The Influenza Of Evil

A sharp, memorable essay arguing that evil is anti-inductive — like the stock market, detecting its pattern destroys the pattern. The Nazis partly succeeded by not pattern-matching to evil; now we have 'memetic antibodies' so neo-Nazis fail (horrible 'in exactly the way our culture formed antibodies against'). Huey Long: 'fascism in America will advance under the banner of anti-fascism' — and communism did wear anti-fascism on its sleeve, fooling smart people while murdering millions. The flu analogy: each year the immune system has antibodies to last year's strain; the virus mutates; so the next great evil won't resemble fascism or communism — it'll be the thing everyone says 'is so great, doesn't pattern-match to any known evil' (he pointedly disclaims having a target in mind). Part II applies the same dynamic to bullying (via a Cracked list): smart bullies migrate to whatever 'punches down while looking like punching up' (mentally ill celebrities, victim-blameable groups, orthogonal axes like virginity) — the 'hot new bullying frontier' most people haven't caught onto, tying back to Untitled. Closes by 'apologizing for irresponsibly claiming to have found a pattern in an anti-inductive domain.'

Quality 74 · Strong. Strong, high (74). A concise, frequently-cited essay with a genuinely durable concept (evil/bullying as anti-inductive) and vivid analogies (memetic immunity, the flu, smart-bullies-punching-down-while-looking-up). Held just below Excellent by its brevity and the more-applied second half.

Claude’s paradigm shift 62 · Notable shift. Notable (62). Anti-inductivity itself was established (markets, the LW concept), but applying it to evil and bullying — 'the next evil won't pattern-match to known evils' — was a fresh, striking framing.

Real-world impact 3 · Moderate. Moderate (3). 'Evil is anti-inductive' became genuinely-used vocabulary in the rationalist sphere; its reach is intellectual, not material.