This old slatestarcodex post is fascinating to revisit in the context of everything that has happened in the 7 years since it was written:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/07/25/how-the-west-was-won/

Since the first time I read the post, I've probably become somewhat less confident in the idea that high-entropy cultures are almost always better.

And I feel like that's a common update coming out of recent trends: trumpism and wokeness have both proven themselves high-entropy, and it's kinda hard to approve of both.

I feel like trumpism and wokeness are high-entropy at a certain temperature (or maybe more appropriately in the presence of a certain catalyst), but that those conditions aren't stable.

What is high-entropy definitely changes over time; social media changed the attractors a lot, and AI will probably change the attractors again.

You've been thinking about it for years, but a good example would help the rest of us grasp it better. What was a major attractor in 2016 and how FB, TW, etc. changed it?