Claim · 2014-07-30 · publication · Stated in source · Supported

Alexander's post “Meditations On Moloch” of 2014 names Nick Land and states that Land “missed the very last turn, the one marked ORTHOGONALITY THESIS”.

One recorded claim. The claim panel gives its qualification, the source passages with their place in each source, and how it was checked.

What it connects

Meditations On Moloch → contests → The growth of intelligence as its own end

Where it appears

Machine succession, scale and acceleration: propositions in located texts, 1979–2026 →

Claim and evidence

Meditations On Molochcontests ↓The growth of intelligence as its own end

Machine-checkedStated in sourceSupported

Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source

Date: 2014-07-30 · publication Records dated 2014 →
Role: Earliest located, Contesting, Earliest located use of the name
Register (kind of text): Nonfiction
Name used: “orthogonality”
Engagement: States the contrary. The passage names the orthogonality thesis, of which W07 is the contrary, as the point at which Land's reasoning goes wrong, without giving in that passage an argument against W07's premise.

Scope and limitsRecords the post's naming of the orthogonality thesis against Land; the same section's account of Land's views on other subjects is not recorded. Earliest located among contesting W07 texts in the searches.

The evidence 01

primary sourceSupports the claim

Meditations On Moloch

Slate Star Codex (slatestarcodex.com) · 2014-07-30

Cite the original source

Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.

Source excerpt

“I have such mixed feelings about Nick Land. On the grail quest for the True Futurology, he has gone 99.9% of the path and then missed the very last turn, the one marked ORTHOGONALITY THESIS.”

Location in source Section V, paragraph beginning 'That person will not be Nick Land'

How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher

Machine-checked · 2026-11-01

Source details and check notes

Authors: Scott Alexander
Version: Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-31 (SHA-256 ab15de791b2bcd3311f8a2c9bf08c77b4017d271b8e2723fccdda0b81cb03fe2). Blog post 'Posted on July 30, 2014' as currently served; no edit note seen.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-10-31
Language: English (en)
Attribution: Scott Alexander, “Meditations On Moloch”, 2014-07-30.
Reuse: No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution.
Check notes: Candidate pack passage, machine succession, scale and acceleration (research/heterodox-thought). The quotation (35 words) matched the text retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-31. Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes and Unicode compatibility forms, so the source’s typography can differ. A cross-family machine check (2026-11-01, item 21) classified the record’s passage blind and reached the same stance. No human editorial review.

Status and meaning

Editorial status. Machine-checked. Machines found this record and checked it against its sources; no person accepted it individually. Each evidence record above shows how it was checked.

Relation. A passage of the document disputes the proposition or a premise it depends on. The record documents the text’s position, not who is right.

Date. Post date.

Record ID ht-w07-alexander-2014-meditations-on-moloch