Recently a new meme started doing the rounds on the Internet — the “Intellectual Dark Web”. The phrase was coined by the mathematician Eric Weinstein. It seems to have caught on — showing that whatever it is, quite a few people are recognising it — even though there’s a lot of discussion about what exactly it means.
. . .one of the things that unifies many of the thinkers in the IDW is a belief that the evolutionary strategies that got us to where we are now are unlikely to get us any further — particularly our hard-wired tribalism.
He links to the intellectual darkweb site, which is sort of a self-appointed unofficial hall of fame for the IDW. Also to a piece by Meghan Daum that appeared in a mainstream media outlet, the LA Times.
Reading Fuller’s essay and Daum’s column, I believe that my Three Languages of Politics book is in the IDW spirit. Also, at least a couple IDW hall-of-famers have read it.
Some challenges that the IDW faces:
–how to be non-tribal while opposing tribalism
–how to expose and overcome smugness without becoming smug about it