✠Fnord Reduction Technique
hi user
In August 2025, I wrote a half-assed art on this topic. I'll attempt to redo it here as a living constitution (✠).
✙ I
FNORD REDUCTION TECHNIQUE (anon's coinage, afaik) is a ritual mostly used in homosexual political contexts where one strips a written passage of all its filler and transitional content into its pure emotive essence (its 'fnords'). Its main purpose is to expose the amount of contentless shit-flinging in a passage.
An article from the right:
Then there’s The Prussian. It’s obvious to all the cool kids that this fedora-wearing anti-racist white knight is terminally un-hip. He is so clearly of the faux-intellectual passe-hipster stripe. That’s the kind of people you want to be associated with, dear fashionable open-minded progressives?
We isolate all of the emotionally loaded phrases.
obvious to all the cool kids this fedora-wearing anti-racist white knight terminally un-hip clearly of the faux-intellectual passe-hipster stripe dear fashionable open-minded progressives?
An article from the left:
Moldbug is as prolific as he is incomprehensible. His devotees, many of whom are also bloggers, describe themselves as the “neo-reactionary” vanguard of a “Dark Enlightenment.” They oppose popular suffrage, egalitarianism and pluralism. Some are atheists, while others affect obscure orthodox beliefs, but most are youngish white males embittered by “political correctness.” As best I can tell, their ideal society best resembles Blade Runner, but without all those Asian people cluttering up the streets. Neo-reactionaries like to see themselves as the heroes of another sci-fi movie, in fact, sometimes boasting that they have been “redpilled,” like Keanu Reeves’s character in The Matrix—a movie Moldbug regards as “genius.”
Do the same thing.
prolific incomprehensible devotees vanguard youngish white males embittered by “political correctness” Blade Runner, but without all those Asian people cluttering up the streets like to see themselves as the heroes of another sci-fi movie “redpilled” The Matrix “genius”
And you have a fnord reduction. It is, by nature, arbitrary, but it does fine as a general heuristic.
✙ II
The 'fnords' originally come from the Principia Discordia, which were then reappropriated in some phonos' conspiracy novel, where they are a subliminal messaging device deployed variously in the state-media apparatus in order to herd the populace. The literal written word 'fnord' appears variously in the media, and its sole purpose is to induce anxiety in readers.
In the novel, children in school are hypnotized to be panicked by the nonsense word 'fnord,' and they don't remember anything of these sessions when they wake up. They are also trained to subconsciously ignore the word 'fnord' when reading, and trained to forget that they're ignoring it. So, as adults they can't comprehend the word 'fnord' beyond an inexplicable feeling of unease.
The conspiracy takes advantage of this by loading up the press with varying amounts of fnords, installing what Moldberg might call a 'thought-control regime.' If opposition starts to get a little brave, they won't simply censor them. They'll report on them, but deploy shit tons of fnords in the article so that people will read and instinctively decide, with zero substantive reasoning, that these guys must be really, really bad because reading it made them feel really, really bad.
No such device exists In the Real Life (as far as we know, or can ever hope to know), however we do know of something very similar. Language is a clumsy weapon, but in the right hands it can be made into a close cousin of one of those subliminal messaging devices they talk about in Illuminatus!.
✙ III
The reactionary writer Nydwracu, for whom the 'Fnord Reduction Technique' can be credited to, first gave the treatment described in I to piece by one Corey Pein, which I showed you an excerpt of.
Corey Pein is a progged up writer who once wrote an article on The Baffler called 'Mouthbreathing Machiavellis Dream of a Silicon Reich.' It can be summed up as a basic hitpiece on the NRx, and Moldberg especially, which is something progs really like to do for some reason.
I'll reiterate Scott Alexander's summary of events:
Corey Pein's "Did You Know Neoreaction Exists You Should Be Pissed" article, for which he can at least be credited with writing ten years before everyone else, is utterly mediocre as it relies on snarky comments, crudely drawn associations, and emotive prose/phrases to make its treatise against Neoreaction, if indeed there is one. A couple reactionaries chimed in with the "That's not true, why would you say that?" responses. Nydwracu, though, simply parroted Corey Pein's writing back, just without all of the filler.
See if you can spot the fnords before Nydwracu tells us.
Since I can't quote Pein's entire article, just pick a part from the beginning. (the first one is the easiest)
This could easily be written off as stunt, a flamboyant act of corporate kiss-assery, which, on one level, it probably was.
[...]
Welcome to the latest political fashion among the California Confederacy: total corporate despotism. It is a potent and bitter ideological mash that could have only been concocted at tech culture’s funky smoothie bar—a little Steve Jobs here, a little Ayn Rand there, and some Ray Kurzweil for color.
[...]
“Read Mencius Moldbug,” Tunney told her Twitter followers last month, referring to an aggressively dogmatic blogger with a reverent following in certain tech circles.
Tunney’s advice is easier said than done, for Moldbug is as prolific as he is incomprehensible. His devotees, many of whom are also bloggers, describe themselves as the “neo-reactionary” vanguard of a “Dark Enlightenment.” They oppose popular suffrage, egalitarianism and pluralism. Some are atheists, while others affect obscure orthodox beliefs, but most are youngish white males embittered by “political correctness.” As best I can tell, their ideal society best resembles Blade Runner, but without all those Asian people cluttering up the streets. Neo-reactionaries like to see themselves as the heroes of another sci-fi movie, in fact, sometimes boasting that they have been “redpilled,” like Keanu Reeves’s character in The Matrix—a movie Moldbug regards as “genius.”
“Moldbug.” The name sounds like it belongs to a troll who belches from the depths of an Internet rabbit hole. And so it does. Mencius Moldbug is the blogonym of Curtis Guy Yarvin, a San Francisco software developer and frustrated poet.
[...]
In 2007, he reemerged under an angry pseudonym, Moldbug, on a humble Blogspot blog called “Unqualified Reservations.” As might be expected of a “DIY ideology . . . designed by geeks for other geeks,” his political treatises are heavily informed by the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and George Lucas. What set Yarvin apart from the typical keyboard kook was his archaic, grandiose tone, which echoed the snippets Yarvin cherry-picked from obscure old reactionary tracts.
[...]
In short, Moldbug reads like an overconfident autodidact’s imitation of a Lewis Lapham essay—if Lewis Lapham were a fascist teenage Dungeon Master.
Yarvin’s most toxic arguments come snugly wrapped in purple prose and coded language. (For instance, “The Cathedral” is Moldbuggian for the oppressive nexus of liberal newspapers, universities and the State Department, where his father worked after getting a PhD in philosophy from Brown.) By so doing, Moldbug has been able to an attract an audience that welcomes the usual teeth-gnashing white supremacists who haunt the web while also leaving room for a more socially acceptable assortment of “men’s rights” advocates, gun nuts, transhumanist libertarians, disillusioned Occupiers and well-credentialed Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.
Wracu would respond to Pein, naming his post 'Fnords':
stunt flamboyant act of corporate kiss-assery latest
[...]
political fashion California Confederacy total corporate despotism potent bitter Steve Jobs Ayn Rand Ray Kurzweil
[...]
prominent divisive fixture hard-right seditionist aggressively dogmatic blogger reverent following in certain tech circles
prolific incomprehensible vanguard youngish white males embittered by “political correctness” Blade Runner, but without all those Asian people cluttering up the streets like to see themselves as the heroes of another sci-fi movie “redpilled” The Matrix “genius”
a troll who belches from the depths of an Internet rabbit hole frustrated poet
[...]
angry pseudonym J.R.R. Tolkien George Lucas typical keyboard kook archaic, grandiose snippets cherry-picked from obscure old
[...]
overconfident autodidact’s imitation fascist teenage Dungeon Master
most toxic arguments snugly wrapped in purple prose and coded language oppressive nexus teeth-gnashing white supremacists who haunt the web “men’s rights” advocates nuts disillusioned
The implicit critique from Nydwracu here is that these emotionally loaded phrases, which are indeed merely Emotionally Loaded Phrases, don't really tell you that much about the Neoreactionaries besides that the author really, really hates them.
Michael Anissimov, another one of those strange NRx people, did do Corey Pein the service of a proper reseponse, where he wrote this about one part:
The article calls Mencius Moldbug dogmatic, in passing. This accusation is rather ill-aimed, considering that Moldbug’s modus operandi involves long, meandering tours through political philosophy and history, leaving questions unanswered more often than not. In this context, the word “dogmatic” is an applause light simply used to signify that the writer has views which are objectionable to modern academic Marxist sensibilities. Same story with Moldbug being an “angry psuedonym,” there’s hardly anything angry about the individual or his writing.
These are words and phrases that make you feel instead of think, like the fnords in Illuminatus!, hence the name.
Corey Pein does make a sound argument or even a decent treatise against the Neoreactionaries. He's just saying shit and hoping it lands with the reader that 'wow, okay, these guys are really weird and bad.'
✙ IV
(to be done, about certain names, terms and concepts as reservoirs for negative feelings.)
it's the coke brothers or somethin
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/24/nydwracus-fnords/
✙ F
Oligopsony says:
Going for the obvious meta joke would take much more effort than I care to write, so you’ll have to apply your imagination.
ritual homosexual political contexts contentless shit-flinging subliminal messaging device deployed variously state-media apparatus herd the populace induce anxiety Moldberg 'thought-control regime' deploy shit tons of fnords clumsy weapon piece by one Corey Pein progged up writer basic hitpiece Moldberg for some reason "Did You Know Neoreaction Exists You Should Be Pissed" ten years before everyone else, utterly mediocre snarky comments if indeed there is one "That's not true, why would you say that" parroted indeed merely Emotionally Loaded Phrases really, really hates another one of those strange NRx people just saying shit