QualiaAdvocate

Submission statement: Scott Alexander's mistake theory vs conflict theory distinction is one of the most useful frames for understanding political discourse. But most explanations of conflict theory are either hostile or deliberately obscure. This post attempts something different: a clear-language, analytical reconstruction of how conflict theorists actually think and why their approach makes sense in specific contexts.

Main claims: (1) Conflict theory is genuine epistemology, not just strategy - it answers "what should I believe?" with different criteria than correspondence to reality. (2) These epistemologies are adaptations to different games - cooperative vs zero-sum. (3) Most mistake theorists are strategically naive about which game they're playing.

Long read (~7k words), but if you've ever been confused about why stating true facts sometimes makes people angrier, this might help.

This piece explores the concept of "pseudo-principality"—when people selectively apply moral principles to serve their interests while maintaining the appearance of consistency. It argues that what’s often dismissed as "whataboutism" can actually be a valuable tool for exposing this behavior.

Interesting, thanks for sharing!

Thank you. One of the goals of my blog is also to bridge the gap between Post-Modernist left thinking and STEM-Rationality type thinking, by writing in clear language and explaining my assumptions from first principles. Basically, I try to avoid complex jargon and avoid asserting things without explanation or examples, which I unfortunately see too often in leftist writing.

This article introduces the concept of "non-consensual consent" – a pervasive societal mechanism where people are forced to perform enthusiasm and voluntary participation while having no meaningful alternatives. It's the inverse of "consensual non-consent" in BDSM, where people actually have freedom but pretend they don't. In everyday life, we constantly pretend we've freely chosen arrangements we had no hand in creating. From job interviews (where we feign passion for work we need to survive), to parent-child relationships (where children must pretend gratitude for arrangements they never chose), to citizenship (where we act as if we consented to laws preceding our birth), this pattern appears throughout society. The article examines how this illusion is maintained through language, psychological mechanisms, and institutional enforcement, with examples ranging from sex work to toddler choice techniques. I explore how existence itself represents the ultimate non-consensual arrangement, and how acknowledging these dynamics could lead to greater compassion and more honest social structures, even within practical constraints that make complete transformation difficult.