Give Up Seventy Percent Of The Way Through The Hyperstitious Slur Cascade

Argues that slurs are 'hyperstitions' - beliefs that become true once enough people hold them. A term starts roughly symmetric (both 'Japanese person' and 'Jap' ~50/50 in tone); a small asymmetry plus one person saying 'that's a slur, don't use it' collapses the symmetry to 99/1, after which only those willing to signal hostility keep using it - a self-stabilizing 'disrespectability cascade' that is the inverse of his earlier 'respectability cascades' and a cousin of the market-for-lemons. Extends the mechanism to slogans ('All Lives Matter'), images (the Confederate flag), actions (eating at Chick-fil-A), even true facts and whole ways of life, then turns normative: he personally joins such a cascade about 70% of the way through - once success is overdetermined, but late enough to make the instigators work for it.

Quality 77 · Excellent. A lucid, much-cited mechanism for how slurs and taboos form and lock in, with a durable handle ('hyperstitious slur') and a candid, transferable decision rule; narrower and shorter than his major essays, and the core 'hyperstition' concept is borrowed. Excellent, lower end.

Claude’s paradigm shift 58 · Moderate. 'Hyperstition' is Land/CCRU's and the lemons market is Akerlof's, with 'respectability cascades' his own prior coinage; the fresh, propagating contribution is the symmetry-breaking slur-formation mechanism and its wide extension. Moderate, edging notable.

Real-world impact 2 · Minor. A lucid, much-cited mechanism for how slurs and taboos form and lock in (a self-stabilizing 'disrespectability cascade'), with a durable handle and a transferable decision rule. Conceptual influence within intellectual discourse, no material change — low RWI.