Red flags

Christianity

The biggest red flag there is. Indicates such extreme conformism that their opinion is generally worth discarding. People who convert to atheism and back to Christianity are entirely untrustworthy -trust nothing they have to say ever again.

Being too overtly leftist

Leftism is cant in modern intellectual society, but being too into it is clearly a tarnish on one’s credibility. Denying the 2020 riots, for instance, is clearly not a sign of a trustworthy person.

Being a Wuhan conspiracy theorist

Claiming 40,000 deaths at Wuhan (contradicting all evidence), claiming Chinese foreknowledge, excessive discussion of the “lab leak” theory, etc. Taking the “frozen food” theory from the Chinese state organs seriously is also not a sign of a serious person. Denying China’s COVID success also falls under this category -China wasn’t even the only country in the world to avoid COVID outbreaks. The fact that it was the only country in the world to consistently avoid COVID outbreaks was due to its strategy of truly mass testing, tracing, and isolation.

COVID denial

Obvious. Being antivaccine (or anti-booster) for any reason, etc. The United Arab Emirates, Cuba, Uruguay, and Israel have had great success fighting COVID through vaccines. Claiming Sweden was some kind of success (or that Finland, South Korea, Australia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Norway’s success was not due to policy) also falls under this category. Being implicitly or explicitly pro-Trump/DEATHSantis/Cuomo on COVID is another red flag that falls under this category.

Election fraud conspiracy theorism

Another major red flag. As any serious election analyst is aware, Biden won because of Trump’s unpopularity among college Whites. The only notable trends in the 2020 election were that college Whites (and northeastern non-college Whites) swung strongly toward Biden, while Latinos and Orthodox Jews swung strongly toward Trump. Everyone else more or less remained in place. Thus, three Latino-heavy states (Florida, Nevada, California) swung toward Trump and 44 out of 50 states swung toward Biden (as college Whites are more evenly distributed than Latinos). For instance, in Ozaukee County, WI, Trump went from 55.84% to 55.15% of the vote, in Ottawa County, MI, Trump went from 61.50% to 59.81%, in Chester County, PA, Trump went from 42.53% to 40.72%, in Okaloosa County, FL Trump went from 70.42% to 68.35%, in Delaware County, OH, Trump went from 54.50% to 52.51%, in Dakota County, MN, Trump went from 43.07% to 41.81%, in Loudoun County, VA, Trump went from 38.21% to 36.51%, in Collin County, TX, Trump went from 55.16% to 51.26%, in St. Charles County, MO, Trump went from 59.87% to 57.69%, etc. -and this despite him actually gaining vote share from 45.93% to 46.80% nationwide (Biden just gained more vote share than Trump did, mostly because he did less to alienate the crucial male vote than Hillary Clinton).

Denying Trump’s gains among the White and nonwhite working class

The opposite end of the coin as the above, and just as stupid. How do people think Trump gained 15 points’ vote share over Romney in Pemiscot County, MO (one of the two counties in the state to swing less toward Romney than the nation)? Romney won Pike County, OH by one vote (and it actually swung toward Obama); it went for Trump 2020 with 73.7% of the vote. Oh; and Trump famously won Lorain and Mahoning counties in OH, as well. He might not have been the best candidate for winning the White working class, but he was damn close to it. And, yes, Trump did definitely gain among the low income relative to Mr. 47%.

Being pro-BAP

A person with a high verbal IQ realizes the homosexual Yale graduate academic’s tone in his book is mocking the reader.

Being a “postliberal” with 2020s liberal views on race

Yeah, these people exist and they completely suck.

Being an inflation bro (alternatively, being MMT)

The cardinal rule of inflation is that people don’t actually care about it. It’s not something that’s economically relevant, either, unless investment taxes are not adjusted for it or there exist widespread sectors throughout the economy which don’t change payments in response to inflation. MMT is also garbage, governments back up their debt via their taxing power, not their monetary policy. Japanese interest rates are so low because the Japanese tax system works fairly efficiently, without the degree of tax avoidance seen in, e.g., Greece, Latin America, etc (reminder -the more evasion in a tax system, the less tax increases work to raise revenue). Despite greater tax avoidance, this is also largely the case for the U.S. Even the U.S. entitlements crisis, while dire, isn’t as dire as it may seem, as Congress is likely willing to enact entitlement cuts when needed right at the last minute (though not before). Japan also has a very tight monetary policy due to genuinely idiotic central bankers (note I do not agree with everything in the video; the description of the Japanese boom from 1987 to 1990 isn’t especially coherent or convincing), in the long run (though not the short run), a very tight monetary policy also lowers interest rates. Japan’s fiscal binge might also have lowered its growth rate; Japan is quite poor when adjusted for national IQ, and has gotten relatively poorer over time (this has been confirmed by International Comparison Program surveys of its price level).

Endorsing ShadowStats or claiming CPI inflation is understated (rather than slightly overstated) also falls under this category.

Trump Derangement Syndrome

There are a dime a dozen of these people, and they’re all boringly predictable. Many of them claim Trump won because of racism, even though that was the reason people were most likely to say they would not vote for him. Note that Trump Derangement Syndrome should not be confused with merely being anti-Trump and casting all his foreign and much of his domestic policy as part of a longstanding pattern from the same people that brought us Lyin’ Ted Cruz. Painting Trump’s actions with overly broad a brush isn’t quite the same thing, but also falls under this category -say what you will, but the Taliban agreement that brought us the Afghanistan withdrawal and the partial pullout from Syria weren’t completely imaginary.

Being Marxist (especially when not an academic)

Marxism isn’t based in reality. In fact, basing one’s theories on the works of a nineteenth century thinker is something cults do, not serious people.

Being too overtly enamored with socialism

Related to the above. Unlike Marxism, the experience of the socialist countries actually is based in reality, but there was a reason West Germany looked better than East Germany, Austria and Italy better than Czechia and Slovenia, Finland and Japan better than St. Petersburg and Vladivostok, Greece better than Bulgaria and Romania, South Korea better than North Korea, 台湾 better than mainland China (though this is the least fair comparison, because, unlike North Korea, 台湾 started out well ahead of the mainland and many resented returning to mainland rule in 1945), etc.

Denying or overrating anthropogenic global warming

Two sides of the same coin. Neither is global warming fake nor is turning New York into Florida an existential threat on the level of artificial intelligence. Every educated person should read the IPCC AR5 synthesis report (or at the very least the summary for policymakers).

Denying AI risk

AI is not an immediate-term concern, but is a much more important (though much less predictable) long-term concern than global warming.

Promoting the Russiagate conspiracy theory

See “Trump Derangement Syndrome”. The correct leftwing criticism of Trump is to criticise him for the bestiality of imperialism, not parroting various Defense Department lines.

Being anti-China

The primary sins of China, as far as I can tell from reading the press, are preventing Islamic terrorism, having too good a COVID response, opposing Hong Kong independence, having the long-term desire to conquer 台湾, having bases in the South China Sea (which 台湾 also has), getting tennis stars to shut up, and making too much of the West’s stuff. These are sins I am willing to forgive. Going in Tucker’s direction and being pro-Russia/Iran and anti-China does have some logic to it, but one has to remember that China is one of Russia’s best friends, and Asia is less hostile to Russia in general than Europe is.

Being overly Zionist

Being on the right just for the Zionism is a poor display of trust.

Shilling/grifting

Greenwald/Gabbard/Dave Rubin. It’s all so transparent, and all so worthless.

Denying the importance of calories in weight and protein and testosterone in muscle (and other dietary crankery)

Self-evident. There is a strong correlation between the amount of calories one consumes and one’s weight, studies tend to show one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight should be one’s target if one wants to build muscle, and while testosterone isn’t everything when it comes to building muscle, it helps. Being too dismissive of the dietary guidelines also falls under this category.

Being a techbro

Usually a red flag, and arguably one of the biggest ones. Higher IQ helps counteract this, but not fully.

Jason Hickel

Nuff said.

Denying IQ

Or (excessively, which is most of these cases) claiming reverse causation of IQ (e.g., the bizarre Lynn claim the Irish had U.S. Hispanic IQs in the 1970s). Reverse causation, as the Arab states show, is quite limited.

Not understanding supply and demand

A problem among relatively few people, but a major one when it happens. Manifests itself in such historically ignorant and fundamentally stupid questions as “where would we import our food from” if we have one billion Americans.

Edit: Denying the Holocaust

[sigh].

Minor red flag: supporting Maduro

Maduro is something of a comic book villain, turning the richest country in LatAm into the poorest in a mere five years. This is a minor red flag, however, as supporting the worst of the dictators is better than being an American stooge.

Minor red flag: supporting Trump

Trump was a terrible president. Denying this is quite common, however, and as he got 47% of the vote and appointed Kavanaugh, I don’t think it’s overly fair to judge people for being in his favor.

Minor red flag: being excessively anti-academia

Academia sucks, but most of the competition to it is worse.

Minor red flag: being a “classical liberal”

This may seem like the biggest red flag there is, or close to it, but “classical liberalism” is the default ideology among intelligent Western non-leftists, so I put this as a minor red flag.

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