Kayfabe
Kayfabe is a term from professional wrestling that refers to the portrayal of scripted events as real, maintaining the illusion that the competition, rivalries, and personas are genuine. Wrestlers traditionally adhered to their in-ring characters both during performances and in public to preserve this illusion. The term kayfabe has evolved to also become a code word of sorts for maintaining this "reality" within the direct or indirect presence of the general public.
Eric Weinstein's Perspective on Kayfabe
In 2011, Eric Weinstein expanded the concept of kayfabe beyond wrestling. He suggested that kayfabe could describe situations where the public is aware of being deceived but accepts the deception because it serves a purpose or provides entertainment. Weinstein proposed that recognizing the presence of kayfabe in various aspects of life could enhance our understanding of societal dynamics. [1]
Weinstein's insights have influenced discussions about the blurred lines between reality and performance in various domains, including politics and media.
Kayfabe as a Scientific Concept
The sophisticated "scientific concept" with the greatest potential to enhance human understanding may be argued to come not from the halls of academe, but rather from the unlikely research environment of professional wrestling.
Evolutionary biologists Richard Alexander and Robert Trivers have recently emphasized that it is deception rather than information that often plays the decisive role in systems of selective pressures. Yet most of our thinking continues to treat deception as something of a perturbation on the exchange of pure information, leaving us unprepared to contemplate a world in which fakery may reliably crowd out the genuine. In particular, humanity's future selective pressures appear likely to remain tied to economic theory which currently uses as its central construct a market model based on assumptions of perfect information.
If we are to take selection more seriously within humans, we may fairly ask what rigorous system would be capable of tying together an altered reality of layered falsehoods in which absolutely nothing can be assumed to be as it appears. Such a system, in continuous development for more than a century, is known to exist and now supports an intricate multi-billion dollar business empire of pure hokum. It is known to wrestling's insiders as "Kayfabe".
Source: Eric's Edge essay on Kayfabe
Community Contributions
In 2021, Portal Community contributor and media producer Jake Orthwein released Part 1 and 2 of a high quality informative miniseries tying together Eric's ideas about politics, Kayfabe, Embedded Growth Obligations and #whathappenedin1971.
On X
2009
This is intolerable. English needs more words: Kayfabe, Nu, Sanuk, Yakamoz, Dafka, Paskutsvah, Masti, Retcon, Subclass, etc... #newesperanto
Huge thanks to the good folks @ScienceBlogs who set up a forum:
"@EricRWeinstein the Krugman debate carries on at ScienceBlogs..."
"[A] time varying objective function generally cannot be tracked by an economic index." -The Fed's T.N. 2007 Sure....without Fiber Bundles
"The definition of the true cost-of-living index depends crucially upon the choice of a single indifference map" -F&S 1972. But it doesn't.
"The obstacle is the lack of an answer to the question: how can you do welfare economics, if preferences change endogenously?" -CvW 2005
"How can we evaluate an economic system with a measuring rod that itself changes with the system?" -CvWeizacher 2005 Wait...lets ask H. Wyl!
I feel confident of what I have said about Gauge theory and Inflation. Here is something much more far out: George Soros' Thy as a gauge Thy
Soros' General Thy of Reflexivity:
Markets tell worldviews how to move. (Cognitive) Worldviews tell markets how to curve. (Participating)
I think Soros may well be trying to tell us something Deep but we are holding him back with ugly nonsense about mkt actors.
So G.Soros: It ain't nutty. I'll try rendering your theory of Reflexivity in elegant mathematics...If you'll spring for beer.
I am not ignoring the micro/macro divide. I just don't buy this "micro is healthy and macro is sick." B-S always goes metastatic.
I am also not ignoring the freshwater/saltwater divide. The difference between these two schools is nothing compared to science/silliness.
VaR -> Kayfabe | Coase -> Economics | Stable Tastes -> Kayfabe | Arrow's Theorem -> Economics | Rep. Consumer -> Kayfabe | B. Scholes-> Econ
Good Work (e.g. Black Scholes) doesn't have to be perfect. But if it's sillier than Dr. Seuss, it should .. y'know .. probably rhyme.
Now let me unpack my point about Inflation. The vulnerability of Kayfabe economics is that it can't come into contact with economics.
Inflation exists in Microeconomics, In Macroeconomics, and in Kayfabe Economics. So Kayfabe is forced into convulsions to avoid the topic.
Kayfabe solves it by fiat while, as the quotes show, it is thought unsolvable even in standard theory. But In Gauge theory it is solvable.
What happened in 1996 is that Economics and Kayfabe Economics accidentally ran into each other head on at Harvard over inflation.
This is where I learned not only about the very existence of a made up world of economics but its power and ubiquity. Kayfabe is amazing!
4 YO: ROAR: I'm an Allosaurus 7 YO: No-you're-not! 4 YO: Okay. But...I'm an Allosaurus in Kayfabe! [Advantage: 4 YO]
But that's political Kayfabe. In science, obligate Science is critical. It's hard to find nice things to say about Kaybrication in science.
2010
My #ff rec: @Evan_Lerner. The only (other) person I've met trying to connect science as social construct with kayfabe & WWE.
Cool science memes displacing deeper science are termed "Sea Cucumber Videos" at recent meetings of the NYC Kayfabe Science Fight Club.
Evolutionists for Kayfabe: http://bit.ly/fFfDvd ! RT@TJ_Kelleher: if u only were allowed 1 tool for..life, u could do worse than..#kayfabe.
2011
According to my Kayfabe to English dictionary 'Unrest' and 'Rage' are @NYTimes-speak for 'Revolution'.
WOW Wow wow wow.
Kayfabe 1, Egypt 0.
Note to protesters in Tahrir: Those of you with sons, go immediately to your doors and smear them with lamb's blood. We've got your back.
CNN breaks Kayfabe to the obvious surprise of Bahrain: http://bit.ly/ezP5YZ After 1980, reporting is so rare that it is shocking to see it.
Kayfabe voted top scientific concept at @Edge by head of the Technion Management Institute Shlomo Maital: http://bit.ly/gQVKNE ! #aprilfirst
@umairh Yes. Kayfabe. See the essay at Edge.org on this. "Is there a word for the level of delusion we're approaching."
2013
How-Stuff-Works goes in depth devoting their 'Stuff to Blow Your Mind' Podcast to my theory of Kayfabe: https://web.archive.org/web/20130127144639/http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2013/01/24/blow-your-mind-keeping-kayfabe-with-guest-colt-cabana/ [w ProWrestler]
@EricRWeinstein Nice. But when were you demoted to economist?
It's only my character. I play an economist in Kayfabe. But I dance under the name 'Moral Hazard'.
Honored to have the theory of Kayfabe peer reviewed (!?!) by Jewish ProWrestling legend and grappling scholar @ColtCabana on @BlowTheMind.
2015
My Kayfabe theory & @edge essay just morphed into a video by the @BLOWtheMIND folks at @HowStuffWorks. Thanks guys! http://t.co/HVNOIkFLX9
2016
"Things are seldom what they seem" -G&S
An invitation to all interested in Hulk Hogan to first read up on Kayfabe: https://edge.org/response-detail/11783
Few knew if I was serious calling 'Kayfabe' a scientific concept in 2011. Please reread now: https://t.co/AdUt2Mbtak Welcome to Kayfabe USA. https://t.co/DxelZNmpwR
Yes. We're all analytically drained. [I tried this point using the death by immune system over-reaction via "cytokine storm" & via Kayfabe ] https://t.co/kzeyh4B5O4
The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.
When faced N times w/ "Was that real or fake?", your decisionđČgrows as 2^N.
An N of 3 renders discussion impossible.
Welcome to #Kayfabe.
Advice to the reason-based: for the next month, get calm & ask "What's my 4Y plan for a đthat can overwhelm me w/ computational complexity?"
@arsatiki The world will be overwhelming us all with "real or fake" questions.
@MarcBodnick Ah. I Agree that this is the easy part. Disagree that this gives lion's share of relief under state sponsored kayfabe (SSK).
@mike__cunning @MarcBodnick Doesn't work like that. Move to randomly half staged / half real renders the strategy dead in the water.
2017
While often tempted, I'm not a free speech absolutist. I'm an anti-utopian w a commitment to keep our world safe from well meaning utopians.
Most of my friends who are free speech absolutists have never run the simulator forward to see the dystopia total free speech would create.
@mmay3r @micsolana
I guess I'm just a utopian idealist. You favor government planning. He is a fascist using the state to impose madness.
@mmay3r @micsolana That's not a perfect Russell Conjugation because there are anarchists and market utopians. Help me out?
@realDanielWalsh Not even close: clear and present danger, prior injunction, slander, libel, fighting words, obscenity standards, etc....
@mmay3r @micsolana Russell Conjugation is open source. You have commit privileges. Give it a shot!
@TarCiryatan @Silvereaper so true, so true. Planet Clair actually.
@mmay3r @micsolana "It is a poor student who does not surpass his teacher." - L da Vinci
Nice!
@HisllllDudeness As we say in the theory of selection, a chicken is simply an egg's way of making another egg. But I don't misunderstand you
@njroode I struggle with this. As do we all. Nothing clever I'm afraid.
@Regressipedia That's not bad. But it seeeps the problem under the "compelling" rug. I like it though.
As of today, my stance readjusts. Put simply:
Cooperation everywhere possible. Vigilance wherever necessary.
Thank you BHO Welcome DJT
@wobbles That I had no idea what the DJT payload would be b/c the campaign was a kayfabe work & trolling of PC. Now we're playing for keeps.
An upcoming part of a Kayfabe script would be acute physical threat requiring concentration of power & hyperloyalty to defeat.
Let's see.
A main target of my @edge Kayfabe essay in '11 was @nytimes acting as @StateDept extension. Revolution is not 'unrest', 'rage', or 'spring.'
According to my Kayfabe to English dictionary 'Unrest' and 'Rage' are @NYTimes-speak for 'Revolution'.
I'm looking again at this tweet. It's from 3Days in to the Tahrir sq. revolution. It got 1 'like.' Why?
B/c no one would use the real term.
According to my Kayfabe to English dictionary 'Unrest' and 'Rage' are @NYTimes-speak for 'Revolution'.
About to interview @HulkHogan. It's odd to me that the US doesn't recognize one of our own deepest "post-truth" thinkers as a leading mind.
Thatâs not an answer. I can easily believe we will have an âIronic Warâ on the Korean Peninsula. That China is in it for the Lulz. That Putinâs pawnage of journalists is amazeballs.
I wrote my Kayfabe essay on this. But as a 2011 warning to our future:
2018
To be clear: I donât trust the #releasethememo movement. I donât trust the MSM which suppresses & spins stories either. All I have is my own ability to try to piece together reality. I would like to find out that this memo is a contrived BS campaign. But how can we know? #kayfabe
So, having lived through the Church commission revelations of Cointelpro inside FBI, I want the safe parts of the memo released so I can see if itâs a big deal over nothing. Thus, Iâm for releasing the memo and hoping the #ReleaseTheMemo movement is a stunt. But it may not be...
You knew damn well I was gonna have a take on this when you followed me. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/05/11/the-ideas-industry-meets-the-intellectual-dark-web/
"all these thinkers can do is appease their followers. They are thought leaders who cannot demonstrate any leadership." -@dandrezner
Nice to meet you Dan. But that "take" comes from where exactly? Research? Personal interaction? You left me confused because it didn't make sense.
Nice to meet you too, Eric. That "take" came from the @bariweiss essay that started this entire hullabaloo.
Splendid. But that "Take" isn't what the IDW is about. I mean do you take issue w/ my work on labor markets? Mortgage backed securities? CPI and GDP? Bret's take on drug testing on specially bred mice? Heather on risk in Education? Ben's conservative objection to Breitbart/Trump?
Are you objecting to Sam Harris' desire to put transcendence into Athiesm via meditation or even psychedlics? Jordan's emphasis on needing to offer unapologetically family/work-oriented male models to outcompete the lure of hate?
It just seems you found a take without a basis.
@dandrezner @bariweiss May I ask you to look again or too explain why all the interesting things we talk about are of no interest? You might want to look at my essays on Russell Conjugation, Excellence, The crisis in Physics, Four Quadrant model, Kayfabe, Anthropic Capitalism, Coasian immigration, etc.
Sure, I'll take a look.
How did it go? Honestly I would have thought this research would happen before forming such a strong conclusion.
[please continue to hold.....]
âAll lies are told with a straight face. It is truth that's said with a dismissive giggle.â
P.J. O'Rourke
I struggle to explain to people the difference between honesty & metahonesty. Metahonesty only becomes possible when you accept the role deception plays in your own life.
When I saw this sign in SFâs Castro district, I thought of my friend @SamHarrisOrg and my struggle to explain to him in early 2017 why people trust @realDonaldTrump when he is not truthful.
Trump is like the guy who added the last line on the sign when Clinton & Bush would not.
Trumpâs style of metahonesty is however very dangerous. I wrote about this in a 2011 essay I frequently reference on the theory of Kayfabe which I anticipated would take over as boomers were forced to deal w/ the cognitive aftermath of the Great Recession: https://edge.org/response-detail/11783
2019
See this for what it is @MaajidNawaz. Through @datasociety, the activist @beccalew becomes the âresearcherâ @beccalew. Her methodology? *Selectively* presenting linkages to create a fictional Alternative influencer Network as if it arose from data.
https://x.com/MaajidNawaz/st/MaajidNawaz/status/1111228002480861184
This the Gated Institutional Narrative in action. âResearchersâ at institutions like @splcenter & @datasociety release reports to institutional media which is gated so as to avoid exposing activism packaged as methodical research. This leads to invite-only institutional meetings.
The invite-only âblue-ribbonâ institutional meetings at places like The National Academy of Sciences hand pick âexpertsâ and âstakeholdersâ while excluding critics so that policy recommendations can be issued based on the agenda backed by the âresearchâ which was actually cover.
Letâs watch together shall we? This is why Becca is able to tell a bunch of Jews, PoC, women, progressives, Etc.. that they are a far right white supremacist group. Only the âgatingâ and âinstitutionalâ backing makes this work. This is as real as professional wrestling. #kayfabe
I saw this with Bernie Sanders. I saw it with Ralph Nader. I saw it with Ron Paul. It is a gaslighting reserved for those candidates from outside of Kayfabe.
Come on The Portal Podcast @AndrewYang. Itâs not for you to be saying this. Much of the media *is* running against you.
I did the #MATH, looks like @nbc may have miscounted đ€Šđ»ââïžđđ»ââïž
Keep in mind that Sanders/Yang/Paul/Nader arenât linked by much other than âgame rejectionâ & âframe rejectionâ. These are the cardinal sins. Itâs simply the decision to start actually wrestling with ideas inside of the professional wrestling of politics that gets this treatment.
I think folks arenât getting at all what Iâm saying. I donât disagree that Epstein was a sociopath. That *was* my read of him. But there was a 2nd layer. A role,mission or job. The two were in conflict. The sociopath just wasnât focused enough on science/trading to play the role.
For 15 Yrs starting before his Florida conviction, Iâve said that Epstein was a âconstructâ because that sociopath could not have constructed that unnatural role by himself. My guess has been that someone/thing hired a sociopath to play a different one focused on science/trading.
So did he fool me? Perhaps. If he has no connection to any intelligence community, he fooled me. If he really cared about science he fooled me. If he really ran a ccy trading strategy out of Villard house he fooled me. If he was a genius he fooled me. If this wasnât kayfabe..
But intelligence communities do create assets. They do fit them with backstories and characters to play. That is my guess here. And the role that was being played was a badly drawn Gatsby-Bond like character who would never blink. So, am I wrong? Was this bastard state-protected?
Youâll note that Iâm completely agnostic in this theory as to whether the underlying sociopath would commit suicide given the opportunity. Maybe! How would I know? I wouldnât.
What I do know is that if he was playing a role, his character as written would never commit suicide.
What Iâve been trying to focus folks on is that thereâs likely more than one layer here. There was a sick man & a separate role he wasnât fully able to play. Poke at the role: ccy trading, Villard House, IC contacts, associates, tax evasion, etc and see it all come crashing down.
Very foolish people think that professional wrestling is totally real.
Educated people know it to be totally fake.
The very foolish have perhaps the better claim on truth. Look at the death rates for professional wrestling and you will understand the nuance of layered Kayfabe.
@HulkHogan Heal well brother.
2020
Canât wait to listen to friends @bariweiss & @joerogan get into it!
Itâs becoming clearer that @AndrewYang, @BernieSanders, @TulsiGabbard & @realDonaldTrump are running against institutional Kayfabe & the Kayfabrication of everything. The others count on the â4th wallâ holding.
2024
Managed Reality
Kayfabe
Gated Institutional Narrative (GIN)
Distributed Idea Suppression Complex
GEC
Section A of the Reserve Index
CISA
Narrative Driven Journalism
Democracy Defense Coalition
Journolist
Etc
It is not only coordinated. It is an everyday way of life for them.
Related Pages
- Kayfabe (Edge Essay)
- Kayfabrication
- Embedded Growth Obligations
- Gated Institutional Narrative (GIN)
- Managed Reality TM
- Prebunked Malinformation
- Truman Show
- Thinkquisition
Additional Resources
References
- â "2011 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC CONCEPT WOULD IMPROVE EVERYBODY'S COGNITIVE TOOLKIT?". Edge.org. Retrieved 12 December 2025.