it’s wrong to assume that because a bunch of Nazis appeared, they were mostly there all along but hidden
I’d say it’s wrong as an “assumption” but very good as a prior. (The prior also suggests new white supremacists were generated, as Duncan noted.) Unfortunately, good priors (as with bad priors) often don’t have ready-made scientific studies to justify them, but like, it’s pretty clear that gay and mildly autistic people were there all along, and I have no reason to think the same is not true of white supremacists, so the prior holds. I also agree that it has proven easy for some people to “take existing sentiments among millions of people and hone them”, but you call them “elites”, so I’d point out that some of those people spend much of their time hating on “elites” and “elitism”...
I think this post potentially does a very good job getting at the core of why things like Cryonics and Longtermism did not rapidly become mainstream
I’d say it’s wrong as an “assumption” but very good as a prior. (The prior also suggests new white supremacists were generated, as Duncan noted.) Unfortunately, good priors (as with bad priors) often don’t have ready-made scientific studies to justify them, but like, it’s pretty clear that gay and mildly autistic people were there all along, and I have no reason to think the same is not true of white supremacists, so the prior holds. I also agree that it has proven easy for some people to “take existing sentiments among millions of people and hone them”, but you call them “elites”, so I’d point out that some of those people spend much of their time hating on “elites” and “elitism”...
Could you elaborate?