Is your government infected with viruses, worms, malware and spyware? Do you keep calling tech support but end up playing phone tag? Did your brother-in-law who’s supposedly this big expert come over last year to fix it, but only make it worse? Do you feel frustrated, confused, apathetic and annoyed? Does your stomach cramp up every time you hear the word “change”?
Neighbor, we have just the red pill for you. Don’t ask what’s in it. You don’t want to know. Here’s a glass of water—don’t think, just swallow.
The fact that government isn’t as good as it says it is, or that progressive ideas aren’t fully consistent doesn’t mean that either are fully dispensable, nor is it particularly clear that people who want to eliminate government have to stop any minor involvement they have (like voting) in order to achieve that goal.
He’s reminding me of Michael Vassar’s observation that geeks want explicit language in a way that most people don’t. The fact that what government is and does isn’t a good match for the way government is usually described isn’t a good reason for eliminating government.
His point that people generally don’t know anything about governing is salient, but does he have any experience running something more challenging than a solo blog?
To my mind, democracy still has the advantage that it makes it clear to politicians that there’s a limit to how badly they can get away with treating the public.
He cheats a little on the the communists vs. Nazis numbers-- 6 million is just the Jews murdered by Nazis. Another five or six million Roma, homosexuals, criminals, etc. were killed in the death camps, and some 25
million (very rough estimate) were killed as a result of the Nazi side of WWII. I have no idea whether Japan would have started its war if Germany hadn’t been its ally.
This being said, I agree that communism has a worse record than Nazism, but a better reputation. However, in the US and Europe, there are violent neo-Nazis but (unless I’ve missed something) little or nothing in the way of violent communists, so it makes sense to be more concerned about Nazis.
My problem with him is the general problem with radicals—he needs to offer better arguments that what he’s suggesting will be reliably better than the current set-up. Speaking of Nazis and Communists, it’s possible to make things a lot worse because your theory sounds so attractive.
It was amusing to see that Mencius Moldbug, Dark Lord of the Convoluted Sentence, is a pretty average speaker.
I have no idea whether Japan would have started its war if Germany hadn’t been its ally.
Probably. They didn’t have anything like a formal military alliance until the Anti-Comintern Act of 1936, but the war in East Asia arguably started in 1931 when Japan invaded Manchuria.
Yeah, I view Moldbug as someone who looks at your house and is right when he says maybe the toilet shouldn’t drain into the shower, but then suggests you can use fusion to run all your appliances and power your helicopter
I think the problem with Moldbug is that he’s so firmly wedded himself to fighting against the whiggish naratives that are so deeply embeded in our historical accounts that he falls into the very trap that Herbert Butterfield, the original critic of whiggish naratives, warned of:
Further, it cannot be said that all faults of bias may be balanced by work that is deliberately written with the opposite bias; for we do not gain true history by merely adding the speech of the prosecution to the speech for the defence; and though there have been Tory – as there have been many Catholic – partisan histories, it is still true that there is no corresponding tendency for the subject itself to lean in this direction; the dice cannot be secretly loaded by virtue of the same kind of original unconscious fallacy.
(On an unrelated note, I occasionally find myself falling into a different, more sublte trap that Butterfield also warned of:
The watershed is broken down if we place the Reformation in its historical context and if we adopt the point of view which regards Protestantism itself as the product of history. But here greater dangers lurk and we are bordering on heresy more blasphemous than that of the whigs, for we may fall into the opposite fallacy and say that the Reformation did nothing at all. If there is a deeper tide that rolls below the very growth of Protestantism nothing could be more shallow than the history which is mere philosophising upon such a movement, or even the history which discovers it too soon. And nothing could be more hasty than to regard it as a self-standing, self-determined agency behind history, working to its purpose irrespective of the actual drama of events. It might be used to show that the Reformation made no difference in the world, that Martin Luther did not matter, and that the course of the ages is unaffected by anything that may happen; but even if this were true the historian would not be competent to say so, and in any case such a doctrine would be the very negation of history. It would be the doctrine that the whole realm of historical events is of no significance whatever. It would be the converse of the whig over-dramatization. The deep movement that is in question does not explain everything, or anything at all. It does not exist apart from historical events and cannot be disentangled from them. Perhaps there is nothing the historian can do about it, except to know that it is there. One fallacy is to be avoided, and once again it is the converse of that of the whigs.
My problem with him is the general problem with radicals—he needs to offer better arguments that what he’s suggesting will be reliably better than the current set-up. Speaking of Nazis and Communists, it’s possible to make things a lot worse because your theory sounds so attractive.
I agree. A strong argument in favour of our current order (social democracy) is the Burkean conservative one. I’ve said in the past that Moldbug is good at diagnosing but bad at providing treatments and I think his plan as it stands is more likely to go terribly wrong than terribly right. But hey we tried socialism so many times in so many different places, and we still haven’t given up on it, can’t we try Neocameralism in a charter city somewhere?
However, in the US and Europe, there are violent neo-Nazis but (unless I’ve missed something) little or nothing in the way of violent communists, so it makes sense to be more concerned about Nazis.
There are plenty of violent left anarchists / anti-fa (Communists in the sense Moldbug is using) in Europe. To cite an example from Greece:
Protesters set fire to a Marfin Bank branch on Stadiou Street with Molotov cocktails; witnesses said that protestors marching past the bank ignored the employees’ cries for help, while others chanted anti-capitalist slogans.[33][34][45] Most of the bank’s employees managed to escape the burning building, but two employees who jumped from the second-story balcony were injured and two women and a man were found dead after the fire was extinguished.
Social Justice in action, I’m sure the protesters had “legitimate grievances” which foreign media where sympathetic to. Question time, if Neo-Nazis had burned down a building do you think it more or less likely for you to have heard of an incident like this? Can Neo-Nazis ever have “legitimate grievances”?
Indeed we have a ready made test case for this, check out foreign reports on Golden Dawn then compare them to their actual relevance. The double standard regarding this is ridiculous.
As is the amount of resources spent on “fighting” the far right in the EU compared to the amount dedicated to fighting the far left. Even if ceteris paribus Nazis (in the wider sense of the word) are more competent at takeovers and causing damage than Commies (in the wider sense of the word), diminishing returns have almost certainly kicked in for fighting Nazis but not for fighting Commies.
It was amusing to see that Mencius Moldbug, Dark Lord of the Convoluted Sentence, is a pretty average speaker.
Yeah Good writer =/= Good speaker. Unfortunately Eliezer seems to be another example of this.
The murderousness of certain Greek left-wingers is true, but I would wish that you didn’t downplay the murderousness of Golden Dawn. They contributed to the slaughter of Srebenica in Bosnia—they are currently killing immigrants, They are officially in the parliament and yet they’ve not ceased with their numerous death threats against everyone who stands in their way.
Sorry, but though the murderousness of certain off-parliament Greek left-wingers is certainly a fact, and the sympathy they receive from inside the parliament likewise, the actual bloody neonazi murderers are in the Greek parliament. With 7% vote they’re already killing people and nobody here really gives a damn, are you sure they won’t commit acts of genocide when they reach 30%?
They contributed to the slaughter of Srebenica in Bosnia
You are referring to the Greek Volunteer Guard? Some allegedly had links to Greek Neo-Nazi groups including Golden Dawn, though you have to admit terming that as “Golden Dawn contributed to the slaughter at Screbrenica” is importing stronger connotations.
but I would wish that you didn’t downplay the murderousness of Golden Dawn.
I didn’t intend to downplay their murderousness, I wished to downplay the relevance of media reports on them. Which I think are disproportionate to their importance for non-Greeks. Also I hoped people would note the soft handed treatment anarchist/communist/anti-fa violence is given compared to the uniform condemnation of far right violence.
I upvoted for the first paragraph. Then I wanted to cancel the upvote when I read the paragraphs after the quote about Greece (which I deemed too adversarial for a friendly discussion). In the process I discovered the nonobvious fact that one must click again in the upvote button to cancel it: clicking downvote brings it to −1 instead of just canceling the upvote.
Didn’t meant to be adversarial towards Nancy I hope she doesn’t take it that way. I was taking a strong stance that is of course political on what interests and biases Western media generally have. I edited the style, is it better now?
To be honest, I don’t think you should revise your writing based on what just one random LWer (me) thinks. I just wanted to share the discovery I made about canceling upvotes, which was new and unintuitive to me. If I had read your last paragraphs before upvoting, I would have just refrained from voting in either direction and I would not have written any critical comment.
If you really want to know, though, the part that bugged me most was the paragraph immediately after the quote. (“Social justice in action…”) It is snarky; maybe not towards Nancy as such, but certainly against the general opposed political position. I think the “no mindkilling” general code should preclude using snark in a political discussion, since its purpose, roughly, is to lower the status of the opposed viewpoint without adding substance (relative to a non-snarky rewrite).
But as I said, I doubt you should care too much about this opinion and rewrite your post.
Don’t be silly you are a member of the LessWrong community in good standing, I appreciate such feedback. I now see your point about snark, but I was also trying to refer to a particular post by Moldbug, to make this more explicit I’ve added a link there.
It didn’t feel adversarial to me—I’d forgotten about far left violence in Europe.
I did hear about it—you can more or less assume that if it’s on the BBC radio news programs, I’ve heard about it. This doesn’t mean it will come to mind when I’m making sweeping generalizations.
Mencius Moldbug: How to Reboot the US Government
New short talk by Moldbug! :D
The fact that government isn’t as good as it says it is, or that progressive ideas aren’t fully consistent doesn’t mean that either are fully dispensable, nor is it particularly clear that people who want to eliminate government have to stop any minor involvement they have (like voting) in order to achieve that goal.
He’s reminding me of Michael Vassar’s observation that geeks want explicit language in a way that most people don’t. The fact that what government is and does isn’t a good match for the way government is usually described isn’t a good reason for eliminating government.
His point that people generally don’t know anything about governing is salient, but does he have any experience running something more challenging than a solo blog?
To my mind, democracy still has the advantage that it makes it clear to politicians that there’s a limit to how badly they can get away with treating the public.
He cheats a little on the the communists vs. Nazis numbers-- 6 million is just the Jews murdered by Nazis. Another five or six million Roma, homosexuals, criminals, etc. were killed in the death camps, and some 25 million (very rough estimate) were killed as a result of the Nazi side of WWII. I have no idea whether Japan would have started its war if Germany hadn’t been its ally.
This being said, I agree that communism has a worse record than Nazism, but a better reputation. However, in the US and Europe, there are violent neo-Nazis but (unless I’ve missed something) little or nothing in the way of violent communists, so it makes sense to be more concerned about Nazis.
My problem with him is the general problem with radicals—he needs to offer better arguments that what he’s suggesting will be reliably better than the current set-up. Speaking of Nazis and Communists, it’s possible to make things a lot worse because your theory sounds so attractive.
It was amusing to see that Mencius Moldbug, Dark Lord of the Convoluted Sentence, is a pretty average speaker.
Probably. They didn’t have anything like a formal military alliance until the Anti-Comintern Act of 1936, but the war in East Asia arguably started in 1931 when Japan invaded Manchuria.
Yeah, I view Moldbug as someone who looks at your house and is right when he says maybe the toilet shouldn’t drain into the shower, but then suggests you can use fusion to run all your appliances and power your helicopter
I think the problem with Moldbug is that he’s so firmly wedded himself to fighting against the whiggish naratives that are so deeply embeded in our historical accounts that he falls into the very trap that Herbert Butterfield, the original critic of whiggish naratives, warned of:
(On an unrelated note, I occasionally find myself falling into a different, more sublte trap that Butterfield also warned of:
I agree. A strong argument in favour of our current order (social democracy) is the Burkean conservative one. I’ve said in the past that Moldbug is good at diagnosing but bad at providing treatments and I think his plan as it stands is more likely to go terribly wrong than terribly right. But hey we tried socialism so many times in so many different places, and we still haven’t given up on it, can’t we try Neocameralism in a charter city somewhere?
There are plenty of violent left anarchists / anti-fa (Communists in the sense Moldbug is using) in Europe. To cite an example from Greece:
Social Justice in action, I’m sure the protesters had “legitimate grievances” which foreign media where sympathetic to. Question time, if Neo-Nazis had burned down a building do you think it more or less likely for you to have heard of an incident like this? Can Neo-Nazis ever have “legitimate grievances”?
Indeed we have a ready made test case for this, check out foreign reports on Golden Dawn then compare them to their actual relevance. The double standard regarding this is ridiculous.
As is the amount of resources spent on “fighting” the far right in the EU compared to the amount dedicated to fighting the far left. Even if ceteris paribus Nazis (in the wider sense of the word) are more competent at takeovers and causing damage than Commies (in the wider sense of the word), diminishing returns have almost certainly kicked in for fighting Nazis but not for fighting Commies.
Yeah Good writer =/= Good speaker. Unfortunately Eliezer seems to be another example of this.
The murderousness of certain Greek left-wingers is true, but I would wish that you didn’t downplay the murderousness of Golden Dawn. They contributed to the slaughter of Srebenica in Bosnia—they are currently killing immigrants, They are officially in the parliament and yet they’ve not ceased with their numerous death threats against everyone who stands in their way.
Sorry, but though the murderousness of certain off-parliament Greek left-wingers is certainly a fact, and the sympathy they receive from inside the parliament likewise, the actual bloody neonazi murderers are in the Greek parliament. With 7% vote they’re already killing people and nobody here really gives a damn, are you sure they won’t commit acts of genocide when they reach 30%?
You are referring to the Greek Volunteer Guard? Some allegedly had links to Greek Neo-Nazi groups including Golden Dawn, though you have to admit terming that as “Golden Dawn contributed to the slaughter at Screbrenica” is importing stronger connotations.
I didn’t intend to downplay their murderousness, I wished to downplay the relevance of media reports on them. Which I think are disproportionate to their importance for non-Greeks. Also I hoped people would note the soft handed treatment anarchist/communist/anti-fa violence is given compared to the uniform condemnation of far right violence.
I upvoted for the first paragraph. Then I wanted to cancel the upvote when I read the paragraphs after the quote about Greece (which I deemed too adversarial for a friendly discussion). In the process I discovered the nonobvious fact that one must click again in the upvote button to cancel it: clicking downvote brings it to −1 instead of just canceling the upvote.
Didn’t meant to be adversarial towards Nancy I hope she doesn’t take it that way. I was taking a strong stance that is of course political on what interests and biases Western media generally have. I edited the style, is it better now?
To be honest, I don’t think you should revise your writing based on what just one random LWer (me) thinks. I just wanted to share the discovery I made about canceling upvotes, which was new and unintuitive to me. If I had read your last paragraphs before upvoting, I would have just refrained from voting in either direction and I would not have written any critical comment.
If you really want to know, though, the part that bugged me most was the paragraph immediately after the quote. (“Social justice in action…”) It is snarky; maybe not towards Nancy as such, but certainly against the general opposed political position. I think the “no mindkilling” general code should preclude using snark in a political discussion, since its purpose, roughly, is to lower the status of the opposed viewpoint without adding substance (relative to a non-snarky rewrite).
But as I said, I doubt you should care too much about this opinion and rewrite your post.
Don’t be silly you are a member of the LessWrong community in good standing, I appreciate such feedback. I now see your point about snark, but I was also trying to refer to a particular post by Moldbug, to make this more explicit I’ve added a link there.
It didn’t feel adversarial to me—I’d forgotten about far left violence in Europe.
I did hear about it—you can more or less assume that if it’s on the BBC radio news programs, I’ve heard about it. This doesn’t mean it will come to mind when I’m making sweeping generalizations.
I didn’t know he was so young.
Neither did I.