Glossary

I use a lot of rather esoteric terms in my writing. While some are sufficiently well-known academic concepts, or /pol/ memes that can be looked up on Know Your Meme; others are rather specific borrowings from marginal communities such as the HBDsphere or NRx; others are transliterations from the world of RuNet memes (LurkMore), or even my own idiosyncratic inventions.

So perhaps a Glossary will not go amiss.

Couple of additional notes. First, I use underlined terms often enough that my regular readers would be well-served in familiarizing themselves with them.

Second, I am always on the lookout for better definitions, so please feel free to send you own suggestions for various terms. Accepted submissions will be credited.

Third, writing definitions is surprisingly hard. For many terms, you need to recall a lot of relevant data, and provide a succinct summary. Definitions with which I am unhappy can be considered temporary placeholders and are crossed out, but you should still be able to get the gist of the concept from them.

This page is current as of: September 21, 2019. Plan: Continue slowly working on definitions – also fill in examples of memes.

Core Library

Apollo’s Ascent

  • The theory that the rate and global distribution of technological progress is strongly dependent upon the number of literate smart fractions. {ak}

Age of Malthusian Industrialism

  • The theory that positive selection for higher fertility preferences will reverse the demographic transition in future centuries, while technological progress peters out due to dysgenic fertility patterns  and the Tantalus Effect. Consequently, the global population will eventually bump up against the carrying capacity of the modern industrial economy, heralding a return to return to Malthusianism {ak}.

baizuo

  • Based Chinese term for Western SJWs.
    • Lit., “White Left” (白左)

Bioleninism [nrx]

  • Discontented but highly able rabble-rousers (“psychopathic status maximizers”) whip up the detritus of society against established systems, before reinstating social conservatism in order to maintain their grip on power. {spandrell}
    • Cf., spandrell’s three-part series: 1, 2, 3, interview.

Blue Checks

  • Verified accounts on Twitter who lecture the hoi polloi (“voxsplain”) on how evil and privileged they are, while getting Twitter to ban all their critics. The shock troops of our emergent Picus News.
    •  Characteristics: Extensive knowledge of Harry Potter lore and the Game of Thrones (only the TV series).
    • Alt., “Blue Checkmarks”.

Blue Empire / Red Empire

  • Geopolitical framework that views the “USG Empire” as a competing ideological symbiosis of the “Blue Empire” and “Red Empire.” {nrx}
    • The Blue Empire is the empire of the State Department, the CIA, the “international community” and democracy promotion, NGOs, the MSM, the Ivy League, Davos, Bilderberg, the Democratic Party, liberal internationalists, IT oligarchs, urban elites and ethnic minorities.
    • The Red Empire is the empire of the Pentagon, siloviks, military bases, the military-industrial complex, the FBI, Stratfor, neoconservatives, the Republican Party and industrial oligarchs.
    • Cf., A Crash Course In Reactionary Geopolitics (Michael Perilloux).
  • Ideological convergence is resulting in a gradual merger between these empires, with the cultural agenda of the Blue Empire (GloboHomo/Woke Capital) emerging ascendant.

Blue Tribe / Red Tribe

  • Binary memeplex that dominates American political discourse. {Scott Alexander}
    • Blue Tribe
    • Red Tribe
    • Cf. outgroup article

Bronze Age Mindset

  • “Sun and steel” lifestyle promoted by Bronze Age Perverts.
    • Specific vocab: grils, poast, …

bugmen

  • Small, weak , soy-addled humans of the future. {frogtwitter}

Cliodynamics

  • Transdisciplinary area of research that aims to mathematize economic and social history. {Peter Turchin}

GloboHomo

  • Set of values revolving around… LGBT, climate. Can be viewed as the sociocultural complement to the Blue Empire. {Heartiste}

Gnon

  • “God of Nature or (perhaps simply) Nature.” Basically, the natural order of things exists for a reason, and attempts to force utopia will be met with ruin. {nrx}

Great Bifurcation

  • The theory that the world will bifurcate between the “Blue Empire” and the Sinosphere during the 2020s. {AK}

handshakeworthy / unhandshakeworthy

  • Rukopozhatnye (рукопожатные) – lit. “handshakeworthy”, i.e. respectable amongst the skinny-jeans wearing, Jean Jacques cafe-frequenting, TV Rain watching kreakl (креакл = “creative”) intelligentsia. It was popularized by the satirical blogger Lev Sharansky, who played the role of an archetypical emigre (((liberal activist))). It’s my personal favorite and really captures the virtue-signalling component better than any of the others.

maozuo

  • Chinese sovoks.

mnogokhodovka (многоходовка)

  • Lit., “chess move combination”, the Russian version of “10D chess”, used by kremlin-friendly “stalwarts of the regime” (рупоры режима) to rationalize failures, zradas, and strange decisions. Popularized by Stalinist pundit Nikolay Starikov to explain the Kremlin’s failure to open intervene in the Ukraine to his frothing audience. Soon, it became a term of mockery for propagandists rationalizing kremlin pusillanimity amongst nationalists.
    • See also, “clever plan”.

Moloch

  • Systems of perverse incentives that stymie even simple and obvious improvements to institutions from getting implemented. {Scott Alexander}

narrative fallacy

  • Or the Just So Story fallacy.

neoliberalism.txt

  • Dystopian vision of a future in which we bugmen eat bugs, all piracy illegal, UBI bux for social justice poasts. {faceberg?}

passionarity

  • asabiya, sobornost, social cohesion

Picus News

  • Deus Ex. News organization that controls all MSM, including blogs. Only alternatives are samizdat publications in the dark web and Alex Jones style radio.

powerful take

  • Can’t explain… need to show. Many examples!

RMAX Theory

  • Theory that universe computing capacity is limited, explains the Great Silence. {AK}

roving & stationary bandits

  • Mancur Olson. Relevance to post USSR. Post.

Schelling Point

  • Equilibrium

Sinotriumph

  • China will rise again.

The Soviet Freezer

  • How Communism conserved values in place. {AK}

sovoks

  • My usage is specific (see under Runet for more standard definition)
  • Characteristics:
    • Appreciation for Georgian cuisine, Lenin/Stalinophilia, 
  • sovok vs. SWPL generational divide

sovcucks

  • See examples of it.
  • e.g. thinking that throwing a war where they lost 2M ppl – then losing 40-50M lives in Civil War, famines, WW2 – only to lose it all at the end anyway – was great.

Sublime Oblivion {AK}

  • A possible response to RMAX Theory.

SWPL

  • Bobos, yuppies, WEIRD, Belmont
  • Characteristics: bicycles for hire, cafes, organic food courts, ethnic cuisine, food served on wooden boards and craft beer in bottles, 
  • SAPL

Tantalus Effect [ak]

  • Technological progress becomes harder over time given same resources because problems tend to become harder, not easier, as you move up the ladder.

Tropical Hyperborea

  • Fabled land long ago when Aryans lived in Tropics. {frogtwitter}
  • What Arctic should become.

Woke Capital

  • Marriage of capitalism with GloboHomo.

 

Russosphere

Putin Derangement Syndrome

  • People deranged by Putin.
    • Putin/Russia Weaponizing X

PUTLER

  • Western/Ukrainian image of what Putin is.
  • He isn’t.
  • But it would be nice if he was.
  • The Putin – putlet – PUTLER! trinity. (Ties in with Russian conception of the solar Putin/lunar Putin).
  • My post on that.

ROG [ak]

  • Russian Occupation Government
    • I coined this term during the “Russiagate” hysteria as a satirical play on ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government), which holds that a Jewish cabal controls the United States. However, while ZOG is widely regarded as an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory – despite the huge influence the Jewish Lobby actually has on American foreign policy – denial of ROG is highly unhandshakeworthy.
  • Related, Protocols of the Kremlin Elders:
    • The idea that Russia’s evil Galaxy Brain rulers are following a grand scheme of world domination, as opposed to largely ad hoc responses to crises.
    • This conspiracy theory has a long pedigree that long predates Communism, e.g. see The Testament of Peter the Great.

Russian Golgotha

  • The Three Russian Genocides

Russophrenia

  • Russia is strong/Russia is weak. Danielle Ryan.

RussoShoe Theory

  • Belief matrices: Lenin is good/bed; Stalin is good/bad.
  • See FA post.

Western Russophiles

  • Have some characteristics in common.

Westsplaining

  • Identifying their own interests as both universal, and that of their victims. Lectures. {AK}

 

HBD

HBD stands for “human biodiversity”, which is defined below; for convenience, I also lump in intelligence-related terms here.

Hajnal Line

  • An area broadly correlating to “Core Europe” that was historically characterized by late age of marriage, manorial landholding, and extensive bans on consanguineous marriage {John Hajnal}.
  • Associated with greater levels of wealth, transparency, innovation, and civic virtue relative to Eastern and Southern Europe.

g-loaded

  • To what extent success in a certain test or task is dependent on the general factor of intelligence.

Human Biodiversity

  • Race realism couched in nice language.

IQ shredders

O-Ring

  • Complex tasks depend on everything in the chain working well.

r/K selection

  • Bio theory
  • r-selected shitpoasts vs. K-selected effortpoasts

smart fractions

  • Cognitive elites of a country.

 

Transhumanism

Coherent Extrapolated Volition

Biosingularity

  • Biological singularity through genetic modification. {AK}

Cosmism

  • Russian antecedent of transhumanism: Fyodorov, Tsiolkovsky, Vernadsky

Fermi Paradox

  • Why no aliens

Great Filter

  • Proposed explanation for Fermi Paradox

Radical Life Extension

  • Expanding lifespan by multiples. See also actuarial escape velocity.

Simulation Argument

  • We live in simulation. See Bostrom.

Superintelligence

  • Machine many OOM’s more capable/intelligent than top human.

Technological Singularity

  • See defs by Good, Vinge

 

Memes & Culture War

Short Memes

This is a list of short memes:

  • faggot – everyone on the Internet.
  • fake and gay – a video (post, etc.) that is wrong and embarrassingly so.
  • weird flex but ok –

Expanding Brain

  • Examples
  • Galaxy Brain The people who produce Powerful Takes.

Iceberg meme

  • Examples
  • Iceberg memes

NPC Meme

  • NPC is angry

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/pol/

  • Popular forum on the 4chan imageboard that has produced and/or popularized a very large number of irreverent and politically transgressive memes. While /pol/tards were only responsible for inventing a fraction of these, all of them are at least to some extent associated with /pol/ culture.
    • Assad curse –
    • based –
    • boomers –
      • Boomerwaffen SS –
    • cucked –
    • cuckservative –
    • dindu – A black gentle giant who dindu nuffin. Getting his life back on track. Need mo money fo dem programs.
    • effortpost –
    • (((  ))) –
    • Eternal Anglo –
    • Eternal Jew –
    • Finno-Korean Hyperwar –
    • Happy Merchant – the Jewish shyster who has just tricked you out of your shekels.
    • gibsmedats –
    • kebab –
    • normies –
    • Pepe –
    • “/pol/ was right again” –
    • poz –
    • shitpost –
    • trad –
    • thot –
    • weaponized autism –
  • Anime/Japanese terms: hikikomori; senpai; tsundere; waifu.

SJW

“Without the mind keeping the rate of mutation somewhat in check through the application of willpower to hold off the debilitating effects of Warp exposure, the body will continue to mutate faster and faster until all that remains is a gibbering mass of swiftly mutating flesh, howling and hissing through many mouths and crawling forward on multiple twisted appendages with only the basest instincts of killing and feeding remaining in the shattered remnants of its mind.” {Warhammer 40k}

  • cis-X –
  • microaggression –
  • trigger warning –
  • woke –

Steve Sailer

  • Human Biodiversity –
  • Coalition of the Fringes –
  • Eye of Soros –
  • Invade the World/Invite the World –
  • Most Important Graph in the World –

Unfaithful Boyfriend meme

  • Fill

Virgin vs. Chad

  • Fill

Warhammer 40K

  • God Emperor of Mankind
  • grimderp
  • Heresy. BLAM!
  • Orks

 

Runet Memes

What is Russia, anyway? It’s all sorts of things to different ideologues.

  • Wonderful Russia of the Future (Прекрасная Россия Будущего) – the neoliberal wonderland that Navalnyites want to build in Russia.
    • Rashka (Рашка) – derog., the current state of Russia; sometimes has parashka (парашка) appended to it, a term that has excretory undertones.
  • Russian National State/RNG (Русское Национальное Государство/РНГ) – what Russian nationalists want to build in Russia. Cf., Russian Nationalism 101.
    • Россиянская Федерация; эрэфия – derog., nationalist references to the current multinational Russian state.

Russian politics is broadly divided into several factions, which we can reduce to kremlins/state ideologues (кремлины, кремлядь), patriots/vatniks (поцреоты, ватники), nationalists/foshists (фошысты), liberasts (либерасты), and commies (коммуняки). More notes on them below.

DICh (ДИЧ)

  • Abbr., Dagestan-Ingushetia-Chechnya: Russia’s three most underdeveloped, restive, and majority Muslim provinces {acer120}.

civilik

  • kremlins who are systemic liberals

clever plan (хитрый план)

  • See mnogokhodovka

kremlin (кремлин)

  • More dismissive than “kremlyad” (1) (Kremlin bootlicker, 2) Embarassingly committed pozriot.)

liberast (либераст)

  • X.
  • Synonyms for “liberast”:
    • tolerast (толераст) – self-explanatory.
    • rukopozhatnye (рукопожатные) – see “handshakeworthiness.”
    • kreakl (креакл) – lit., “creatives”, in an ironic/sarcastic sense – usage was mostly confined to the 2011-12 election season.
    • obschechelovek (общечеловек) – an outspoken supporter of universal human values (общечеловеческие ценности).
    • demshiza (демшиза) – portmanteau of “democracy” and “schizophrenia”, used to refer to the most cartoonishly anti-Russian pro-Western “democratists” like the late Novodvorskaya and Borovoy. Rarely used nowadays.

peremoga

  • victory
  • Cycle of peremoga and zrada. Eternal return. Perpetual motion machine.

pozriot

  • Liberal name for patriots.

silovik

  • Security men

sovok

  • Homo sovieticus.
  • Arrogance, callousness, stupidity, and an aversion to logic and opposing arguments. PS. Focus on Russia associations here, “my” interpretation is at start.

svidomy [ukr]

  • Svidomy = clear-sighted. Unfortunate naming, perhaps, but it stuck.
  • Concentrated in West Ukraine + diaspora
  • Cycles from zrada to peremoga. (some RuNats do too)
  • Strange ideas/myths:
    • Protoukrs dug out Black Sea
    • Russia is Asiatic – Mongoloid – Finno-Ugric – nothing to do with Kievan Russia (we wuz Russians!)
    • Cossack armadas
  • Examples – there was one who literally said that things about mammoths, 

vatnik [rus]

  • Started off as Ukrainian insult – replaced podstilka in Ukro-liberal jargon.
  • Was embraced by patriots & some nationalists.

zmagar [ukr]

  • elorussian equivalent of Svidomy;
    • Identifies with PL Commonwealth (we wuz)

zrada [ukr]

  • Betrayal.

***

Terms used by Soviet authorities:

  • idolatry before the West (идолопоклонство перед Западом) – those who worship Western ways without criticism.
  • rootless cosmopolitans (безродные космополиты) –

Terms used by kremlins:

  • deep people (глубинный народ) – lit., Surkov’s latest attempt to come up with a postmodern state ideology. Cf., my article.
  • dukhovnye skrepy (духовные скрепы) – lit., “spiritual ties that bind”, introduced by Putin in 2012 speech; mocked by liberals, atheists.
  • (Western) partners –

Terms used by patriots/vatniks:

  • Gayrope (гейропа) – lit., “Gay Europe” – common vatnik insult for Europe.
  • hamsters (хомяки) – Navalny’s core electorate/protesters.
  • #onizhedeti (онижедети) – lit., “But they are children!” (они же дети) – quote from some journalist criticizing riot police roughly tackling Bolotnaya protesters in 2012; then it later emerged that the protesters were assaulting the police, making the term a sarcastic refrain amongst patriots. Sometimes becomes #онижебеременныедети (“But they are pregnant children!”) to maximize the sarcasm quotient.
  • pindos (пиндос) – Americans, lit., “penguin” referring to the waddling walk of American soldiers during the NATO bombing of Serbia.
  • Washington Obkom –

Terms used by liberals (and their Ukrainian allies):

  • Darkest One (темнейший) – patriotic/vatnik term for Putin sarcastically referencing liberal PDS.
  • podstilka (подстилка) –

Terms used by nationalists:

  • multinational nationality (многонациональная национальность) – mocking Russian nationalist reference to ethnically metises with questionable loyalty to Russia.
  • mirovaya zakulisa (мировая закулиса) – lit., “world backstage”
  • mnogokhodovka (многоходовка) – see full definition above.
  • noviop (новиоп) – lit, “New Historical Society” (НОВая Историческая ОБщность), a term used by quasi-nationalist Dmitry Galkovsky to describe the multinational, historyless post-sovok elites.
  • sovdepia (совдепия) – lit., “[country of] the Council of Deputies”, derog. White Guardist term for the USSR.
  • Sputnik i Pogrom (Спутник и Погром) – perhaps the leading “samizdat” nationalist journal in Russia until its closure in 2018.
  • White Movement (Белое Движение) – Russian forces opposed to Bolshevism in the Russian Civil War, and its cultural and intellectual descendants.

 

(The) Ukraine

You can view this section as an Urban Dictionary of the Ukrainian Conflict used by “vatniks” and “svidomy” during “khokhlosraches“.

As with Russia, there are several ways of looking at the Ukraine:

  • First, there’s the issue of:
    • “Kiev” or “Kyiv”
    • “Ukraine” or “The Ukraine” (paralleled by the “debate” – or more precisely, autistic Ukrainian whining – over “в Украине” or “на Украине” in Russian).
  • Country 404 (Страна 404) – self-explanatory.
  • Gabon – Saakashvili famously compared Ukraine to the African country.
  • Khrantsia (Хранция) – Typically used by vatniks making fun of Ukraine’s failure to become the “Second France” (as their first President promised them to)

Key terms/concepts:

  • North Wind (Северный Ветер) –
  • peremoga (перемога)
  • svidomy (свидомые) – see above
  • titushki (титушки)
  • vatnik (ватник) –
    • vishyvatnik
  • voentorg (военторг) – lit., “military surplus store” – slang for Russian weapons supplies to the NAF via North Wind.
  • zaukrainets (заукраинцев) –
  • zmagar (змагар) –
  • zrada (зрада) –

Terms used by vatniki:

  • activists – mention catapult
  • Banderites (бандеровцы) – all pro-Ukrainians are assumed to be Banderites.
    • Not to be confused with Bendery (бендеры).
    • Or with Cynical Banderites (циничные бандеры), as Poroshenko once did in place of “bandits”.
  • kastryolegolovye (кастрюлеголовые) –
  • khokhol (хохол) – slightly derog., Ukrainians (named after the Cossack haircut).
    • Usage: “What’s up with the khokhols?” (Чо там у хохлов?).
    • Famous, 100% authentic poem by Taras Shevchenko:
      • “Хохол останется хохлом, / Khokhol will remain khokhol,
        Хоть ты пусти его в Европу, / Even if you take him to Europe,
        Где надо действовать умом, / Where you need to use your brain,
        Он напрягает только жопу. / But he exerts only his bottom.
        И потому-то на Руси / And thus it also was in Rus’
        Завещано аж Мономахом: / From the days of Monomakh:
        «Связаться Боже упаси / “God forbid you meet these three –
        С тремя – жидом, хохлом и ляхом!» / The kike, khokhol, and Polack!
        Коварен жид, хотя и слеп; / The insidious kike, though blind;
        Кичливый лях – похуже ****и; / The arrogant Polack – worse than a whore;
        Хохол же – съест с тобою хлеб, / The khokhol will break bread with you,
        И тут же в суп тебе нагадит. / And spit in your soup immediately after.“
  • khokhlosrach (хохлосрач) – lit.,
  • #KrymNash (крымнаш) – Lit., “Crimea is ours”
  • Officer’s Daughter (дочь офицера)-
  • protoukr – Digging out the Black Sea
  • Putinsliv – The conspiracy theory amongst more fretful Russian nationalists that Putin/Surkov/etc. were planning to betray the Donbass and shove it back into the Ukraine.
  • salo uronili (сало уронили) –
  • UGIL (УГИЛ) –
  • ukrop (укроп) –

Terms used by svidomy:

  • aleni (алени) – lit., reindeer, derog., Russians who eat ягель (moss) and drink стекломой (cleaning liquid) to underline their subhuman Finno-Ugric heritage and sovok alcoholism.
  • Babay pridet, poryadok navedet (Бабай придет, порядок наведет) – lit., “Babay will come, bring back order” – the joke being that Babay, an NAF volunteer who got wide media exposure thanks to his luxuriant beard, had a criminal record.
  • bezviz (безвиз) –
  • Coloradans (колорады) –
  • dagi (даги) –
  • dedyvoevali (дедывоевали) –
  • katsaps (кацапы) –
  • Khuylo (хуйло) – lit., “dick”, derog., Putin, also known as: Putler, Kabaev, ПТН ПНХ, Botox, Karlik, Puylo).
    • The totalitarian dictator, Supreme Kleptocrat, and all-seeing, all-mighty God of the svidomy.
    • Famous khokhol tribal chant: “Khuylo, la-la-la.”
  • kozlomordye (козломордые) –
  • lishnye khromosomy (лишние хромосомы) –
  • lopatoedy (лопатоеды) –
  • moskals (москали) – slightly derog., Russians (from Muscovites)
    • Implication that modern Russians have nothing to do with Rus’ territories outside the Tsardom of Muscovy.
    • Usage: “Take the moskal to the gallows!” (москаляку на гиляку); “Thank God that I am not a moskal!” (дякую тобі боже що я не москаль).
    • Traditional khokhol tribal chant: “The one who doesn’t jump” is a moskal!” (хто не скаче, той москаль). Cf., video.
  • nerab (нераб) –
  • Orda (орда) –
  • rashism (рашизм) –
  • Rasha-Parasha – (Раша Параша) –
  • Taiga Union (таежный союз) –
  • tyshavDen’ (тыщавдень) –
  • Ukraina tse Evropa (Україна це Європа!) – lit., “Ukraine is Europe” – svidomy slogan, hence their “European Choice”. Conversely, Russia is Asiatic barbarousness.
  • vesmirsnami (весьмирснами) – lit., “the whole world is with us” – svidomy slogan, sad reality – nobody gives a fuck.

r-selected name-calling: Donbass (=Даунбас/Донбабве); Kolomoysky (=Каломойша); Lugansk (=Луганда); Maidan (=Майдаун); Russian World (=Рюзге Мир); Turchinov (=Дурчинов); Yanukovych (=Проффесор); Yatsenyuk (=Яйценюх, lit., “egg sniffer”; Кролег, lit., “rabbit).

 

The Unz Review

As a community develops, it starts to develop its own, very specific internal lingvo. This section relates to fun concepts developed by the commentariat at the Russian Reaction.

Hack’s Law

  • “As a comment thread on Karlin’s blog grows longer, the probability of a discussion about The Ukraine breaking out approaches 1.” {Thorfinnsson}