A Gentle Introduction to Mencius Moldbug, introduction
“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” Morpheus from “The Matrix”
On the internet today, a lot of people talk about taking the “Red Pill”. This term has been prominent in right-wing circles in particular. There “taking the red pill” is considered a key rite of passage, and is used ubiquitously to refer to right-wing evangelization. The phrase is overused, but conjures a powerful image and one that’s been drilled into our psyche, if nothing else, by hollywood and one famous movie scene.
The red pill... an ideological transformation that destroys one world just as it opens up to another.
Although there are many voices on the internet who claim to be purveyors of the “red pill” - usually coming from a right-wing worldview - from my own experience, the term “taking the red pill“ is most closely associated with a little known blogger named Curtis Yarvin, who blogged under the pseudonym “Mencius Moldbug”.
Although rather obscure, the blog of Mencius Moldbug, Unqualified Reservations, remains influential to counter progressive right up until the present year with influences ranging from popular YouTubers to contemporary contrarian academic philosophers.
But despite its influence, very few people read Mencius Moldbug. This likely owes to the fact that his posts remain unwieldy, stretching to book-length while maintaining a conversational tone. The language and digressions can prove difficult for people who prefer to have ideas delivered in a more digestible format.
Since I often cite Moldbug as an influence on my own ideas, many people have asked me to do a summary of his ideas. And, while it is certainly impossible to provide a complete overview of Moldbug’s work across years of blogging, I can offer a brief outline of some ideas that proved formative in my own development.
So, to start, let’s return to the concept of taking the “Red Pill”.