Right Is The New Left

Models fashion - and ideology - as a counter-signaling cellular automaton: each class adopts a trend to signal upward while avoiding being mistaken for the class below, so the top periodically flips (even copying the underclass) to re-differentiate, producing a barber-pole churn. Applied to Scott's own drift toward "anti-leftism": as the conformist scold ("Mrs. Grundy") becomes visibly leftist, hip intellectuals counter-signal by moving right - which predicts a self-correcting pendulum rather than a leftward death spiral. Includes the "Cthulhu swims left" discussion.

Quality 80 · Excellent. A genuinely original, generative model (counter-signaling via a barber-pole automaton) applied to both fashion and political self-presentation, plus candid self-analysis; widely cited afterward. Held below landmark because it is explicitly speculative and partly self-therapy. Solid Excellent.

Claude’s paradigm shift 60 · Notable shift. Counter-signaling existed in economics, but the barber-pole-automaton model of fashion and the "right is the new left as counter-signaling" thesis were a fresh, non-obvious synthesis that propagated. Notable shift.

Real-world impact 2 · Minor. An original, generative model (ideology as a counter-signaling barber-pole automaton) that was widely cited afterward, plus candid self-analysis. Conceptual influence within intellectual discourse, but speculative and with no material or population-level change — low RWI.