Generally I have had a high opinion of your output despite our disagreements on some value issues (which may or may not be actually incompatible), I recall some very neat rationalist debates.
It is more or less only the recent difference on our interpretation of Moldbug and some other minor things that lead me to believe you may not be open to good arguments associated with that cluster. I think you can avoid most of the risk of that by steel manning reactionary positions more when debating.
This is the sort of conversation where being specific would be particularly helpful.
Regarding steelmanning, I generally decline to change someone’s position to the point where that someone would no longer endorse the argument. Given what I’ve read of Moldbug’s, I’m particularly uncertain of what changes I could make that I thought were improvements and that Moldbug would likely endorse.
Aside from my concerns with Moldbug’s grasp of historical or economic analysis, my basic understanding of his position is that he thinks governments should have the same ownership rights in property that private landowners have in property—which everyone with a brain should agree is not how any country is organized currently. My objections to that are two-fold:
(1) I’m unaware of that ever happening in a stable way anywhere in the last 2000 years, so I have essentially no useful evidence to figure out how it would work in practice.
(2) It’s hard for me to come to grips with what problems this solution is intended to solve. Specifically, there are many problems that “government” is understood to exist in order to solve. And increasing government power in the way Moldbug describes solves essentially none—except as the extreme “solution” of denying that they are problems.
More generally, it’s hard for me to see Moldbug as more than an advocate for far less social unrest. I’m not sure he has a good plan for getting to that goal, but even so, the core argument to be made is about the optimal level of social unrest. Moldbug’s provocative writing just assumes one agrees with his understanding on that point, and so those who don’t agree have very little to grapple with in any productive fashion.
Generally I have had a high opinion of your output despite our disagreements on some value issues (which may or may not be actually incompatible), I recall some very neat rationalist debates.
It is more or less only the recent difference on our interpretation of Moldbug and some other minor things that lead me to believe you may not be open to good arguments associated with that cluster. I think you can avoid most of the risk of that by steel manning reactionary positions more when debating.
This is the sort of conversation where being specific would be particularly helpful.
Regarding steelmanning, I generally decline to change someone’s position to the point where that someone would no longer endorse the argument. Given what I’ve read of Moldbug’s, I’m particularly uncertain of what changes I could make that I thought were improvements and that Moldbug would likely endorse.
Aside from my concerns with Moldbug’s grasp of historical or economic analysis, my basic understanding of his position is that he thinks governments should have the same ownership rights in property that private landowners have in property—which everyone with a brain should agree is not how any country is organized currently. My objections to that are two-fold:
(1) I’m unaware of that ever happening in a stable way anywhere in the last 2000 years, so I have essentially no useful evidence to figure out how it would work in practice.
(2) It’s hard for me to come to grips with what problems this solution is intended to solve. Specifically, there are many problems that “government” is understood to exist in order to solve. And increasing government power in the way Moldbug describes solves essentially none—except as the extreme “solution” of denying that they are problems.
More generally, it’s hard for me to see Moldbug as more than an advocate for far less social unrest. I’m not sure he has a good plan for getting to that goal, but even so, the core argument to be made is about the optimal level of social unrest. Moldbug’s provocative writing just assumes one agrees with his understanding on that point, and so those who don’t agree have very little to grapple with in any productive fashion.