The mystery of the cathedral

The politics of the last decade have been very weird. The Great Awokening gave rise to an extreme variant of progressive ideology that quickly gained a huge amount of traction amongst American elites, and from there embedded itself into institutions across America and the wider western world.

Sudden ideological change is nothing new—my last post was about political preference cascades, and how they’re a natural result of social behavior. But what's fascinatingly novel about the Great Awokening is the extent to which it was an almost entirely leaderless movement. There was no modern MLK leading this new charge for a racial reckoning; nor a Harvey Milk of trans rights; nor even Butlers or Steins writing incisive commentaries. The closest we had was Obama, who in hindsight was a milquetoast leader whose cult of personality was driven in large part by progressive longing for a [...]

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Outline:

(00:04) The mystery of the cathedral

(06:06) The consensus of power

(11:43) Fighting a consensus of power

(17:32) Replacing a consensus of power

The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
March 19th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zqffB6gokoivwwn7X/elite-coordination-via-the-consensus-of-power

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Elite Coordination via the Consensus of Power” by Richard_Ngo

LessWrong (30+ Karma)