My experience being a progressive was being constantly frustrated that no one was serious. I was at Occupy Wall Street, and the whole thing was a joke. Every random cause had to be represented. Weed legalization, prison abolition, you name it. Nothing could get done because someone always had a nitpicky left-coded objection that had to at least be seen to be taken seriously. It seemed obvious to me that this would weaken the movement until it fell apart completely, but no one cared. Then and later, I was constantly attacked for calling for focus, for effectiveness, for compromise. If I said that climate change was bad but not apocalyptic, I was an evil planet destroyer. If I said that redistributive policies that targeted poverty rather than race would automatically be racially disproportionate to the exact degree that outcomes were disproportionate, and much easier to sell to the public, I was a racist. No one ever had counterarguments. They had thought-terminating cliches. Which indicated that they weren’t actually serious about their goals. If you are truly motivated by an outcome, you’ll be interested in strategic/factual criticism. If you’re just having fun, if the activity rather than the outcome is the point, you’ll be upset that some nerd is harshing the vibes. I’m not in any sense a progressive anymore, but my core terminal value is the same: maximize beauty. And my core instrumental value is the same: maximize truth. And I believe these converge in the limit. I have onboarded information that indicates rightism is a better way to do this. None of my former progressive friends were even interested in this shift in my thinking. People who’d put a lot of stock in my opinion no longer cared. If they actually shared my core values, as they claimed to, they would be curious at least! They weren’t. There is a lot of unseriousness on the right too, a lot of “enjoy the party” mindset over pragmatism. But at least for now it doesn’t hold the levers of power. I am very tired. I feel like I was born 10,000 years old. I am tired of people who don’t mean what they say. I am tired of unseriousness. If things go well, it will be because the egregores are smart, not because humans are. Please be serious.