And the mechanism of this oscillation is people joining and leaving a movement.

In the beginning the radical idea is a basic kind of equality where some kind of person shouldn't be disadvantaged for some characteristic.

There is then a growth phase where many people join and small specific victories turn into general victories.

There is then a shrinking phase where people leave the movement or lose zeal as general victories are had.

The movement keeps much of its ideology capital and with the more moderate people losing interest, the median ideology moves towards special privileges for hyper-specific characteristics defended by a very real "the problem still exists".

The end stage is a movement that tries to conflate its extreme views as being equally as beyond question and equally morally right as the views during the growth phase, and you get conflict when people have a hard time sorting out the complexities of which is right and which is too far... and you get the backlash where the basic right is threatened by the connection with the extreme views... and so it goes.

The 21st century is the century of complexity, the basic problems are often solved and the complex ones need more nuance than the basic ones took... and the struggle is getting this point across that things aren't as simple as they were before.

Did you get this framework from somewhere you can refer me to? It’s facially intriguing and I’d like to see it more fully explored.

While I probably have many influences, the thoughts there are,I think, mostly my own.

While in tech i’ve been gently exploring the idea of freaking out my thoughts into something publishable.

Sometimes HN is an exercise in attempting to communicate how i think and getting feedback.

Speaking of racial ideology, I honestly don't understand how we're supposed to become less racists if we're drawing so much attention to race and putting it left, right and center of any policy discussion?

Because, honestly, shutting up about it and ignoring it is the solution we tried from the 70s through the 2000s and it didn't accomplish anything - racist folk were just empowered by not being called out on it.

At least when it comes to America - there are some very deeply entrenched societal issues that we'd need to resolve to achieve anything near equality including generations of depriving wealth accumulation in communities (i.e. Native Americans).

Did it really not accomplish anything? Remember that Jim Crow laws officially ended in 1964 with the Civil Rights Act. 44 years later the first black US president was elected.

Is it really fair to say we've come nowhere since the 70s?

No, I think we've made some progress - it's just extremely slow. Don't forget that Fredrick Douglass was a major black political figure during the Civil War and that Sammy Davis Jr. was a sex icon - it doesn't mean that the majority of African Americans (and them too I bet they'd be happy to tell you) didn't suffer heavy racism. There are some good examples of African Americans thriving even in America as it stands today - but that doesn't mean that the playing field is equal, it just means that it's not so biased that it's literally impossible for them to succeed.

It's very difficult to pull individuals out of poverty, much less an entire demographic. Tribes have tried a lot, everything from covering all or part of college, regular per-capita payments, free healthcare, partially or fully subsidized housing, etc. and people waste it by trashing their free housing and blowing money on alcohol and drugs. I find it hard to believe there's a greater obstacle to growing wealth than growing up without any.

I can’t comment on a particular field or ideology per se, but perhaps it’s social media newsfeed algorithms that are creating the similar effect to pilot-induced oscillation that you’re identifying?

Much more likely that it is an emergent property of collective human behavior.

Nonetheless, sophisticated social engineering attempts or clandestine social research are certainly within the realm of discovering by a quick search of the news.