🟢 **和谐与接纳（绿色）**：绿色代表着追求和谐与接纳的个体或组织。在实际生活中，这可能体现在遵循强烈的义务道德准则，或在亲密关系冲突中扮演调解者而非偏袒一方。例如，支持环保非营利组织或遵循绿色政治意识形态的个人，倾向于体现绿色特质，旨在通过接纳和理解来化解冲突，促进共识。

⚪ **秩序与稳定（白色）**：白色象征着对秩序的追求，倾向于通过结构和规则来达成和平。这可能表现为为了家庭期望而留在不热爱的工作岗位，或在社区内慷慨地分享金钱和时间。信奉某种宗教或遵循白色政治意识形态的个体，往往重视稳定性和社会结构，通过有条理的方式来维护群体和谐。

🔵 **知识与完美（蓝色）**：蓝色代表着对知识和完美的追求，常体现在学术界或需要深度钻研的领域。例如，选择低薪但能满足好奇心的职业，或沉迷于科学知识的探索以至于影响社交和身心健康。蓝色个体往往致力于通过学习和理解来达成目标，即使这意味着一定的个人牺牲。

⚫ **满足与力量（黑色）**：黑色象征着对满足的追求，常伴随着对力量和竞争的渴望。这可能包括创业，或从事可能带来负面影响的项目，如赌博应用。黑色个体通常优先考虑个人利益和目标的实现，不惜付出巨大努力甚至承担风险，以在竞争环境中获得优势。

🔴 **自由与行动（红色）**：红色代表着对自由的追求，强调通过行动来实现。这可能体现为热爱旅行，选择非传统的亲密关系模式，或为了摆脱控制而与现有环境保持距离。红色个体倾向于独立自主，通过积极行动来争取个人空间和自由。

Published on November 10, 2025 5:05 AM GMT

2025-11-10

Disclaimer

Quick NoteTarget audience - Anyone curious about this topic. I've tried making myself more comprehensible here.I have never spoken to Duncan Sabien, and I might end up reinterpreting his concepts in ways he doesn't like or agree with. If he's reading this, he can correct me.

Colour wheel

Duncan Sabien's colour wheel tries to classify both individual personalities, and movements and organisations, using the same system.

If you don't want to read the full article, here is the summarised classication

Green - Seeks harmony through acceptanceWhite - Seeks peace through orderBlue - Seeks perfection through knowledgeBlack - Seeks satisfaction through ruthlessnessRed - Seeks freedom through action

I asked gpt-5 to make a list of popular political ideologies and classify them on Duncan Sabien's colour wheel.

You might have minor disagreements with which ideologies are popular versus not, and you might have minor disagreements with some of the classifications, but mostly this makes sense to me.

Which colour are you?

The best way to identify which colour you are is by looking at your own life decisions where you have sacrificed something of value. Look at revealed preferences not stated preferences.

Here's my list of Duncan Sabien's social dark matter

DeathSexClose relationships (especially conflicts in them)Morality and politicsMoneyPhysical and mental health

What is your attitude towards death, sex, close relationships, morality and politics, money, and physical and mental health, as shown by your life decisions?

I will also include the following, as they're among the most important life decisions one can make.

How you spend your time and money - which projects, activities and people get it?Which city you live in

Examples of life decisions and which colour they may indicate

(Note that being Green does not strongly indicate you will donate to environmental non-profit for example, but donating to environmental non-profits strongly indicates you are Green)

Green
If you follow a strong deontological moral codeIf you donate your money to environmental non-profitsIf you are typically the peacemaker rather than picking sides, when two of your close relationships enter a conflict with each otherIf you follow a political ideology that is Green
White
If you stay in a job you tolerate but don't love, because your parents ask you toIf you freely loan your money and time to people within your communityIf you plan to marry and have kids, and disprefer casual or non-monogamous relationship stylesIf you follow a religion or ideology that is White
Blue
If you join academia or a lower-paying job, but the job satifies your curiosityIf you shift cities or distance yourself from a partner to join academia or lower-paying curiosity-satisfying jobIf you obsess over pursuit of scientific knowledge via reading papers or blogs, to the point where it causes social isolation or degrades your mental healthIf you follow a political ideology that is Blue
Black
If you work on a startupIf you are working on projects that may cause some harm, like working on a gambling appIf you shift cities or distance yourself from people, in order to live with other people who also seek powerIf you follow a political ideology that is Black
Red
If you travel a lot because you intrinsically love travelIf you pick an unusual relationship style, such as polyamoryIf you have distanced from parents, partner or a job, because you found them controllingIf you follow a political ideology that is Red

Blacks rule

In a sufficiently competitive society, IMO primarily Black people get power.

There will always be people who care deeply about acquiring power, who are willing to endure a lot of personal suffering to acquire it, who are willing to make acquiring power their number one life priority, and consistently do this for decades.If you are not one of those people, you will probably be outcompeted by someone who is, over a long time period. Over a long time period, you probably will just get what you want badly enough.

Political implications

This means non-Black people are typically ruled by Black people who are their nearest neighbour on the colour wheel.Often there is deception involved. For instance fascists may pretend to be religious in order to get the religious votebank, and authoritarians may pretend to be communists in order to get the communist votebank

Non-blacks ruling blacks

A population with majority being traditional religious people (White Green) is typically ruled by fascists (Black White)A population with majority being classical liberals (White Blue) is typically ruled by transhumanists and neoliberals (Black Blue). They may also be ruled by fascists (Black White)A population with majority being communists and socialists (Red White) is typically ruled by authoritarians (Black Red)

Blacks ruling blacks

A population with majority being neoliberals is typically ruled by other neoliberalsA population with majority being fascists is typically ruled by other fascistsA population with majority being transhumanists is typically rules by other transhumanistsI don't know of any societies that were primarily ruled by libertarians or anarchocapitalists, so I'm ignoring those Black ideologies here.

I have not shared examples because they're political sensitive, especially where I live right now. If you think a few minutes, you can probably think of examples for all of these.

My personal views, and transhumanism

Me

I'm personally Blue Black, with Blue being primary.I used to have a shade of Red too, but that is fading.I am a neoliberal.I am not a transhumanist, but I wish I could be.I have now classified all my close relationships (friends, family, etc) in this system, and it makes intuitive sense to me how this is useful when we have political discussions.

Transhumanist politics

History and present
I think societies ruled by neoliberals (black blue) have historically done better than societies ruled by authoritarians (black red) and fascists (black white).I think transhumanists (black blue) are increasingly replacing neoliberals, fascists and authoritarians as the most powerful political force on Earth.IMO this is a problemNeoliberals have figured out stable political systems (like free markets and representative democracy) within which they can compete for power, but transhumanists have not figured out stable political systems within which they can compete for power.
Future
The default outcome of technologies like human genetic engineering and artifical superintelligence is to break both markets and democracy.Markets and democracy rely on informed consent, which only makes sense when the intelligence gap between both agents is narrow. Large intelligence gaps break this, as extreme persuasion can manufacture consent.Markets and democracy rely on many unintelligent people keeping a few intelligent power-seeking people in check. This breaks down if the few can become too powerful and too intelligent too quickly.Democracy relies on free speech and free flow of ideas to ensure that good values are spread in society. This breaks down when you can directly engineer your values into other agents by messing with their code (in case of digital minds) or genes (in case of human genetic engineering).
Pause AI politics
One response to this threat is to simply preserve neoliberalism, by banning both artificial superintelligence and human genetic engineering.To enforce a ban, you have to build a coalition between many actors, who are not Blue Black like transhumanists are. (A major motivation for me to write this post was to understand people's views across the political spectrum, to figure out how to communicate with them more effectively, or how to think about political alliances, and so on.)On the timescale of a century however, I'm unsure how stable a ban will be. It is useful to invent new systems of governance to handle transhumanist technologies.
New political systems of governance for transhumanists.
I have noticed that when I have discussions with people around new systems of governance:Blue Black power-seekers like me typically propose a system of power-seeking actors threatening mass violence on each other.
Historical examplesSupporting gun laws and supporting keeping guns illegally, if you country does not legally allow guns.Supporting the post-WW2 world order that keeps peace via states threatening nuclear war on each other.Most neoliberal policy is blue-black, it assumes unrestrained competition via free market is good, and the harms and externalities of this competition are acceptable or can be mitigated later on.Industrial revolution and subsequent colonisation of the world by the British EmpireEnglish becoming the universal language, as countries that don't use English can't compete. (Chinese and French play this role to a smaller extent.) Singapore mandated English, India prioritised it, most of south east Asia didn't prioritise English and this is hinderingChina and US leading the world on many zero-to-one technologies, due to atheist culture in their top research institutes.
Blue White technocrats typically propose new international treaties, laws and political structures that assume the existence of atleast some systems that remain benevolent, or some actors that remain benevolent.
Historical examplesInternational treaties to ban human gene cloning or CFCs for ozone depletionDeregulation, reducing licensing and zoning restrictions in housing and various industries, while not eliminating regulation completelyCarbon credit systemInflationary monetary supply and the eurodollar system to loan dollars to foreign govtsVenture capitalist ecosystem funding fundamental R&D for transhumanist technologies like anti-aging
Blue Red freedom-lovers typically propose more open source solutions that involve giving the weapons or technology to everyone
Historical examplesOpen source movement in the software industry such as Linux, the Free Software Foundation or Github todayDemocratising scientific knowledge via internet such as Arxiv, internet archive, libgen, bittorrentOpen sourcing specific hard tech like drones or robotics or pharmaceutical manufacturingFocus on decriminalisation and harm reduction for hard drugsCypherpunks movement that was pro-encryption and privacy, and lead to Tor, Signal and blockchain.
Blue Green people I have met in practice often propose new ideology to persuade actors to become more benevolent, without proposing any specific changes in political systems
They generally accept neoliberalism will continue, and have a neutral stance towards it.My ability to pass ITT for Blue Green people is pretty bad, so I am going to skip this section entirely.
I could dive deeper into the specific disagreements between Blue Black, Blue Red, Blue White and Blue Green, but I don't want to get into detail here. I generally do think though, that no matter which camp you belong to, it is useful to be able to pass the ideological turing tests of the other camps.