I was going to leave a comment there when I read it this morning, but Moldbug doesn’t read his comments, so...
To claim that the activists were strong is pretty absurd. The activists failed for approximately a century, in a regime that did a very good job of returning to the status quo ante bellum, died repeatedly while I don’t recall hearing of very many KKKers ever dying, and a partial victory at some point in some small town shows that they’re ‘strong’?
Reminds me of the over-application of ‘revealed preferences’ and the dormitive fallacy: ‘who are the strong? Those who win. How do you win? Be the strong.’ Well, uh, OK, if you think that’s anything but word games, I’ll leave you to it then.
And then there’s the selection biases here; how many activists do you ever hear of? How many movements? As all analyses of power acknowledge, there’s a lot of chance & variation involved… I remember reading that in China right now, they average something like 6000 disturbances or movements a year, of which I can name maybe 2 or 3 categories—Tibetan and Falun Gong, and whatever the last strike or protest the New York Times covered was.
(So basically, classic Moldbug: provocative and interesting, but the more you think on it, the less convincing it gets. I subscribe for the former, but I wish there was less of the latter.)
To claim that the activists were strong is pretty absurd. The activists failed for approximately a century, in a regime that did a very good job of returning to the status quo ante bellum, died repeatedly while I don’t recall hearing of very many KKKers ever dying, and a partial victory at some point in some small town shows that they’re ‘strong’?
This might be a radical suggestion, but who holds power does change over time. Especially over as long a period as a century. It can also hardly be disputed that gaining stronger allies or your allies being more interested in helping you makes you stronger.
Quite obviously Universalism was not completely done with tolerating racism in the 19th century. Note how Eugenics came into fashion among Progressives in the 1900s and how support Eugenics correlated with racialist ideas. And in the 19th century actual democracy (elected officials) on the state level had much more teeth than the 1960s according to Moldbugs model and my own study of US history. He notes in other writing that rule by the civil service which we have today is preferable to the mob politics and spolis system.
Desegregation in the United States was very much not the will of electorate of the Southern States. If populism had more strength I would have expected the activists to have been defeated for a while longer.
Reminds me of the over-application of ‘revealed preferences’ and the dormitive fallacy: ‘who are the strong? Those who win. How do you win? Be the strong.’ Well, uh, OK, if you think that’s anything but word games, I’ll leave you to it then.
It is not a word game, rather a very firm admonishment to make use of a very handy heuristic. Humans love claiming they are the underdog. Winners write history. Yet the truth is underdogs don’t tend to win. Of people claiming to have been underdogs who have won, I’d argue it prudent to expect most of them to be overdogs either consciously crafting a deceiving or rationalizing self-flattering image.
So you agree that the cause of civil rights started out as the underdog, and only gained power gradually with time until it had enough power to challenge the established law and change it. How does this differ from the standard Progressive narrative? (other than, perhaps, insisting pedantically that once the cause is strong enough to win, it shouldn’t be called the underdog any more?)
Re your last paragraph, it is true that if a winner writing history says “we were the underdog, and despite that we won quickly and decisively”, this should be suspect as unlikely and a self-flattering image. But if the winner’s history goes “we were the underdog, had many defeats and setbacks but gradually rallied people to our cause until we started winning, and we hope to win more in the future as more and more people come to side with us” (which is closer to the standard Progressive narrative on civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, etc) why is this especially suspect? (You might suspect the cause to be less pure or the reasons why it gathered support less related to people seeing its justice, than the supporters believe, but this is different from questioning the underdog to overdog progression story).
Progressivism was already utterly dominant in the 1960s. It was utterly dominant in the 1900s. What changed was how important it thought “civil rights” where. This did not happen due to popular sentiment but changing moral fashion among intellectual elites in general. Not only did popular sentiment not change much because of activism, neither did intellectual moral fashion, it was changed as a side effect of where Ivy League opinions where a few decades before.
Now sure those opinions might have shifted because of activism, but that was a different generation of activists than the ones that where picked by the media and education industry as symbols for their new prescription for society.
Isn’t it just easier to say that 1900s-progressivism and 1960s-progressivism are different but related movements?
It is worthwhile to ask how people and ideas moved (or didn’t move) from one to the other—but that nuanced question is impossible unless one can admit there are two movements, not one.
Isn’t it just easier to say that 1900s-progressivism and 1960s-progressivism are different but related movements?
The difference isn’t any greater than between 2010s Anglicanism and 1950s Anglicanism, I don’t often hear this argument related to them. But leaving this aside for now, one movement is quite clearly descended from the other, both in the affiliations of key individuals who connect both down to the chains of cited literature.
First, I’m not familiar enough with Anglicanism to agree or disagree with your assertion. For example, I don’t think the statement is accurate about Reform Judaism.
Second, even if current Anglicans take the inside view to assert that they are the same as past Anglican, that doesn’t require that we who are taking the outside view must agree with that assessment.
So, according to Moldbug, political changes over time aren’t due to different movements waxing and waning in power and support, but rather due to one grand movement changing its mind? He seems to be a shockingly vanilla conspiracy theorist, given what I’ve heard of him. I’m surprised that LWers put up with him...
You might try reading Yvain’s summary of Reaction. I can’t guarantee it’s the single most accurate description of the philosophy in existence, but it’s probably the clearest.
The article seems to amount to “Conspiracy theories aren’t always wrong”. I don’t see the connection.
No.
Here I consider in some detail a failure mode that classical rationality often recognizes. Unfortunately nearly all heuristics normally used to detect it seem remarkably vulnerable to misfiring or being exploited by others. I advocate an approach where we try our best to account for the key bias, seeing agency where there is none, while trying to minimize the risk of being tricked into dismissing claims because of boo lights.
To summarize.
When do conspiracy theories seem more likely than they are?
The phenomena is unpredictable or can’t be modelled very well
Models used by others are hard to understand or are very counter-intuitive
Thinking about the subject significantly strains cognitive resources
The theory explains why bad things happen or why something went wrong
The theory requires coordination
When you see these features you probably find the theory more plausible than it is.
It is not a word game, rather a very firm admonishment to make use of a very handy heuristic. Humans love claiming they are the underdog. Winners write history. Yet the truth is underdogs don’t tend to win. Of people claiming to have been wonderdogs who have won, I’d argue it prudent to expect most of them to be overdogs either consciously deceiving or rationalizing a self-flattering image.
A very handy heuristic that doesn’t look very handy at all in this context. And seems completely irrelevant in many other contexts.
A very handy heuristic that doesn’t look very handy at all in this context. And seems completely irrelevant in many other contexts.
It obviously can’t be applied to everything, but it is great for deflating self-flattering underdog stories we see around us all the time. Be it politics or personal life.
Rock-Paper-Scissors. Who’s the underdog?
You kind of miss the point. If you can’t apply underdog and overdog narratives which humans love constructing to an example the heuristic has nothing left to do.
You kind of miss the point. If you can’t apply underdog and over dog narratives which humans love constructing to an example the heuristics has nothing left to do.
Doh, that wasn’t my intention. I’m taking up the habit of providing simple examples for claims like “seems completely irrelevant in many other contexts”. Edited a bit for clarity.
Re deflating flattery, it does seem great for that, but I think it’s screened off by enough other useful things (like thinking of something in Game Theory terms) that I hope most LWers have already learned at least one of them.
I agree. Moldbug equivocates between two instances of ‘power’ (hard power vs. soft power, i.e. political influence) which have very different properties. Moreover, he misrepresents the purpose of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience can create hard power where none existed before, as well as increase a group’s political influence by acting as a coordination mechanism. He suggests that civil right activists would have had “hard power” over their opponents, even absent their political activism; but this is simply untenable.
Suggesting that “elite Universalist/Progressive opinion changed, and this is why Dr. King’s activism was successful” is circular. In fact, shifts in public opinion (even among so-called “elites”) are part of the political process, and influenced by political factors.
To claim that the activists were strong is pretty absurd. The activists failed for approximately a century, in a regime that did a very good job of returning to the status quo ante bellum, died repeatedly while I don’t recall hearing of very many KKKers ever dying, and a partial victory at some point in some small town shows that they’re ‘strong’?...And then there’s the selection biases here; how many activists do you ever hear of? How many movements? As all analyses of power acknowledge, there’s a lot of chance & variation involved...
Certainly flukes happen. But they are flukes. If activists were weak, their victories would be isolated and of short duration, quickly reverted.
If I go into a casino and take a gander at the roulette wheel, I may win a few rounds by chance, but the trend towards the house winning will continue. But if I lose some rounds, win one spin, and keep on winning thereafter, then something funny is going on. Or maybe I own the casino.
Certainly flukes happen. But they are flukes. If activists were weak, their victories would be isolated and of short duration, quickly reverted.
Which is why the long hypothesized WWI did not happen after a fluke like a Serbian terrorist assassinating someone important, because all flukes are isolated and of short duration.
(Is that a simplified and facile claim? Yes. Is it more simplified and facile than your argument? No.)
But if I lose some rounds, win one spin, and keep on winning thereafter, then something funny is going on. Or maybe I own the casino.
What’s winning in this context? Blacks becoming wealthy, respected, functional, equals of whites and not remaining the permanent lower-class? I see… Clearly those blacks and their white allies really succeeded in their missions and just kept on winning after putting that small-town sheriff in his place!
But oh right, I forgot, Moldbug is a complete conspiracy theorist that has an explanation for that too: the blacks are constitutionally inferior, yes, but the reason for the absence of their success despite their tremendous power is that it really serves the white elite’s true purposes and the blacks are just their shock troops, whatever they might bleat about ‘equality’ and ‘rights’.
In passing, I’ll note the irony of arguing ‘the powerful are by definition those who win’ in writing about the suicide of someone aligned with and feted by these supposedly powerful folks; yes, he attacked the wrong folks, hence the complete absence of any backlash or widespread mood affiliation among elite Cathedral types like The New York Times.
I was going to leave a comment there when I read it this morning, but Moldbug doesn’t read his comments, so...
To claim that the activists were strong is pretty absurd. The activists failed for approximately a century, in a regime that did a very good job of returning to the status quo ante bellum, died repeatedly while I don’t recall hearing of very many KKKers ever dying, and a partial victory at some point in some small town shows that they’re ‘strong’?
Reminds me of the over-application of ‘revealed preferences’ and the dormitive fallacy: ‘who are the strong? Those who win. How do you win? Be the strong.’ Well, uh, OK, if you think that’s anything but word games, I’ll leave you to it then.
And then there’s the selection biases here; how many activists do you ever hear of? How many movements? As all analyses of power acknowledge, there’s a lot of chance & variation involved… I remember reading that in China right now, they average something like 6000 disturbances or movements a year, of which I can name maybe 2 or 3 categories—Tibetan and Falun Gong, and whatever the last strike or protest the New York Times covered was.
(So basically, classic Moldbug: provocative and interesting, but the more you think on it, the less convincing it gets. I subscribe for the former, but I wish there was less of the latter.)
This might be a radical suggestion, but who holds power does change over time. Especially over as long a period as a century. It can also hardly be disputed that gaining stronger allies or your allies being more interested in helping you makes you stronger.
Quite obviously Universalism was not completely done with tolerating racism in the 19th century. Note how Eugenics came into fashion among Progressives in the 1900s and how support Eugenics correlated with racialist ideas. And in the 19th century actual democracy (elected officials) on the state level had much more teeth than the 1960s according to Moldbugs model and my own study of US history. He notes in other writing that rule by the civil service which we have today is preferable to the mob politics and spolis system.
Desegregation in the United States was very much not the will of electorate of the Southern States. If populism had more strength I would have expected the activists to have been defeated for a while longer.
It is not a word game, rather a very firm admonishment to make use of a very handy heuristic. Humans love claiming they are the underdog. Winners write history. Yet the truth is underdogs don’t tend to win. Of people claiming to have been underdogs who have won, I’d argue it prudent to expect most of them to be overdogs either consciously crafting a deceiving or rationalizing self-flattering image.
So you agree that the cause of civil rights started out as the underdog, and only gained power gradually with time until it had enough power to challenge the established law and change it. How does this differ from the standard Progressive narrative? (other than, perhaps, insisting pedantically that once the cause is strong enough to win, it shouldn’t be called the underdog any more?)
Re your last paragraph, it is true that if a winner writing history says “we were the underdog, and despite that we won quickly and decisively”, this should be suspect as unlikely and a self-flattering image. But if the winner’s history goes “we were the underdog, had many defeats and setbacks but gradually rallied people to our cause until we started winning, and we hope to win more in the future as more and more people come to side with us” (which is closer to the standard Progressive narrative on civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, etc) why is this especially suspect? (You might suspect the cause to be less pure or the reasons why it gathered support less related to people seeing its justice, than the supporters believe, but this is different from questioning the underdog to overdog progression story).
Progressivism was already utterly dominant in the 1960s. It was utterly dominant in the 1900s. What changed was how important it thought “civil rights” where. This did not happen due to popular sentiment but changing moral fashion among intellectual elites in general. Not only did popular sentiment not change much because of activism, neither did intellectual moral fashion, it was changed as a side effect of where Ivy League opinions where a few decades before.
Now sure those opinions might have shifted because of activism, but that was a different generation of activists than the ones that where picked by the media and education industry as symbols for their new prescription for society.
Isn’t it just easier to say that 1900s-progressivism and 1960s-progressivism are different but related movements?
It is worthwhile to ask how people and ideas moved (or didn’t move) from one to the other—but that nuanced question is impossible unless one can admit there are two movements, not one.
The difference isn’t any greater than between 2010s Anglicanism and 1950s Anglicanism, I don’t often hear this argument related to them. But leaving this aside for now, one movement is quite clearly descended from the other, both in the affiliations of key individuals who connect both down to the chains of cited literature.
First, I’m not familiar enough with Anglicanism to agree or disagree with your assertion. For example, I don’t think the statement is accurate about Reform Judaism.
Second, even if current Anglicans take the inside view to assert that they are the same as past Anglican, that doesn’t require that we who are taking the outside view must agree with that assessment.
So, according to Moldbug, political changes over time aren’t due to different movements waxing and waning in power and support, but rather due to one grand movement changing its mind? He seems to be a shockingly vanilla conspiracy theorist, given what I’ve heard of him. I’m surprised that LWers put up with him...
No. Also you may need to think a bit more about what exactly you mean when you say conspiracy theory.
You might need to expand on the “no”.
You might try reading Yvain’s summary of Reaction. I can’t guarantee it’s the single most accurate description of the philosophy in existence, but it’s probably the clearest.
Did you read my article on conspiracy theories I linked to?
Your “No” seems to amount to “You interpreted Moldbug wrongly”.
The article seems to amount to “Conspiracy theories aren’t always wrong”. I don’t see the connection.
No.
To summarize.
A very handy heuristic that doesn’t look very handy at all in this context. And seems completely irrelevant in many other contexts.
e.g. “Rock-Paper-Scissors. Who’s the underdog?”
It obviously can’t be applied to everything, but it is great for deflating self-flattering underdog stories we see around us all the time. Be it politics or personal life.
You kind of miss the point. If you can’t apply underdog and overdog narratives which humans love constructing to an example the heuristic has nothing left to do.
Doh, that wasn’t my intention. I’m taking up the habit of providing simple examples for claims like “seems completely irrelevant in many other contexts”. Edited a bit for clarity.
Re deflating flattery, it does seem great for that, but I think it’s screened off by enough other useful things (like thinking of something in Game Theory terms) that I hope most LWers have already learned at least one of them.
I agree. Moldbug equivocates between two instances of ‘power’ (hard power vs. soft power, i.e. political influence) which have very different properties. Moreover, he misrepresents the purpose of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience can create hard power where none existed before, as well as increase a group’s political influence by acting as a coordination mechanism. He suggests that civil right activists would have had “hard power” over their opponents, even absent their political activism; but this is simply untenable.
Suggesting that “elite Universalist/Progressive opinion changed, and this is why Dr. King’s activism was successful” is circular. In fact, shifts in public opinion (even among so-called “elites”) are part of the political process, and influenced by political factors.
Certainly flukes happen. But they are flukes. If activists were weak, their victories would be isolated and of short duration, quickly reverted.
If I go into a casino and take a gander at the roulette wheel, I may win a few rounds by chance, but the trend towards the house winning will continue. But if I lose some rounds, win one spin, and keep on winning thereafter, then something funny is going on. Or maybe I own the casino.
Which is why the long hypothesized WWI did not happen after a fluke like a Serbian terrorist assassinating someone important, because all flukes are isolated and of short duration.
(Is that a simplified and facile claim? Yes. Is it more simplified and facile than your argument? No.)
What’s winning in this context? Blacks becoming wealthy, respected, functional, equals of whites and not remaining the permanent lower-class? I see… Clearly those blacks and their white allies really succeeded in their missions and just kept on winning after putting that small-town sheriff in his place!
But oh right, I forgot, Moldbug is a complete conspiracy theorist that has an explanation for that too: the blacks are constitutionally inferior, yes, but the reason for the absence of their success despite their tremendous power is that it really serves the white elite’s true purposes and the blacks are just their shock troops, whatever they might bleat about ‘equality’ and ‘rights’.
In passing, I’ll note the irony of arguing ‘the powerful are by definition those who win’ in writing about the suicide of someone aligned with and feted by these supposedly powerful folks; yes, he attacked the wrong folks, hence the complete absence of any backlash or widespread mood affiliation among elite Cathedral types like The New York Times.