311–320 of 453 posts
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lol, this is the opposite of the case. It has never ever been easier to consume content (text, audio, video, whatever) outside the mainstream.
The president of the United States was kicked off Twitter in 2020. Parler was removed from the App Store in 2020. "Now" is a lot different than 4-5 years ago.
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When the American Left split into progressive and liberal camps in the mid 2010s, the rationalist and adjacent communities underwent a huge internal conflict. Scott and a lot of his orbit tend to stay on the liberal side which these days is called and often calls itself "centrist". The aftermath of the split has had pretty huge effects in most Western spaces. A lot of the progressive left is really angry at the centr…
He seems to get more hate than more mainstream people on the more centrist side of that split... Granted, they do all get hate, and your description does resonate. But he still seems to be an outlier.
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Presumably because it's mostly political in nature and people here are generally tired of the whole Curtis Yarvin thing. We've had like an extra ten to fifteen years of hearing about this guy than most people... I didn't flag it, and clearly I'm here commenting, but I'm also sympathetic to people flagging this.
Given his salience atm and his presence here that you mentioned, I believe flagging this post reflects poorly on hackernews
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Sorry, but again, you're just rejecting the premise of the thought experiment, which is "what if it were possible to always have a benevolent dictator, would that be the best government?". This is a silly way to engage with a thought experiment. It's like if you responded to the popular "what if the allies lost WW2?" thought experiment with, "well, they didn't". Yes ... but you've missed the point. I agree that this…
It didn’t say “always.” The problem is that there’s no single definition of what makes a government “best.” Even putting aside the massive problems of what sort of outcomes we’re looking for (I have a feeling that Yarvin and I don’t agree on what criteria we’d use to judge this), the timeframe is not specified. It’s perfectly reasonable to interpret that as “over five years,” “while the benevolent dictator is alive,”…
I think this is where you're wrong. I think it only makes sense as a nonsensical thought experiment. A single benevolent dictator for five years is also implausible to the point of silliness.
But again, the thought experiment is very mildly interesting because it actually does highlight this disagreement that you and I have. I just don't agree with you at all that "A benevolent dictatorship is the best form of government, while it lasts". It's not only because it can't last (and I would say, can't exist to begin with) that it is bad. It is also bad because even if it could exist, it would still deprive the governed of any representation.
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He seems to get more hate than more mainstream people on the more centrist side of that split... Granted, they do all get hate, and your description does resonate. But he still seems to be an outlier.
Progressives reserve the greatest hate for those they consider “traitors” - it’s why they also hate Ritchie Torres.
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He seems to get more hate than more mainstream people on the more centrist side of that split... Granted, they do all get hate, and your description does resonate. But he still seems to be an outlier.
He was considered a core, visible member of the rationalist community from well before the split. For better or for worse he is considered a figurehead of the movement. With the acrimony of the split there was no way he was going to escape unscathed no matter which side he ended up on just by sheer visibility of his writing.
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It didn’t say “always.” The problem is that there’s no single definition of what makes a government “best.” Even putting aside the massive problems of what sort of outcomes we’re looking for (I have a feeling that Yarvin and I don’t agree on what criteria we’d use to judge this), the timeframe is not specified. It’s perfectly reasonable to interpret that as “over five years,” “while the benevolent dictator is alive,”…
> It might be fun to imagine, but when talking about the real world it makes no sense. I choose to assume that the people who accept this premise want to make sense, so I assume they mean a real, human dictator who will eventually die. I think this is where you're wrong. I think it only makes sense as a nonsensical thought experiment. A single benevolent dictator for five years is also implausible to the point of sil…
But if a benevolent dictator can keep people sufficiently satisfied not to turn to violence, and does a better job of running things than elected representatives would? Sounds great to me, while it works.
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> no way out but through Is exactly the philosophical dead end that Nick Land and Curtis and maybe Mark Fisher arrived at. Accelerationism is like the FedEx arrow in that it’s both an unforgettable idea and easy enough that anyone can grasp it, some of the dumbest politicians of our time are ardent believers. It’s fun to think about the possibility that belief in this conclusion was premature two decades ago when CCR…
Accelerationism doesn't work because "accelerating" = "making things worse for the people." People who imagine that they'll emerge victoriously from the chaos are really quite childish; odds are that the accelerationists will suffer like all the rest -- or worse. They're like children who read medieval history and imagine themselves princes and dukes, rather than dirt farmers laboriously clearing woods and plowing fi…
This is what’s always struck me about people like Bannon, Miller, Yarvin - guys, you’re on top. The only thing keeping you there is the system. Not much use for failed history scholars in the real world.
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I'm worried I'm sealioning, but could you possibly point me to one of these thoughtful pieces? It's a lot to wade through for me to try to figure out what you're talking about without any pointers... I did read a decent amount of his "mencius moldbug" stuff back in the day, and I just wouldn't describe it the way you do in this comment, so I'm wondering what I'm missing.
https://graymirror.substack.com/p/its-easy-from-here
I think we probably just fundamentally disagree here, because to me, this whole thing seems like drivel. Are there gems in there that I'm just not recognizing?
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…
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.