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A moderate form of accelerationism focused on provoking a single, specific reaction in order to accelerate a particular process—rather than the classical accelerationist goal of collapsing entire systems. Where classical accelerationism seeks total societal breakdown as a path to rebirth, catalystism is surgical: identify a process, find its bottleneck, and provoke the reaction that breaks the logjam. It's the difference between burning down the factory to rebuild it (classical) and pouring a chemical into a stuck valve to make it open (catalystism). Catalystism is especially common among online political groups, both pro-Western and anti-Western, who seek to hasten electoral outcomes, policy changes, or social shifts through targeted provocations. The catalystist doesn't want the whole system to fall; they just want this particular thing to happen faster. They're playing with fire, but carefully—they hope.
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