Infinity16

I don't think there's a movie quite as anviliciously stage orange as Meet The Robinsons If you didn't hear it the first time, don't worry, you'll hear the message of the movie 20 other times.

Rationality Rules shows us just how to beat main tactic used by the alt right This tactic is the oldest trick in the book of plausible deniability. The "I was only kidding" defense has been used by many an impractical jokester when confronted on being a douchebag. On the internet, this is known as schrodinger's douchebag. Basically, I meant it if it goes over well and I'm kidding if it doesn't. This defense is best countered by pointing out just how offensive the joke really is. Of course, Nick doesn't care but that itself reveals that he is in stage red. Stage blue and above abide by the golden rule. The morality that Nick Fuentes abides by only seems to cover himself and maybe also his in-group. Most westerners are above stage red and are naturally repulsed by such utter disregard for the suffering of others. They would most likely face a lot of guilt and shame in Nick's shoes. The thing with him is that he's shameless and relishes in provoking people. Nick says that people need to grow up, implying that empathy is a childish trait. The irony here is that his behavior is consistent with a stage that most people go through and grow out of.

When I saw this video, I immediately thought of this forum. This seems like something unlocked at stage orange, green, or yellow.

That's a very good point. A societal collapse such as a zombie apocalypse would regress society below stage blue. It would most likely lead to a regression to stage purple since the world would be so dangerous that people need to group together in order to survive.

Productivity might be up but so is instability. The Fragile States Index measures 12 factors from 0 to 10 with higher numbers indicating more instability. Each country gets a score from 0 to 120. The main contributors to instability in the US are group grievance and factionalized elites. The US hovered in the mid 30s from 2006 up until Donald Trump won an election, leading to an increase in the score, peaking at 46.6 in 2022 (each year's score is based on events from the previous year) before going down slightly in the following years. https://fragilestatesindex.org/country-data/

I can think of two more: 🟪 Apocalypse The west has fallen. Billions must die. Likely to result from a nuclear war (during the cold war before the USA and Russia reduced their stockpiles by 90%) or some other apocalypse The only way to survive such a hostile world is to form bands which have enough collective knowledge for survival. It's unknown if AI can lead to this. Global warming is unlikely to do so but may exasterbate other crises. 🟧 🟩 New mode of government The nation-state gets replaced with a new mode of government. Just as the nation-state arose from changing attitudes regarding nationalism and economies of scale, this new mode of government will arise from a rise in cosmopolitanism and a decreasing scale to violence. This changing attitude will result from online work resulting in people being able to work from wherever they want in the world. During the peak of economies of scale, tanks dominated the battlefield. Drones are a game-changer, essentially making the war in Ukraine like WWI. 3D printing is now starting to reduce the scale of violence, allowing ethnic minorities in Myanmar to protect themselves from a genocidal regime. This will also make it easier for troubled individuals and organized crime to carry out acts of violence. Because of the reduced scale, the new mode of government will, on average, consist of less territory than the nation-state. The stage orange mode of government will operate akin to a business. Cities will be designed around profiting off of digital nomads. Revenue will come from rent and severance taxation. Land and capital will not be taxed as they will be mobile. Each mode of government is strengthened by the next stage because that stage accounts for the previous stage's limitations The stage red mode of government, the empire, is strengthened by stage blue because it leads to more stability. The nation-state, the stage blue mode of government, is strengthened by stage orange because it results in more diversity and innovation. The next stage will be strengthened by stage green because the main limitation of orange is that it lacks a sense of belonging. One major footnote here is that the stage orange mode of government will be the first to be less militarily capable than the last. This is because the previous is able to engage in total war, that is the use of all assets in a conflict.

We are currently in the stage blue mode of government which is the nation-state. It is distinct from the stage red mode of government (empire) in that it is supposed to be a state consisting of one people, united by an idea or by ethnicity. Stage blue oftentimes runs on an in-group vs an out-group. As such, citizens will always matter more than non-citizens.

That is somewhat true. The black community spans the whole spectrum much like white people. If you've ever seen the Boondocks, each of the main characters represents a different stage. Blue and ornge are about conformity while red and green are about revolution. Even though red and green are the opposite, they can still be aligned when we're talking about nonprivileged demographics.

Ukraine has been having this problem since the end of the Soviet era. The war will likely exasterbate this.

What you're seeing here is pre-orange spirituality. The problem is that pre-orange spirituality is typically dogmatic. I have recently begun to notice the role that leading questions and thought terminating cliches play in evangelical Christianity. Stage orange is typically detrimental to spirituality, but it is doing away with the spirituality that is dogmatic.

I think what this reveals is that while stage green has enjoyed an outsized influence for the past 15 years, not many Americans are at that stage. Democrats are mostly at stage orange. The Republican Party is divided between orange and blue but clearly has some stage red as demonstrated by Trump being president.

You can notice point 2 in spades. The US was already doing well beforehand but Trump seems to be under the impression that the ideal foreign policy is to disregard the will of other nations. Trump's supporters say that it makes America look strong. I say that it makes America look like a bully. Also brings me to the quote by Stephen Miller. A day ago, he said that it would be alright if the US took Greenland under the justification that Denmark is too weak to defend it. https://thehill.com/policy/international/5694105-stephen-miller-greenland-acquisition-defense/ Stephen Miller embodies a fascistic foreign policy. I don't use that adjective lightly. Trump's foreign policy seems to be a populist one without much thought put into it. Stephen Miller seems like he's trying to justify naked imperialism.

Am I the only one who thinks sounds like something a movie villain would say?

I personally think georgism will be more feasible than socialism, both for political reasons and for the geopolitical paradigm.

You probably find this mindset in poorer countries with unreliable governments. In countries like Russia, China, Turkmenistan, and North Korea, the government is simply a mafia that controls a nation. I wonder if this shapes society or if the state is shaped by society. Russia has no history of liberalism. It wasn't long after the end of the monarchy that it became a one party autocracy. The brief period that Russia was friendly with the west was a time of high unemployment, crime, and mortality. Putin promised order to the Russian people and they got it. Plus the Russian people tend very heavily towards conservatism. Russia would be the future of the US should Trump succeed in doing away with democracy.

I always figured that Russian culture was cynical but this video dives more into depth. Obviously this video does not use spiral dynamics but it contrasts the stage red Russian mindset from the stage orange western one. As quoted in 1984, power is not a means to an end but rather an end in of itself. Ideology and popular well being are the means; power is the end. In stage red, you don't question why those with power over you do what they do. Rather, you work around it. Orange seeks a meritocratic hierarchy whereas in stage red, there is no pretense that the hierarchy should be meritocratic. In red, your goal in life is to make your way up as high in the hierarchy as possible. We in our WEIRD society are oftentimes baffled by how differently the rest of the world thinks. I as a westerner was surprised that Putin decided to wage war a special military operation in Ukraine, not because I believed that there was good in everyone but because it's the worst move possible from a western perspective. I figured that as a dictator, one would want to ensure prosperity for the people, if nothing else, to stay in power. According to this video, the war is helping to keep Putin in power. The video says that with war, time stands still, but I might add a thought to it. Taiwan and South Korea both started out as dictatorships. Their economies grew quickly and eventually, both got to a point at which the people demanded a democracy. It might just be that dictatorships benefit from the populace being at a low level of consciousness. At red, you are concerned with survival and do not even consider the possibility of social change. At orange, survival can be taken for granted and social change becomes possible. The first video of his is about how freedom is scary from a Russian POV. This is because Russian society is at stage blue. People at any stage (at least below yellow) assume that the next stage is just like the previous one with those limitations. As such, people in orange hold collectivism in contempt, considering green to be oversensitive just as blue is judgemental. For people in stage blue, individualism is instability. They don't consider orange from above because all they understand is red from below. His video on propaganda mirrors a common take on MAGA talking points. The take being that Trump doesn't lie very convincingly, but he lies so often that it becomes pointless to even worry about it. The job is not to convince but rather wear you down. I don't quite think the comparison quite sticks because half of the country does believe that Trump was a victim of the deep state. With that said, Trump's way of doing things is authoritarian. That's why he gets along well with people such as Putin, Erdogan, and King Salman, but not so well with Merkel, Macron, or Trudeau. If the US didn't have a century long tradition in liberalism and was a fragile state for a decade, Donald Trump would probably have been more well received. It really seems like Russian culture revolves around fear, contrasted with the west which revolves around guilt. Authoritarianism is good from a fear-based perspective, not so much from a guilt-based one.

Indeed, it seems like authoritarianism is making a comeback in the west. I genuinely wonder if deepfakes will encourage the Russian mindset to truth.

We don't know how good his relationship with his parents was when the cameras weren't on them. Obviously that comes nowhere near close to justifying the murder but there is a lot that doesn't get discussed behind closed doors.

As you probably all know, capitalism has its issues. But as Leo Gura pointed out in When Does the Left Go Too Far?, socialism isn't perfect either. Awhile back, I discovered an economic theory that can ensure steady economic growth whilst at the same time, ensuring that those benefits distribute rather than consolidate. To understand this, you first need to understand the three factors of production - land, labor, and capital. Profit for each of the three has its own term. Land: Natural resources and plots of land. Profit from land is rent. Labor: Effort by people to provide a good or service. Profit from labor is a wage. Capital: Anything manmade, especially to produce goods or services. Profit from capital is interest. What different economic theories disagree on is on the priority of each of the three. For example, Marxian economics revolves around the labor theory of value (LTV) which states that labor is the only way to contribute to the economy. Land and capital exist but take on a passive role relative to labor. As such, landlords and business owners are leeching off of the productive working class whilst giving nothing in return. Neoclassical economics considers all three to be legitimate. There was something that I noticed. I spotted a thread in the LTV when it occurred to me that each business has to start somehow. The founder may not contribute a majority of the labor that goes into a successful business, but does take on a risk of starting one. Most fail but the ones that succeed will become big. Even big businesses can eventually fail as is the case with Sears which has just five locations left as of December 2025 (Sears had a branch in Mexico which is now larger than the current company). At the same time, I felt like land speculation was a way to make money without actually giving anything to society. In fact, it's negative since it drives up land prices. I then discovered georgism, an economic theory that I believe will give us the best of both capitalism and socialism. Henry George lived during the late 19th century and wrote a book called Progress and Poverty in 1879. In this book, he took note that landowners nearby where the railroads were built were profiteering big time. The industrial revolution brought forth unprecedented wealth and yet there was still a great deal of poverty. He came to the conclusion that land was the problem. After all, whereas labor and capital are manmade and variable, land is a constant. It's also worth noting that at the time that book was written, the American frontier was nearing its conclusion (Native Americans would get kicked off of Oklahoma a decade later). Once all of the land gets sold, the price of land will go up. To solve this, George proposed a land value tax (LVT). This is different from a property tax in that it only taxes the land and not the improvements. Henry George gained following in what became known as the single tax movement. Henry George ran for NYC mayor in 1886 against Abram Hewitt, who won, and Theodore Roosevelt. He ran again in 1897 but died a few days before the election. His funeral was attended by 100,000, making it one of the largest funerals in the country at the time. The LVT was largely forgotten in the mid 20th century, perhaps because the post war boom and the automobile enabled a recreation of the frontier. George's ideas remained of note to economists, perhaps because of how logical they are. Since the 2008 financial crisis, georgism has become relevant again, especially as homes have become increasingly unaffordable. I found myself to be persuaded to support land-based taxation because it enables the state to collect revenue without incurring any deadweight loss. This is because taxing land does not result in less land. Furthermore, LVT does not suffer from tax avoidance or evasion because the government will always know what landowners have to pay. The only issue lies in separating land from improvements as not doing so makes it simply a property tax which is a double edged sword. A property tax discourages land speculation but it also discourages improving the property.

Excellent question A property tax is a tax on the whole property. That means that if demand for the location increases or if an improvement is made, the property tax goes up. Land value tax is meant to tax just the land, not the building on top of the land. In other words, demolishing a building or making an improvement would not affect the LVT. The only thing that would affect LVT is a change in demand for the plot of land.

Fun fact: Japan has a much lower incarceration rate than the US.

I wonder if capitalism is necessary due to low conscious individuals. The big problem with a state-run economy is that there are so many variables that experts often miss the finer details (think about how Polymarket predicted the 2025 election while Alan Lichtman failed). This is known as the economic calculation problem. Furthermore, an economy run by the state can easily be manipulated by politicians for their own ends. Many leftists on the internet actually call for a decentralized economy which is more based on cooperation rather than competition. Whether this can work in any current society is yet to be seen. This is oftentimes referred to as democracy in the workplace. Running with this analogy, we know that democracy didn't work so well in countries in which it was imposed from the top-down like Afghanistan and Iraq. It's also delivered mixed results in Tunisia which democratized without foreign intervention. The bad news is that stage green isn't as popular as it makes itself out to be.

I should perhaps distinguish between type of government, mode of government, and culture. The enlightenment values that western culture is based on today are essentially stage orange. Democracy is valued by stages orange and green. For most of US history, although enlightenment values took root in academia, most of the population was in stage blue. This changed in the 60s in what can possibly be referred to as the cultural enlightenment. The cultural enlightenment gave the west all of the benefits and drawbacks of stage orange. The mode of government (which I coined) is different from a type of government which is how the government is run. The mode of government actually deals with the makeup of the government. The empire is the stage red mode of government. It starts at stage red because that's where state formation starts. Empires are defined by a dominant group and submissive groups. It is perhaps worth noting that the mode of government that embraces elements from the next stage tend to have an advantage. This is because the next stage fixes the problems with the current stage. It is very much worth noting that the mode of government that embodies the previous stages are dysfunctional. We can see that the most corrupt nation-states in the world have a lot of red and purple. Stage blue empires are more stable. Stage orange does not allow for empires because its values are contrary to imperialism. Perhaps not so coincidentally, empire and imperialism attained negative connotations right around the 60s. The nation-state is the stage blue mode of government. It is characterized by a people-group bound together by either ethnicity or civic values. This can actually make things worse for ethnic minorities as this will incentivize the state to forcefully assimilate them. The nation-state is strengthened by stage orange because it prevents technological stagnation and makes the economy more efficient.

"The elite" consist of people who gained wealth from the current economic paradigm. These are largely billionaires who gained their net worth from founding successful companies or inheriting it. They benefit from economies of scale and also lobbying for political favors which makes it more difficult for small competitors to keep up. It is largely the left that favors taxing them more. The main policy has to be oriented around the cost of eggs because that's what the median voter cares about (never forget that the nazis gained power during the GD). I think we're on the same page here. In terms of economic policy, framing would have to revolve around stage orange/achiever rhetoric. After all, how much can you really achieve in a monopolized economy? Most people in stage blue are evangelicals who would never vote Dem if their lives depended on it. Some are people in small town america, most of which has little economic opportunity. I'm not sure what would cause small town america to switch parties. Politics largely happens on a country-by-country basis. These countries are largely along the lower stages. Btw, people in stage green do occasionally talk about the global north and south as well as neocolonialism if you're interested in getting the leftist perspective there. I do somewhat wonder if the global capitalist system will crash hard. It has dark implications for humanity's evolution up the spiral. To simplify things, it seems like we move up the spiral when times are good and are held back when times are bad. A total collapse would likely see society devolve into control by stage red warlords or stage blue authoritarianism. Capitalism would collapse but it would be replaced by something worse, not better. This is what I hope happens. Right now, we are in the stage blue mode of government which is the nation-state. This emerged when enlightenment values called the stage red mode of government into question which is the empire. It is possible that a stage orange mode of government will eventually emerge. It will emerge once people start questioning the legitimacy of nationalism just as imperialism was questioned in the past.

A lot of the economic stuff have been popular in the US, even during the pre-orange 30s. The issue comes when economic policy hinders achievement which is what stage orange is all about. The social stuff pertaining to stuff like systemic racism and cultural appropriation can also turn off people in stage orange for being "woke". Trump did win with the median voter in the swing states and the POC vote swung towards him. Anyone who cares more about the state of our democracy than about the price of eggs either voted for Harris or left it blank because of her stance on Israel. It's actually a bit worse than peak orange since there's a prominent stage blue minority in the US. I will be making a post in the future as to what economic policy may work best. It will attain the advantages of both capitalism and socialism so stay tuned.