Critique Systems, Not Reality

This is a crosspost, made with permission from Unfairly Maligned (Thoth). Thoth is not on Lesswrong, so I will relay replies from them, clearly marking those as "From Thoth:". Any reply or comment without that marking is from me. This was originally posted on January 1st, 2025.[Epistemic status is that if anyone quoted here disputes the way they are portrayed, I will probably just accept that by default. My aim is not to strawman, it’s to at least portray people correctly so that they can respond with, “you understood me, and you’re wrong.”]There’s a tendency among writers in the rationality sphere to discuss social dynamics in what I claim is a fairly negative way. I call this tendency “reality criticism.” Most people are not infinitely pessimistic, but I will argue throughout this piece, showing examples where I can, of where I believe it crosses ‘a line’ (which I attempt to gesture at, as yet not formally enough), or where it at least implies that other things are true which do cross the line.(An important example I leave out is Inadequate Equilibria, which I may save for part two, if I choose to do a part two.)Reddit, on Moloch:I feel like I can never be optimistic again because of the dynamics described in it and the nature of competition. The most evil, dominant, violent organization eventually wins, forcing everyone else to be the same to compete with them. Humanity is fated to become the human equivalent of competing grey goo if it spreads throughout the solar system.The top comment recommends The Goddess of Everything Else as the standard prescription for this. It is so named because it is supposed to explain why anything good exists at all. But it does not attempt to explain why anything good exists, it just acts as a poetic placeholder metaphor - “a god[dess] of the gaps”, if you will.I have often been confused about this, because I don’t experience reality this poorly as a baseline, at least not poorly enough for me to make this my prior. I don't disvalu