Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 453 posts

Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America

#101

Post by mikrl »

unsigner wrote: post #65
mikrl wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My philosophical excursions eventually led me to his writings, but I never found what I read to be inspiring or substantial. Pretty much like Ayn Rand in that respect. Like a precocious undergrad who just discovered set theory and thinks he’s king of the… uhh sovereign corporation? Lots of literary references though. Borges, of course gave him Urbit/Tlon[0], and wrote some racially spicy stuff in his day. Pretty sure…

you're not wrong about most of this, but anti-semitic? he's very openly Jewish

I don’t claim to understand, but it’s still a theme.

Maybe it’s an elite vs mass culture anti-semitism? Lots of internalized hatred among ‘bougie’ white and black people towards their respective poor strata; why would a Jewish person interested in reactionary politics spare the normies who, on the whole, abhor it?

Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America

#103

Post by guelo »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #18

I mentioned this previously, but I frequently think back to Gibson's "Jackpot" -- a cross-lashed, polycausal catastrophe: Lots of bad little things accumulating, building up a certain momentum. I think that even as far back as 2009, an astute observer would have noticed that society is beginning to burn through its seed corn. In some places, things are now getting extremely acute: https://www.neilobrien.co.uk/p/the-c…

If you link approvingly to Blood and Soil type of content I can see why you would think of Yarvin as harmless.

Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America

#104

Post by archagon »

On the subject of Yarvin, I really appreciate FrankWilhoit's take[1]:

> Yarvin is only another horribly damaged person, squealing in pain in a pseudointellectual vocabulary. He has neither knowledge nor insight, but a gift for miming these things. The questions are, first, how might we stop so many children from being psychically tortured so that their minds become piles of bloody shred like this, and then second, why does anybody take it at face value when, rarely, one of them learns to scream in sounds that mimic high discourse?

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43459055

Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America

#105

Post by UncleOxidant »

runako wrote: post #72
UncleOxidant wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in the US, where a defining characteristic of the population is a belief... that everyone is out to take advantage of you all the time. I mean, living in 2025 America that's not a bad default assumption to make, is it? By default when the solar salesman (or pest control salesman) comes to the door I consider it a scam because it generally is (same for phone sales, and most internet ads). Is everything a scam? No. B…

One doesn't even have to look to salespeople knocking to find scams. It's widely accepted that key pillars of the way we choose to organize our society have scam-like elements. Healthcare. Zero job security. Virtually nonexistent support for parents. Retirement. Education. Switching to the American form of any single one of these would cause mass civil unrest in most rich countries, but Americans don't believe things…

[flagged]

Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America

#106

Post by ToValueFunfetti »

quickthrowman wrote: post #64
senkora wrote: post #5

Scott Alexander also recently had a take on Curtis Yarvin’s recent actions: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/moldbug-sold-out The gist of it is that he had interesting ideas on political systems in the past, but that his current ideas are nonsense, and in fact his old work explains exactly why his new work is nonsense.

A fascist technocracy is not interesting in the slightest. It’s what basement dwelling teens who idolize John Galt dream about before they are exposed to the complexity of the real world.

Understatement of the millenium, but Yarvin has written a lot more than "let's do fascist technocracy!"

I find his writing style wastes a lot of one's time and I disagree with him on nearly everything, but there's no denying that there are many interesting ideas in there.

Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America

#107

Post by lambdaphagy »

quickthrowman wrote: post #64
senkora wrote: post #5

Scott Alexander also recently had a take on Curtis Yarvin’s recent actions: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/moldbug-sold-out The gist of it is that he had interesting ideas on political systems in the past, but that his current ideas are nonsense, and in fact his old work explains exactly why his new work is nonsense.

A fascist technocracy is not interesting in the slightest. It’s what basement dwelling teens who idolize John Galt dream about before they are exposed to the complexity of the real world.

Fascism and Ayn Rand's political philosophy are pretty different from each other, however you may feel about either one. Not everything you dislike is the same bad thing.

Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America

#108

Post by throw4847285 »

thrance wrote: post #28

His tenets would be at home in the mind of a 16th century european king, and yet they now make up the core of American politics. There is no way America shakes this insanity off easily, it will require a long time and (lots of) suffering.

It's the 17th not 16th Century, but I can't help think about the War of the Three Kingdoms. Already by that point the notion of a Divine Right of Kings was dinged enough that they could lop the head off of Charles I. And then, less than 40 years later, Parliament could trade out their king for a foreign one whom they liked better.

It just goes to show that the idea of a stable hereditary monarchy wielding absolute power has never been the whole picture. Monarchism is a smokescreen, replacing the messy reality of democratic life with an illusion that has never held up to historical scrutiny.

Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America

#109

Post by nailer »

kragen wrote: post #14
rubyfan wrote: post #10

Why are big media outlets suddenly sharing this guys ideas?

Because the Vice President of the US is a devotee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:JD_Vance/Archive_1#%E2%80... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:JD_Vance/Archive_2#Politi...

Can you post direct links to actual references, rather than Wikipedia talk pages?

Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America

#110

Post by eikenberry »

Didn't have time to make it through the entire (long winded) article, but is it wrong to boil down his thinking to the simple idea that a benevolent, competent dictator is the best form of government? I ask as this seems like a very simplistic and obvious idea. The problem isn't that this is necessarily incorrect, it is how do you find this mythical figurehead? History has shown that we have never discovered a system that did this reliably and I didn't see any indication that he had solved this problem. How do you ensure you get a Sun King and not.. something else.
Post reply on HN