Reading some of your comments I can’t shake the feeling that you for some reason see their intellectual ammunition as so much more formidable than what is usually consumed by intellectuals that it despite the massive incentives against it threatens to one day quite suddenly break out and become popular among the smart fraction. Is this a correct reading?
Sort of yes! I’ve always been a little terrified of the power of naked, unashamed technocracy, of either despotic or Randian aspect. Even the more ruthless bits of Moldbug’s (rather comfortable and watered-down) technocratic fascism are, I fear, hardly a glimpse of what’s to come, if the “rationality” of geeks and engineers, finally free from either today’s humanist quasi-theocracy and the sober bounds of old-time coonservatism, gets free rein. Perhaps many here on LW, especially non-neurotypical people (who I tend to sympathize with a lot, but also be wary of if their condition includes any change in empathy) would be tempted by such a Ubermensch thing. Think of a hybrid of Speer, Eichmann and a weak UFAI and you’ll understand how this nightmare of mine goes.
(I’m actually integrating a sinister-yet-rationalist one world government based on these fears in my science fantasy novel—instead of a generic villainous empire I started out with—except that in my story it was formed by voices of moderation in high places after the Axis victory in WW2 and the ensuing cold war, not as the radical elitist movement that I can phantom it as in the real world.)
Sort of yes! I’ve always been a little terrified of the power of naked, unashamed technocracy
“Naked, unashamed technocracy” strikes me as much more similar to the position advocated by the left (ETA: especially the socialist left) then the right.
Oh, it’s advocated by the left, alright (damn you language), but e.g. Stalinism was much less that and much more feudalism than Westerners commonly assume; it was quite the underground struggle, and Stalin himself (even without supposing any conspiracy) fell to it, as everyone around was either genuinely too afraid of disrupting him the morning he had his heart attack/whatever it was, or consciously decided to abandon him.
My point is, if you scratch a Stalinist you’re likely to find a barbarian; those smart, brave and virtuous alt-right-wingers strike me as the only sort of people who could potentially succeed in truly implementing such a regime.
(I’m actually integrating a sinister-yet-rationalist one world government based on these fears in my science fantasy novel—instead of a generic villainous empire I started out with—except that in my story it was formed by voices of moderation in high places after the Axis victory in WW2 and the ensuing cold war, not as the radical elitist movement that I can phantom it as in the real world.)
That is a very interesting concept! I’d love to read more about it, if you are writing in English and have any drafts you would like someone to read or will eventually publish, please make a post on LW!
The novel’s background is that Nazi and Japanese research into the nature of reality in an attempt to access “magic” or create “ontotechnological weapons” (credit for the word “Ontotechnology” goes to EY) pretty much broke the self-sealing “reality bubble” of Earth, placed there by an interdimensional supercivilization fighting its own civil war for the Universe itself. That supercivilization’s factions are perceived as “Angels” and “Demons”; they have made themselves into ontologically basic mental entities and the former are trying to impose absolute objective morality upon the Universe (which IS absolutely good and benign for any species that comes within its influence) while the latter are ruthless anarchists and opppose any rules at all, especially deontological ones. As humans were predicted to have unusually strong reality-warping potential, Earth was sealed away in a local ceasefire that forbade both recruiting from it. After the “bubble” began to tear, the “demons”, acting without any hierarchy, just spontaneously invaded, making some people into their playthings, dragging others away for use as psychic slave-soldiers and helping start WW3 in the ongoing panic. As Japan and the Reich, blaming each other, were preparing to obliterate the remnants of civilization, powerful technocratic elements on both sides independently launched coups, came to an agreement and instated a new world order that was essentially a megacorporation (I thought of this before reading any Moldbug). It shaped humanity into a great and complex hierarchy, where daily strife and the fullfillment of urges by the population would accumulate the “psychic” reality-warping energies in huge resonators to drain every drop of them, including from people gifted enough to become “mages”. The pooled energy was used to assist in brainwashing the masses, as a shield to keep rampaging demons away from the major arcologies, and to lash out at the barren and twisted Wastelands, where barbaric, Nietzchean sorcerer-cults now contended with each other and the infernal hordes.
At the same time, there was a divine intervention as well. The “angels”, before being driven out of our meta-region of the Universe by the disaster, took volunteers with especially strong psychic potential and moral fibre with them to fight in the endless war, while for all the other humans whom they found worthy—about 5-10% of the population after a century of life under brutal totalitarian regimes—they created a small utopian realm with impenetrable defenses near the North Pole. Founded upon some weird rules, restrictions and gifts, it’s essentially going to be anime-like in my description. You know, heartbreakingly beautiful vistas, surreal technology like dragon AIs, ornithopters and crystal exoskeletons, an elaborate system of universities, guilds and knightly orders for everyone’s talents to flourish, everything is always romantic, etc.
However, it comes at a price, as the trope demands; the ruling council is allowed to use utilitarian logic for hard decisions, and what they’re going to do with it is my main plotline. The utopian culture sends agents Outside to help people and thwart the bad guys’ attempts to penetrate their barrier or otherwise harm them, like Banks’ Contact and Special Circumstances. And they support a network of resistance cells in the utilitarian megacorp’s arcologies. Think like Al-Quaeda, but somewhat sympathetic and with Gnostic mysticism. The protagonist is a young soldier/technician in the Resistance, who starts out depressed, demotivated and Shinji-like (write what you know!); he’s hopelessly in love with a female agent of the Utopia that’s working with his cell on something top-secret. In the beginning, the cell is wiped out by a State Security raid and the agent is taken prisoner, but not before she implants the mortally injured protagonist with her hyper-advanced drone, making him into a superpowered zombie cyborg. Stumbling away from the wreckage, he meets up with a hacker from the arcology—who’s part of a subculture stealing psychic energy and addicted to it—and that hacker’s tsundere sister, a promising social engineer/spin doctor/brainwasher who’s devoted to the megacorp at first but slowly agrees to become a double agent. Together they unveil a conspiracy involving a weird urban legend, said to be a memetic virus called the “Invisible Dawn”—which is the title of the novel. Whew.
Unfortunately for you, I’m writing in Russian, as attempting something novel-length in English would’ve at this point only become a drain of my mental energy; I’ll need another decade of practice before I can use it as easily as Russian.
Sort of yes! I’ve always been a little terrified of the power of naked, unashamed technocracy, of either despotic or Randian aspect. Even the more ruthless bits of Moldbug’s (rather comfortable and watered-down) technocratic fascism are, I fear, hardly a glimpse of what’s to come, if the “rationality” of geeks and engineers, finally free from either today’s humanist quasi-theocracy and the sober bounds of old-time coonservatism, gets free rein. Perhaps many here on LW, especially non-neurotypical people (who I tend to sympathize with a lot, but also be wary of if their condition includes any change in empathy) would be tempted by such a Ubermensch thing. Think of a hybrid of Speer, Eichmann and a weak UFAI and you’ll understand how this nightmare of mine goes.
(I’m actually integrating a sinister-yet-rationalist one world government based on these fears in my science fantasy novel—instead of a generic villainous empire I started out with—except that in my story it was formed by voices of moderation in high places after the Axis victory in WW2 and the ensuing cold war, not as the radical elitist movement that I can phantom it as in the real world.)
“Naked, unashamed technocracy” strikes me as much more similar to the position advocated by the left (ETA: especially the socialist left) then the right.
Oh, it’s advocated by the left, alright (damn you language), but e.g. Stalinism was much less that and much more feudalism than Westerners commonly assume; it was quite the underground struggle, and Stalin himself (even without supposing any conspiracy) fell to it, as everyone around was either genuinely too afraid of disrupting him the morning he had his heart attack/whatever it was, or consciously decided to abandon him.
My point is, if you scratch a Stalinist you’re likely to find a barbarian; those smart, brave and virtuous alt-right-wingers strike me as the only sort of people who could potentially succeed in truly implementing such a regime.
That is a very interesting concept! I’d love to read more about it, if you are writing in English and have any drafts you would like someone to read or will eventually publish, please make a post on LW!
SYNOPSIS:
The novel’s background is that Nazi and Japanese research into the nature of reality in an attempt to access “magic” or create “ontotechnological weapons” (credit for the word “Ontotechnology” goes to EY) pretty much broke the self-sealing “reality bubble” of Earth, placed there by an interdimensional supercivilization fighting its own civil war for the Universe itself. That supercivilization’s factions are perceived as “Angels” and “Demons”; they have made themselves into ontologically basic mental entities and the former are trying to impose absolute objective morality upon the Universe (which IS absolutely good and benign for any species that comes within its influence) while the latter are ruthless anarchists and opppose any rules at all, especially deontological ones.
As humans were predicted to have unusually strong reality-warping potential, Earth was sealed away in a local ceasefire that forbade both recruiting from it. After the “bubble” began to tear, the “demons”, acting without any hierarchy, just spontaneously invaded, making some people into their playthings, dragging others away for use as psychic slave-soldiers and helping start WW3 in the ongoing panic. As Japan and the Reich, blaming each other, were preparing to obliterate the remnants of civilization, powerful technocratic elements on both sides independently launched coups, came to an agreement and instated a new world order that was essentially a megacorporation (I thought of this before reading any Moldbug). It shaped humanity into a great and complex hierarchy, where daily strife and the fullfillment of urges by the population would accumulate the “psychic” reality-warping energies in huge resonators to drain every drop of them, including from people gifted enough to become “mages”.
The pooled energy was used to assist in brainwashing the masses, as a shield to keep rampaging demons away from the major arcologies, and to lash out at the barren and twisted Wastelands, where barbaric, Nietzchean sorcerer-cults now contended with each other and the infernal hordes. At the same time, there was a divine intervention as well. The “angels”, before being driven out of our meta-region of the Universe by the disaster, took volunteers with especially strong psychic potential and moral fibre with them to fight in the endless war, while for all the other humans whom they found worthy—about 5-10% of the population after a century of life under brutal totalitarian regimes—they created a small utopian realm with impenetrable defenses near the North Pole. Founded upon some weird rules, restrictions and gifts, it’s essentially going to be anime-like in my description. You know, heartbreakingly beautiful vistas, surreal technology like dragon AIs, ornithopters and crystal exoskeletons, an elaborate system of universities, guilds and knightly orders for everyone’s talents to flourish, everything is always romantic, etc.
However, it comes at a price, as the trope demands; the ruling council is allowed to use utilitarian logic for hard decisions, and what they’re going to do with it is my main plotline. The utopian culture sends agents Outside to help people and thwart the bad guys’ attempts to penetrate their barrier or otherwise harm them, like Banks’ Contact and Special Circumstances. And they support a network of resistance cells in the utilitarian megacorp’s arcologies. Think like Al-Quaeda, but somewhat sympathetic and with Gnostic mysticism. The protagonist is a young soldier/technician in the Resistance, who starts out depressed, demotivated and Shinji-like (write what you know!); he’s hopelessly in love with a female agent of the Utopia that’s working with his cell on something top-secret. In the beginning, the cell is wiped out by a State Security raid and the agent is taken prisoner, but not before she implants the mortally injured protagonist with her hyper-advanced drone, making him into a superpowered zombie cyborg. Stumbling away from the wreckage, he meets up with a hacker from the arcology—who’s part of a subculture stealing psychic energy and addicted to it—and that hacker’s tsundere sister, a promising social engineer/spin doctor/brainwasher who’s devoted to the megacorp at first but slowly agrees to become a double agent. Together they unveil a conspiracy involving a weird urban legend, said to be a memetic virus called the “Invisible Dawn”—which is the title of the novel.
Whew.
Unfortunately for you, I’m writing in Russian, as attempting something novel-length in English would’ve at this point only become a drain of my mental energy; I’ll need another decade of practice before I can use it as easily as Russian.