the internal culture of firms and the changing nature of leadership.

Adam Grant: He writes about how to make work less miserable by improving organizational culture. He focuses on concepts like “rethinking” and how to foster creativity and psychological safety in teams.

Sarah Bloom Raskin: She offers insight into the regulatory and financial frameworks that shape the labor market. She connects high-level economic policy to the stability of the average American’s work life.

Claudia Goldin: A Nobel laureate whose research on “greedy jobs” explains why high-paying roles often require extreme flexibility, which contributes to the gender pay gap and burnout.

Posted in Education, Work | Comments Off on ‘The same skills that made you a good student may make you a bad employee.’