It's crazy how insane right wingers get so much puff from the media, and socialists get very very little despite having pro-social ideas instead of anti-social ones.
Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America
141–150 of 453 posts
Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think this even is their final form...
I think it is. This stood out to me: > As his ideas have been surrealized in DOGE and Trump has taken to self-identifying as a king, one might expect to find Yarvin in an exultant mood. In fact, he has spent the past few months fretting that the moment will go to waste. “If you have a Trump boner right now, enjoy it,” he wrote two days after the election. “It’s as hard as you’ll ever get.” What many see as the most d…
No, his premises were just wrong. He's just blaming others rather than question the foundations of his belief system when they failed to be predictive. He's as simple to analyze as the people he looks down on.
Nothing is worse for a dilettantish ideologue than to have their ideas put into practice and have to face reality with scrutiny.
Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America
#143Scott 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.
Ironically, the quality of Scott's work has taken a markedly sharper nosedive in the last decade than the quality of Yarvin's work.
In what universe?
Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America
#144[flagged]
You are welcome to defend rising fascism if you want. People will justly criticize you, of course.
What happened to intellectual seriousness? Why should you be so frightened of people criticizing you?
This is consistent with my expectation of the future of fascism. The appearance of seriousness but once you have a gun pointed in my face the presence of discussion will be dropped in favor of a bullet in my skull.
Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America
#145Didn'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…
> The problem isn't that this is necessarily incorrect, it is how do you find this mythical figurehead?
That's exactly why the idea is incorrect. People wise enough and unbiased enough to be entrusted with unchecked power are few; ones that are incorruptible enough to be trusted with it for long are even fewer. And those who want such power are almost always the people who are least to be trusted with it.
So, yeah. The problem with this idea is that it doesn't work, which is a pretty good definition of "incorrect".
Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you post direct links to actual references, rather than Wikipedia talk pages?
That's a perfectly reasonable request, but I didn't have them. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/07/15/jd-vance-5... is one, I guess. Aha, https://unherd.com/2024/11/j-d-vance-de-facto-prince-of-the-... says, > Vance has described himself as a “reactionary” at war with the “regime”. He drops casual references to his personal friend Curtis Yarvin, and he’s fond of delivering thunderous pronouncements like “t…
Yarvin stated in an interview that he barely knows Vance - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcSil8NeQq8&ab_channel=TheIn...
Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a perfectly reasonable request, but I didn't have them. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/07/15/jd-vance-5... is one, I guess. Aha, https://unherd.com/2024/11/j-d-vance-de-facto-prince-of-the-... says, > Vance has described himself as a “reactionary” at war with the “regime”. He drops casual references to his personal friend Curtis Yarvin, and he’s fond of delivering thunderous pronouncements like “t…
Yarvin stated in an interview that he barely knows Vance - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcSil8NeQq8&ab_channel=TheIn...
I'm sure that's true; a common fate for popular authors is that they barely know many of their readers and don't know other readers at all.
Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America
#148On 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, wh…
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Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America
#149On 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, wh…
[flagged]
Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I agree with the other replies that I've never been able to find any interesting ideas amidst his schlock, but I'm wondering what "many interesting ideas" you see, from your prospective? Just a couple examples would be useful. It's totally possible I've missed them because I haven't ever been able to engage with his writing.