Date: January 21st, 2026 5:59 AM
Author: razzmatazz topaz university
I keep thinking about how strange human conflict is when you zoom out.
You can model humans pretty cleanly as independent information processors temporarily running on biological hardware. While they’re alive, they spend an absurd amount of energy fighting in mostly virtual arenas--political, moral, ideological--over whose model of reality deserves to win.
These fights are rarely about truth. They're about status, alignment, and signaling membership in whatever framework happens to be dominant at the moment. Being “right” usually means being legible and approved, not accurate.
What’s odd is how intense it feels from the inside, given how disposable the participants are. People vanish, generations roll over, and the same arguments reappear with new labels and slightly updated language.
Beliefs don’t really persist. Behavior does.
The things people actually do--what they reward, tolerate, enforce, quietly shape institutions and incentives that outlive them. Meanwhile everyone obsesses over opinions that will be forgotten almost immediately.
Curious whether others think this is mostly noise from status competition, or whether these virtual conflicts meaningfully affect long-term outcomes in a way I’m underestimating.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5824540&forum_id=2#49605592)