For those who prefer audio (podcast) here's an audio version of it (read by yours truly, though I did clips of Ginsburg whenever he quotes from the poem.)
http://traffic.libsyn.com/sscpodcast/Meditations_on_Moloch.m...
Meditations on Moloch (2014)
21–30 of 57 posts
Re: Meditations on Moloch (2014)
#22This was a mostly entertaining read, if a bit all over the place. I do have one point to offer -- I noticed this article quotes liberally from Bostrom, Nick, but misses another thinker who has relevant ideas about avoiding what this author refers to as "multipolar traps" -- Ostrom, Elinor. I recommend those who are interested in resources for the fight against Moloch to look into her book Governing the Commons, as sh…
I've done a write-up on the book here: http://250bpm.com/blog:128
Re: Meditations on Moloch (2014)
#23Can I get a quick summary?
By the way, does anyone know and use automatic summary plug-ins?
Re: Meditations on Moloch (2014)
#24I once thought a TL;DR of this excellent essay is impossible, but then Eliezer Yudkowsky more or less managed it in Chapter 3 of Inadequate Equilibria:
Inspired by Allan Ginsberg’s poem Moloch, Scott Alexander once wrote of coordination failures:
> Moloch is introduced as the answer to a question—C. S. Lewis’ question in Hierarchy Of Philosophers—what does it? Earth could be fair, and all men glad and wise. Instead we have prisons, smokestacks, asylums. What sphinx of cement and aluminum breaks open their skulls and eats up their imagination?
> And Ginsberg answers: Moloch does it.
>There’s a passage in the Principia Discordia where Malaclypse complains to the Goddess about the evils of human society. “Everyone is hurting each other, the planet is rampant with injustices, whole societies plunder groups of their own people, mothers imprison sons, children perish while brothers war.”
> The Goddess answers: “What is the matter with that, if it’s what you want to do?”
> Malaclypse: “But nobody wants it! Everybody hates it!”
> Goddess: “Oh. Well, then stop.”
> The implicit question is—if everyone hates the current system, who perpetuates it? And Ginsberg answers: “Moloch.” It’s powerful not because it’s correct—nobody literally thinks an ancient Carthaginian demon causes everything—but because thinking of the system as an agent throws into relief the degree to which the system isn’t an agent.
Scott Alexander saw the face of the Enemy, and he gave it a name—thinking that perhaps that would help.
Re: Meditations on Moloch (2014)
#25The monarch isn't free of moloch, if he has become moloch. He isn't free of himself. He is not selfless. He can't embody selflessness, because that would paradoxically require freedome from selflessness. It's an unachievable ideal. He can however try to destruct everything and everyone. That would be another form of selflessness. Thus, selfishness is a necessary property of being.
Instead of looking at rulers, the picture has to start at the root. I think they kinda skip over that fact, taking it for granted, though the first principia discordia quote that's noted does imply it.
Re: Meditations on Moloch (2014)
#26Can I get a quick summary? By the way, does anyone know and use automatic summary plug-ins?
I might have misunderstood it when I read it (and it has been a while), but I thought the general idea was about shitty Nash equilibria.
So far capitalism has driven moral progress and increased standards of living, but maybe we'd be wrong to trust it forever. If the logical end result of following progress is us innovating ourselves out of existence (AI, nuclear weapons, whatever) then we might need to take drastic measures to avoid the default outcome, get off the path we're on and onto a different one.
Re: Meditations on Moloch (2014)
#27This is a great essay. It's lengthy but it uses its bulk to great effect. It may be the best articulation I have seen of the Christian idea that the world is fallen. And yes, when we say that, this is what we mean.
Then surely you understand that the world cannot be non-fallen. Where is your deity in all this?
Re: Meditations on Moloch (2014)
#28A very good essay, also a deeply depressing one if you do not get to the end and consider his solution viable.
If you found that depressing, steer clear of Scott's Who By Very Slow Decay [1].
It's an extraordinarily powerful piece though, and an interesting stylistic counterpoint to Moloch's oneiric ramblings.
[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/07/17/who-by-very-slow-decay...
Re: Meditations on Moloch (2014)
#29This is a great essay. It's lengthy but it uses its bulk to great effect. It may be the best articulation I have seen of the Christian idea that the world is fallen. And yes, when we say that, this is what we mean.
Then surely you understand that the world cannot be non-fallen. Where is your deity in all this?
You're misunderstanding the entire point of Christianity, in the interest, perhaps, of a snarky quote? In Christianity, the world will always be fallen, sure. The whole point is that it is. The non-fallen place is heaven- that's where "our diety" is: bringing those who'd actually want to be there to Heaven. What we do in the meantime is try to make the world as less-bad as possible.
Re: Meditations on Moloch (2014)
#30I always get a justification of the elitist exploitation vibe from these kinds of writings. "We can't do anything about it, it's just prisoner's dilemmas all the way down. Move along, nothing to see here".