A rousing war-screech against Reaction (and bourgeois liberalism) by eXile’s Connor Kilpatrick. Deliciously mind-killed (and reviewing an already mind-killed book), but kind of perceptive in noting that the Right indeed offers very tangible, down-to-earth benefits to the masses—usually my crowd is in happy denial about that.
I am declaring this article excommunicate traitoris, because I am reading through it and not having a virulent reaction against it, but instead finding it to be reasonable, if embellishing. I take that and the community’s strong reaction against it as evidence that the article is effectively mind-killing me due to my political leanings and that I should stop reading now.
I read any War Nerd article that comes out, and occasionally read other articles on the site, and my reaction has been similar. The political stuff they say seems, well, “reasonable, if embellishing”, and I’d been worrying about the possibility that it was just true.
I should probably follow suit on this, and avoid any non-War-Nerd articles on eXile to avoid being mind-killed, although a part of me worries that I’m simply following group mentality on the Lesswrong cult.
I agree, it seems “reasonable, if embellishing”, on the other hand, there are many other political blogs with very different politics that also seem “reasonable, if embellishing”.
An ok read, despite being very much more partisan and harsh than what is usually discussed or linked on LW.
Despite libertarian efforts to recruit the young and liberal-minded into the flock with promises of ending the wars, closing Guantanamo and calling off the cozy relationship with the Likudniks, The Reactionary Mind makes it clear that there’s no fundamental difference between any of these right-wing breeds, and thus common ground is neither possible nor desirable, particularly with the libertarians. “When the libertarian looks out upon society,” writes Robin, “he does not see isolated individuals; he sees private, often hierarchical, groups, where a father governs his family and an owner his employees.”
Those darn out group members! Der all the same I tells ya!
Pretty sure I don’t ever rebel against group norms simply for teh lulz. There’s usually some half-cocked or seemingly-half-cocked Dumbledoresque strategy going on in the background.
It feels like an exercise about how many cognitive errors can you commit in one text (but in later paragraphs they get repetitive). As if the author is not even pretending to be sane, which is probably how the target audience likes it. I tried to read the text anyway, but halfway my brain was no longer able to process it.
If I had to write an abstract of this article, it would be like this:
“All my enemies (all people who disagree with me) are in fact the same: inhumanly evil. All their arguments are enemy soldiers; they should be ignored, or responded by irrational attacks and name-calling.”
If there was anything more (except for naming specific enemies), I was not able to extract it.
I think there’s a smidge more content than you’re saying: a claim that the other side is doing the same thing. Of course, when they do it, it’s disgraceful.
To me it seems like he accused the other side (everyone who disagrees with him, because they are all the same) of lying. That’s what makes it right to ignore their arguments.
That part goes like this—Sometimes it seems that the enemy arguments make sense, that some of their valuesare important for us too, so perhaps we should listen to what they say. Nonsense! The enemies are pure evil, they share none of our values. They just sometimes use our words to mislead us, but they “don’t believe a word of it. Not one fucking word.” (the last part = quotation)
What an unfortunate epistemic state. Especially unfortunate for other people who share the same planet.
He is pontificating actual values, though, and not only power politics. I like passion and strength more than intellectual honesty and rational discourse (and, well, truth-seeking). It’s sexier!
That’s why I still read M.M. despite him repeating the same ideas (completely formulated in “Patchwork”, “Why I am not a...” and his other old classics) over and over.
I like passion and strength more than intellectual honesty and rational discourse (and, well, truth-seeking).
Well, I guess if people wouldn’t find any value in this way of speaking, it wouldn’t be so popular. And yes, passion and strength are attractive. But a wrong context can ruin anything; and this context is very repulsive to me.
When I say I value truth-seeking, I usually feel like a hypocrite. After reading this article, I don’t. My bubble was broken, and the resulting shock recalibrated my scales. Raising the sanity waterline became a near-mode value again.
See! Aggression brings conflict, conflict brings division, division brings honesty, honesty brings self-actualization! The Code of the Sith is right!
Of course, human intelligence evolved largely to win arguments, thus we think up our best arguments while engaging in mind-killing debate, sort of like Kafers but without the need for physical violence.
I did say around here that I’m a little bit of a fascist. My ethics are really contradictory. Although if you think that all socialists are really as toothless and compromise-loving as modern social democrats (“Liberals”, as Americans call them), you’d be surprised.
I haven’t heard of many socialist utopia’s that included aggression, conflict and division. Maybe it can bring about self-actualization without conflict, thought that makes a dull story and remember humans love stories, especially about themselves. I think it was Orwell who pointed out that a Socialist utopia as normally imagined would overall be a pretty boring place to live.
Which is funny in a way, since the ideology of class struggle itself is far more inspiring that the ends the ideology seeks.
That’s because the wiser socialists, like Orwell himself, are aware that they aren’t wise enough for a consistent description of their utopia—like Eliezer is aware that he wouldn’t be able to describe precisely how society could work post-Singularity.
One possible left-wing utopia with conflict is just the Matrix running a massively multiplayer action/strategy game—with a global lobby/chat and economy organized.on socialist principles. This description makes some sense only because it’s a cop-out; in a virtual world we can resolve our nature’s inconsistencies without affecting real others, so this is just a milder form of wireheading. If you’re pissed about your guild’s high taxes, just take over a bot guild, murder a bot CEO in visceral detail and get high on fake power. Presumably you could also gank real people, but this would drive your taxes sky-high to do something nice, like paying for noobs’ personalized education and counselling.
Dear downvoters, in order to help me optimize my writing, please take care to explain your reasons for every downvoted comment. Thank you. (This one looks particularly innocent and non-inflammatory to me.)
I’m pretty confident your comments in this thread are getting downvoted on the merits of the original comment, not on the merits of each individual subsequent comment. Happens to me all the time, but most of the time the trend reverses after a day or two.
Ideological link of the week:
A rousing war-screech against Reaction (and bourgeois liberalism) by eXile’s Connor Kilpatrick. Deliciously mind-killed (and reviewing an already mind-killed book), but kind of perceptive in noting that the Right indeed offers very tangible, down-to-earth benefits to the masses—usually my crowd is in happy denial about that.
I am declaring this article excommunicate traitoris, because I am reading through it and not having a virulent reaction against it, but instead finding it to be reasonable, if embellishing. I take that and the community’s strong reaction against it as evidence that the article is effectively mind-killing me due to my political leanings and that I should stop reading now.
...cognitive biases are scary.
I read any War Nerd article that comes out, and occasionally read other articles on the site, and my reaction has been similar. The political stuff they say seems, well, “reasonable, if embellishing”, and I’d been worrying about the possibility that it was just true.
I should probably follow suit on this, and avoid any non-War-Nerd articles on eXile to avoid being mind-killed, although a part of me worries that I’m simply following group mentality on the Lesswrong cult.
I agree, it seems “reasonable, if embellishing”, on the other hand, there are many other political blogs with very different politics that also seem “reasonable, if embellishing”.
An ok read, despite being very much more partisan and harsh than what is usually discussed or linked on LW.
Those darn out group members! Der all the same I tells ya!
Exactly. I just linked to it for teh lulz, to be honest. And to rebel against our group norms.
Damn, I might be emulating Will a bit too much.
Pretty sure I don’t ever rebel against group norms simply for teh lulz. There’s usually some half-cocked or seemingly-half-cocked Dumbledoresque strategy going on in the background.
It feels like an exercise about how many cognitive errors can you commit in one text (but in later paragraphs they get repetitive). As if the author is not even pretending to be sane, which is probably how the target audience likes it. I tried to read the text anyway, but halfway my brain was no longer able to process it.
If I had to write an abstract of this article, it would be like this:
“All my enemies (all people who disagree with me) are in fact the same: inhumanly evil. All their arguments are enemy soldiers; they should be ignored, or responded by irrational attacks and name-calling.”
If there was anything more (except for naming specific enemies), I was not able to extract it.
Repulsive.
I think there’s a smidge more content than you’re saying: a claim that the other side is doing the same thing. Of course, when they do it, it’s disgraceful.
To me it seems like he accused the other side (everyone who disagrees with him, because they are all the same) of lying. That’s what makes it right to ignore their arguments.
That part goes like this—Sometimes it seems that the enemy arguments make sense, that some of their values are important for us too, so perhaps we should listen to what they say. Nonsense! The enemies are pure evil, they share none of our values. They just sometimes use our words to mislead us, but they “don’t believe a word of it. Not one fucking word.” (the last part = quotation)
What an unfortunate epistemic state. Especially unfortunate for other people who share the same planet.
He is pontificating actual values, though, and not only power politics. I like passion and strength more than intellectual honesty and rational discourse (and, well, truth-seeking). It’s sexier!
That’s why I still read M.M. despite him repeating the same ideas (completely formulated in “Patchwork”, “Why I am not a...” and his other old classics) over and over.
Let me guess, you also don’t enjoy gore porn.
Well, I guess if people wouldn’t find any value in this way of speaking, it wouldn’t be so popular. And yes, passion and strength are attractive. But a wrong context can ruin anything; and this context is very repulsive to me.
When I say I value truth-seeking, I usually feel like a hypocrite. After reading this article, I don’t. My bubble was broken, and the resulting shock recalibrated my scales. Raising the sanity waterline became a near-mode value again.
See! Aggression brings conflict, conflict brings division, division brings honesty, honesty brings self-actualization! The Code of the Sith is right!
Of course, human intelligence evolved largely to win arguments, thus we think up our best arguments while engaging in mind-killing debate, sort of like Kafers but without the need for physical violence.
Also, this Orwell quote.
Are you sure you aren’t just a right wing person hiding in the closet? (^_^)
I did say around here that I’m a little bit of a fascist. My ethics are really contradictory. Although if you think that all socialists are really as toothless and compromise-loving as modern social democrats (“Liberals”, as Americans call them), you’d be surprised.
Being human is tough, my sympathy module sympathizes.
The funny thing is, I don’t even feel bad about that. It’s just like becoming bored with useful activities, a psychological given.
I haven’t heard of many socialist utopia’s that included aggression, conflict and division. Maybe it can bring about self-actualization without conflict, thought that makes a dull story and remember humans love stories, especially about themselves. I think it was Orwell who pointed out that a Socialist utopia as normally imagined would overall be a pretty boring place to live.
Which is funny in a way, since the ideology of class struggle itself is far more inspiring that the ends the ideology seeks.
That’s because the wiser socialists, like Orwell himself, are aware that they aren’t wise enough for a consistent description of their utopia—like Eliezer is aware that he wouldn’t be able to describe precisely how society could work post-Singularity.
One possible left-wing utopia with conflict is just the Matrix running a massively multiplayer action/strategy game—with a global lobby/chat and economy organized.on socialist principles. This description makes some sense only because it’s a cop-out; in a virtual world we can resolve our nature’s inconsistencies without affecting real others, so this is just a milder form of wireheading. If you’re pissed about your guild’s high taxes, just take over a bot guild, murder a bot CEO in visceral detail and get high on fake power. Presumably you could also gank real people, but this would drive your taxes sky-high to do something nice, like paying for noobs’ personalized education and counselling.
I don’t know exactly what I want, but goddamit I’m going to get it!
Arguably the essence of heroic man.
Also a good way to build an Unfriendly AI.
Or an Unfriendly political regime.
Oh I agree. However it matches the advancement of the hero in myths, it is psychologically appealing and works well as a story.
Yup.
Dear downvoters, in order to help me optimize my writing, please take care to explain your reasons for every downvoted comment. Thank you. (This one looks particularly innocent and non-inflammatory to me.)
I’m pretty confident your comments in this thread are getting downvoted on the merits of the original comment, not on the merits of each individual subsequent comment. Happens to me all the time, but most of the time the trend reverses after a day or two.
That was my implication, yeah; getting karmassassinated is more unpleasant than just getting a slap for an isolated stupid comment.
What draws you to this website, then? Ostensibly, this is a venue for weirdos with an absolute fetish for rational discourse.