Comment by dragonwriter

It's not uncommon for people who decide they have "discovered" the "real political spectrum" by simply adding a new axis to the traditional left-right spectrum to coincidentally idealize one pole on that new axis, viewing all variation on the left-right axis as indicative of distraction from what is important.

Asserting that people varying on the left-right spectrum also cluster around the anti-ideal pole of the idealized axis while everyone closer to the ideal pole clusters around the left-right center is not as common, but reflects the same cognitive bias, though it is particularly amusing when that axis independent thought (ideal) vs. groupthink (anti-ideal), such that freethinkers are asserted to by ideological uniform even outside of the shared commit to "free" thought, while sheepish adherents of groupthink are more ideologically diverse.

(And, yes, that graph is deadly serious -- as well as, IMO, hilariously wrong [0] -- and fairly central to the theme of the post.)

It's even more funny that this "free thinker" is decrying tribalist groupthink, asserting (as already discussed) that free thought exists only in an extremely narrow band in the center of the left-right axis, and talking about how they can't talk politics with anyone outside their group and are "desperate for like-minded folk". The lack of self-awareness is...palpable.

It's even more funny that all the ideas he embraces and purports to have trouble finding people he agrees with are the standard doctrines of the rationalist/EA/longermist faction that is so popular in the tech/AI space (and the conceit of being uniquely free thinking is also common to the faction.)

[0] Actual free thinkers are, IME, distributed widely -- not necessarily evenly, but certainly not clustered in one spot -- across both the left-right axis and a number of other political axes [1][2], such as the authoritarian-libertarian axis, so both the distribution shown and the assertion that the "real" political spectrum is two dimensional with only freethought vs. groupthink added to the classic left-right axis are incorrect.

[1] For a number of reasons, including both differences in life experiences and thus perceived probabilities on various factual propositions, but also on fundamental values which life experiences may impact, but not in a deductive manner, because you can't reason to "ought" from "is".

[2] Free thinkers do differ from groupthinkers in that their positions in the multidimensional space of political values are likely not to fall into the clusters of established tribes, but to have some views typical of one tribe while other others fall out of that tribes typical space (and possibly even into the space of an opposing tribe.) But there are enough different tribes