"Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy." – Plato 

I came across a tweet from Jack Posobiec online the other day, and it reminded me of a consistent problem I’ve seen promulgated by the Right, and even the Left.

Jack’s argument can essentially be boiled down to this statement: Had South Africa not written Critical Race Theory into their Constitution in the 1990s, its energy grid wouldn’t be collapsing. This kind of thinking isn’t new. More broadly, it can be expressed as follows: Because of some idea, there are societal problems. This line of logic makes several assumptions that call it into question. To explore why this statement is flawed, I will analogize it to four physiological mechanisms in Animals and Plants.

To begin, a discussion on the Sodium-Potassium-ATPase pump. The Sodium-Potassium-ATPase pump transports three Na+ (Sodium Cations) out of the cell and two K+ (Potassium Cations) into the cell. Initially, three Na+ bind with a carrier protein or receptor in the cell’s membrane. Secondly, after receiving a phosphate from an adenosine triphosphate, transforming it into adenosine diphosphate, energy is released and the carrier protein changes shape. While this occurs, the three Na+ are pumped out of the cell. And because the cell naturally maintains homeostasis to the best of its ability, two K+ are pumped into the cell through that same carrier protein.

Let us review the logic: The cell is attempting to maintain homeostasis, and the cell can maintain levels of sodium and potassium levels in the cell fluid or cytosol through active transport. For active transport to occur, there needs to be a protein carrier and ATP. If there’s insufficient ATP or, for some reason, no protein carrier to transport potassium into the cell and sodium out of the cell, then active transport will not occur and sodium ion levels in the cell will increase. To make it very clear: if there is no vehicle to transport the sodium out of the cell or the protein carrier doesn’t or can’t receive a phosphate from ATP, then active transport will not occur. There needs to be a protein carrier for the message from the ATP to be received, for it to be affected by one of the phosphates on the ATP, at least.

Through a similar process, action potentials can occur within the nervous system. During this process, as the amount of Na+ increases outside of the cell, the mV (millivolt) charge of the neuron increases from its resting potential of -70mV to -55mV. Once at -55mV, Na+ quickly moves into the cell, in a period of less than 1 millisecond, increasing the mV of the cell up to +40mV. This causes the Na channel, or transport mechanism, to close. Once at this maximum, K channels or pumps open, allowing K+ to leave the neuron. In about 1 millisecond, the neuron hyperpolarizes, i.e., it reaches a voltage that is less than its resting potential of -70mV. At this point, because the cell seeks to maintain equilibrium, the potassium channels or pumps close, and the resting potential is re-established. This process, on its own, is insufficient to effect much change, yet when multiple neurons are affected by a positive change in voltage outside the cell, chain reactions can occur.

This is the very process by which neurotransmitters are released. Once the action potential travels down the axon of a neuron and reaches an axon terminal, calcium ion channels can open, which allows Ca2+ to enter. When Ca2+ releases from the axon terminal, synaptic vesicles are released from the axon’s microtubules, which fuse with the axon’s cellular membrane, releasing neurotransmitters into the presynaptic cleft. These neurotransmitters, think Dopamine, Acetylcholine, Serotonin, and Glutamate, then bind with receptors on the postsynaptic cleft.

Again, if there were no receptors on the postsynaptic cleft, or there were no neurotransmitters released from the axonal vesicles from the presynaptic cleft, or Ca2+ ions were not released from the presynaptic cleft, or there was no action potential to cause the Ca2+ ions to be released, then the brain simply wouldn’t function properly. And, if neurons weren’t able to transport Na+ or K+ ions, then action potentials wouldn’t occur. Or, if the neuron weren’t affected by voltage changes inside and outside the cell, action potentials wouldn’t occur. And because the brain requires action potentials to occur, unless action potentials occur, the brain won’t function properly.

And lastly, the process of photosynthesis continues our theme. Light photons enter the cell, those photons enter in through an antenna complex (a photon receptor), the electrons in the chloroplast of the cell are then excited, which are used to split water, releasing hydrogen and oxygen. Had hydrogen and oxygen not been released, then there would have had to have been no antenna complex, chloroplasts, or sunlight for the antenna complex of the chloroplasts to capture.

To avoid belaboring the point, all of these processes have a signal that’s picked up by a receiver, which transmits the message to an effector, resulting in a particular output.

So, let’s return to our initial premise: because of some ideas, there are societal problems. What is missing from this assumption? The receiver of the idea, the actions of that receiver, or the transmission of that idea from a receiver to an effector. Thus, our premise should really be this: because of some ideas, picked up by certain people, and then effected by certain people, there can be societal problems. Without those people, the ideas would be irrelevant. Without those people effecting those ideas, the ideas would, again, be irrelevant. Had there been no societal problems, then those societal problems wouldn’t have been caused by people who received bad ideas from some source, which itself requires some person or generator of an idea.

Here’s the point: the problems you see in South Africa aren’t rooted in ideas; they’re rooted in people who either generate ideas or effect certain ideas after they’ve received them from some source. They effect these ideas because it is in their interest to do so. Just as cells maintain homeostasis to preserve themselves, so too do people act in self-interested ways to preserve themselves, kin, family, or posterity, at least. South Africa, for example, is notoriously corrupt, especially their police. If an idea benefits some people rather than others, then people who are willing to betray others by implementing or pushing an idea that benefits them will do so. The idea is just a tool for people who are already likely to betray the people around them.

The implementation of Critical Race Theory in the 90s isn’t necessarily the root of the issue. The people who generated that idea are the issue, as are the people effecting that idea. And why are they doing it: because they benefit from changing the standards of the society, even if it’s at the expense of the stability of that society. Their short-term gains blind them to the long-term costs. This kind of phenomenon has been observed by the likes of Rick Riolo and his fellow researchers, as well as by Mikhail Burtsev and Peter Turchin, through their investigations into game theory. In the former scenario, increased mutation in a population led to a greater number of defectors than cooperators because tolerance thresholds had increased over time; in the latter, resources or the ability to take advantage of resources mediated cooperation. In a scenario where a defecting population can take advantage of cooperators, they will; or in a society where resources are scarce, self-interest may rule the day and cooperation may be a rarity.

This has been one of the main issues I have with memes. Memes do not self-replicate. Ideas do not self-replicate. Ideas are not pathogens in and of themselves, nor are they parasites. People generate ideas, people adopt ideas, people spread ideas, and people effect those ideas. But more importantly, it’s not just all people. The Na-K protein channel is affected by phosphate when ATP releases a phosphate that attaches to the protein channel, changing its shape. Neuron cells are attuned to the voltage in the intracellular fluid. Calcium pumps are attuned to the change in voltage caused by an action potential. Chloroplasts evolved to receive photons from sunlight or its like. All of these systems have a form, shaped by their environment, that functions in a particular way. But more importantly, they are all affected by different causes and are evolved to respond to those causes and not others. Thus, it is not just any people who receive the signal emanating from theories like CRT who effect it later. It is a particular kind of people, capable of receiving that signal, and effecting it because it serves their interests.

This reality is unseemly, which is why Gad Saad and many others place such an emphasis on battling these ideas with reason and truth; a good rhetorician knows he needs to convince his audience, and he is less likely to convince his audience if he simply tells them they are parasites. But that’s the truth. Against such people, whose desires are more valuable to them than upholding or defending the standards that preserve the society they’re parasitizing off of, reason, logic, and evidence will fall on deaf ears; they will be incapable of effecting the kind of change they’re intended to cause.  

The use of reason or evidence against such people is so ineffective because the first use of it is a sign that you’re nervous, even if that nervousness is valid. What you’re dealing with is a game of chicken. One side is barreling towards the other, and when the other side says, “Don’t you think you’re being unreasonable, can’t we just talk this out?”, the side that’s unwilling to stop is more likely to get its way. They are literally telling you to get out of the way because they do not plan on stopping. You’re reaching for a standard, a standard that makes use of good faith argumentation, reason, and evidence, that is best used with people you already know you can trust – people who have the right pheromones, so to speak; Critical Race Theorists, at least, are not such people. Used against people who are unreceptive to them, reason, evidence, and good faith argumentation are useless.

This is also why, as I noted in my last post, ideas unconnected to real things, that are forged through introspection and meditation and are then projected outwards as an effectible theory, often are beaten back because they fail to take into account the reality on the ground. The reality on the ground is this: the ideas aren’t the root of the problem, people who use those ideas to cloak their self-interested motives are. Critical Race Theory, itself, isn’t the problem – Critical Race Theorists are the problem.

But this leads to another issue: what about the people simply promoting or effecting those ideas, think HR ladies or Social Justice Warriors? Why are they doing so? They are doing so because they have an incentive to do so. The Right often fails to understand this. They’ll look at someone who received a promotion, or position based on their identity, and they’ll say, “Isn’t that demeaning, don’t you feel like you’ve been given that position because of your identity?”. These kinds of questions are foolish. They often know they’ve been given that position because of their identity, promoted because of their identity, or given the chance to speak because of their identity, and they do not care. It benefits them. If you get rid of this incentive, you face their ire. Since politicians constantly want to increase their pool of constituents, they will be less motivated to get rid of this incentive, even if it is undermining the stability of their society. When they’re angry with you, they’re less likely to vote for you. So, you have to keep giving them their ‘gibs.’ And when the society becomes constituted primarily of these people who desire ‘gibs,’ as was the case in Riolo et al.’s paper, the democratically elected politicians rely on these people for power. Eventually, they cause the society to collapse because they almost completely undermine cooperation by free-riding.

When we frame the argument as a battle of ideas, we fail to understand these kinds of truths: ideas are attached to people, people effect ideas, and not everyone is as capable of being affected by certain ideas as everyone else or other people. The people we are dealing with, based on our standards, aren’t good people, they’re really not capable of being good people, and they know they can use your standards against you. In the game of chicken against these people, if they really do plan on destroying the society by eroding the standards that maintain it for their selfish interests, then it is simply best to cooperate with people you can confide in, and unwaveringly and ruthlessly charge towards those who seek to destroy you.