Earlier quoted context omitted.
What makes Scott a crank?
[flagged]
What's worse though is that he responds to these unhinged haters by modifying his writing (and seemingly his world views) to cause them less offense.
Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America
201–210 of 453 posts
Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://miniver.blogspot.com/2024/01/scott-alexander-siskind...
This seems to boil down to that Elizabeth Sandifer, a self described "middle-aged trans anarchist", believes https://www.astralcodexten.com is "fertile grounds for white nationalist recruitment". This is just wrong and anyone can visit the blog to see for themselves.
Yes, read the comments on ACX where Steve Sailer of VDARE dog-whistles as loudly as he can.
Read Scott’s glowing review of _Albion’s Seed_.
Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America
#203Earlier 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…
I never quite put it together but Vance worked at Mithril Capital for Peter Thiel. Thiel's other ventures include Palantir, Valar Ventures and he's an investor in Anduril. How can someone be such a diehard Tolkien nerd and endorse government by corporation? Does he think the hero was Saruman?
What do you mean? Saruman didn't have shareholders, a board of directors, a profit motive, or indeed profits.
Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
What makes Scott a crank?
Well, for one thing, that comment is in response to a link to a blog post that Scott wrote about how The Feudalism Blogger’s old posts about how feudalism is good were better than The Feudalism Blogger’s new posts about how feudalism is good.
He sort of panders to an audience that fancies themselves much smarter than the average person, and as such categorically demand opinions that average people do not hold — no matter how sensible they might be. To accommodate that requirement he repackages existing (more usually conservative/libertarian) cultural gripes by pairing them with some light criticism and branding it as some sort of enlightened centrist/Third Way perspective. This sort of practice in general has lost some of its illusory appeal in recent years since so many previously “politically inscrutable” rich and influential folks dropped their centrist/apolitical trappings and came out as staunchly right-wing.
That being said there are quite a few readers that still want to play the “Are they right wing? Are they left wing? Are they something magical and ascendant?” game, and audience capture is a real phenomenon, so the entrenched players have no reason for introspection or change.
Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America
#205[flagged]
Why are all the fascist tough guys so afraid of criticism, or even just of internet downvotes?
This is a central insight into their mindset. They are so incredibly mentally weak.
Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America
#206For what it's worth his writing is very thought provoking and novel. I'd recommend anyone bored of mainstream groupthink take a look at it.
It's been difficult since ~2020 to truly read pieces that are heterodox. Everyone who was painting outside the lines was effectively erased from the polite society of the online squares.
Yarvis doesn't even touch many of the existing third rails today.
Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America
#207Didn'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…
[deleted]
Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
China's population is purportedly set to halve by 2100. They're well on their way to a massive population shock if they don't thread the needle carefully. There's also been lots of stories about bank closures and Chinese citizens losing their money. Additionally, China, like the US and many other world powers, is a totalitarian authoritarian government which is hostile towards its people. Whether China has high-speed…
> China's population is purportedly set to halve by 2100. 75 years is a long time. At lot can change. 75 years ago, China was just finishing its civil war, with the losers retreating to Taiwan. Land reform had an "estimated death toll ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Reform_Movement The infamous famine was only about 65 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_…
> 75 years is a long time. At lot can change.
True, but population collapse specifically is a tough headwind. You can't make more 2055 30-year-olds unless they've already been conceived today, and those will be the parents of the 2100 45-year-olds. While a lot can change, it's unrealistic to assume a birth rate will skyrocket all of a sudden (China's at 1.18 per woman and US is only at 1.6). The painful part, the bad worker:retiree ratio, is already set in stone, by the tininess of the millennial and Z generations, especially in China.
That said, I hedge my bet by saying that if AGI arrives and happens to have a wildly positive impact on human lifestyles, I can grudgingly accept the possibility of an unprecedented baby-boom in a decade, fueled by a complete end of scarcity. Wouldn't bet on that catalyst though.
Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America
#209What a surprise, the guy who thinks CEOs should rule the country is popular among CEOs.
Re: Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America
#210I 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…
Is his opinion really weird when a strong centralized leader (kings, emperors, etc.) was the norm until very very recently? Seems like it's more a return of the political theory of of "enlightened absolutism" that was popular amongst philosophers in the 18th century, or maybe something like Confucius' ideas on government.