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> One of the most persuasive things you could do in this situation would be to post a quote written by Chris. Posting a quote from Moldbug would be the second most persuasive thing. Failing either of those, are we supposed to just take your word for it that the dude should be excluded from society?
> This whole "label and exclude" thing is for the birds. Why not judge ideas instead of people?
Don't mind if I do:
- From my perspective, Urbit is culty vaporware which does nothing out of the ordinary that actually DELIVERS. CY (or MM, whatever) seems to me what can best be described as an edgelord, using sophistry to make himself sound smarter than he is (which might still be plenty smart) and stirring controversy by going against mainstream views just because.
Arguements:
Urbit ticks all of the boxes for techno-cults like we saw in the 60s and 70s.
* invent their own special language
* reinvent everything from scratch to improve group cohesion
* dismiss any criticism as "not getting it"
I will be convinced if anything USEFUL comes out of urbit. Not "can't you see that it WOULD be useful", but "here, I built this thing". That settles the technical argument for me
On the edgelord topic, two quotes, one from the link you gave and one form the AMA he gave (https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4bxf6f/im_curtis_yarv...)
Quote 1:
> HNU(“human neurological uniformity”). is not a natural null hypothesis. Its doubters don’t need to disprove it. It needs to prove itself. Genetic and anatomical inhomogeneity is normal in the species. Statistically, its presence is expected and its absence would be remarkable. No such absence is found.
I don't want to judge the politics, but just on the intellectual criticism and CONTENT:
1. He switches and dodges between "statistical" and absolutist language. A uniform distribution is something very different than uniformity.
2. Without any external bias or information, neither presence or absence of a uniform distribution is expected, or remarkable.
3. To just assume HNU or non-HNU as a given without asking for "why" and just attributing it to species/genome is simplistic
Notice how he never makes an actual CLAIM, or clarifies everything, just uses vague language and puts himself in the persecuted role
Quote 2, answering what I think is a...fan? who asked for some clarifications to the writings (broken apart by me):
>Fascism no longer exists. It's as dead as Odinism. You can reinvent Odinism, but it's not Odinism, it's fake Odinism. Unless it's a joke (and don't get me wrong, Nazi Microsoft chatbots are funny), it's pathetic. Actually, the fact that /pol has made Hitler funny is the best possible evidence that Hitler is completely dead.
Ok so far,though you could start arguing that this is weasely sophistry by arguing about the exact definition of "fashism", and you can disagree on whether fashism in the hitler style is truly dead, but nothing evil. It's a bit of a tautology (nothing can exist exactly like it was before), but ok.
>What's alive is the ideological system that defeated fascism -- which committed plenty of atrocities of its own. Of our own. When we think about crimes from the last century, it seems more relevant to think about the crimes we committed, not those they comitted
Here the little bit of sophistry turns into a blatant misdirection: instead of talking about fashism, he's talking about general human attrocities while creating a false equivalency. But let's assume he means it in an innocent way, just badly phrased, and REALLY cares about the current attrocities and problems in modern society and will take actual positions.
>What is fascism? It's exactly what everyone thinks it is. The conventional wisdom is perfectly correct. Our historians have a merciless, laser-sharp understanding of everything bad that fascism was and everything it did wrong. What hasn't been done is turning this same laser on our own institutions.
Except, yes, it has. Ask any civil rights advocate, ask ACLU, ask anyone outside of the mainstream for the last 50 years. Criticism has been abound, it was just silenced. Blatant misrepresentation
>As for the word "slavery," it means too many things at the same time. Robert Nozick in the '70s devised a beautiful little paradox for people who think they can define "slavery": [http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/libertarians/issues/no...]. Try it.
Again, instead of talking about the THING, playing with definition. By this point we might want to abandon the hypothesis of innocence and assume sophistry. But nothing horrible yet (except the blatant misrepresentation in the last sentence). Just because words change over history does not mean they don't carry specific meaning right now
>For example, is "debt slavery" slavery? Or is it only slavery when you can't declare bankruptcy? Oddly enough, our society has one form of debt that can't be shed in bankruptcy: student loans. The institutions that benefit from it are our most powerful and privileged.
Good point, if taken alone. Notice here he ACTUALLY makes a statement for once. There are other people who'd argue that student loans, prison labor etc. are modern forms of slavery.
>What Carlyle said about slavery is that you can ban the word, but not the institution.
You can also ban the institution. Look at norway, germany, any other country. And yes, there is no perfection, but that is missing the point.
>There are plenty of people today who will be paying off their student loans until they die. Is this the same as being whipped by Leonardo DiCaprio unless you chop your quota of sugarcane? It is not.
Correct, nobody claims it is. But he implies people claim that.
>Is it "slavery"? Dunno, you tell me. Are they both bad things? Sure. Is everything that can fit, or has in the past fit, under this label, evil? If so, it would be a very unusual label.
Actually, from our perspective: yes, it would. Some forms might be more acceptable (house slaves in ancient greece/rome), but nobody would choose to be a slave coming from our society. Just because the world changes, doesn't mean you can dismiss it.
>As for your last question, it's simply a matter of who has actual power in our society. Everyone wants to think of themselves as powerless and/or oppressed. But actual power dynamics are not hard to find.
This is true. You can argue it is also shying away from taking a stand, but it's implied that he did that somewhere else, so ok.
Synopsis:
In a question for clarification asked by someone who seemed to express sympathy, we have enough dodging and sophistry to severely question the intellectual merit of his position. Without taking any other judgement, I classify him as "edgelord". I couldn't find an email, but I would love to interview him via a GPG signed email chain, so there is accountability for statements. My keys for this:
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