/lit/ - Literature

Seems more a response to Land

>>16925709
what does Moldbug thinks of Nick Land in general?

I don’t like this guy

>>16925721
Never read him according to a recent-ish interview. Also confirmed that he read Ebola if you care about that kind of thing.

>>16925739
*Evola
Goddam I hate autocorrect

>>16925747
hahahahahahahaha hahahaha ha

>>16925697
He's not and MKUltra victim tho, unlike Ted

Otherwise he's kinda right but too pessimistic. The masters of tech will unleash a new cultural golden age.

>>16925739
he said that he didn't read him because he doesn't want to read people who read himself
such a weird way of saying that he isn't interested in lands work

I really hope lit stops shilling all these fucking midwits

>>16925887
It makes sense. Moldbug is an autist and Land is a schizo. Or in other words, Land is way too continental for Moldbug.

>>16925875
>unlike Ted
You should unplug the TV and stop falling for holywood tier scenario. Sensationalism has dimmed your capacity for reason. Kaczynski has debunked this fake story invented by a journalist.

>>16925906
Would you happen to have a full list of his works? Last time I checked even W*kipedia didn't have it.

>>16925875
> The masters of tech will unleash a new cultural golden age
then why do they act the way they do now? Currently tech is the new big pharma: pure evil.

t. Software dev

>>16925918
Can confirm. Although I can't lie - the tech boom has benefitted me a lot financially.

t. ITSec specialist

>A yeoman’s tradition shapes the course of his life, with ceremonies for every occasion. It can tell him what to think, what to say, what to read and watch and listen to, what to eat and drink, what to wear and whom to marry—even what technologies he may use. Since the yeoman does not design his life, someone else has to design it for him.

>You may not like this. You would not like it. Sorry, but you are an armiger. A yeoman is a normal human being. This is the normal human way to live. Yes, you may be smarter than the average yeoman. No one has to be dumb to be a yeoman, and who’s counting anyway? That’s not how they taught you to think at that fancy school… Yeomen are actually the best people—generally the soundest, most sensible and most wise.

who here /armiger/ ?

>>16925887

You have to take some of his claims with a grain of salt. I've heard him say that he's never read any of the comments in the comment sections on the UR blog, but I know this to be false.

>>16925906
The study that Ted took part in, as far as what is declassified, was basically arguing with someone who was attempting to break down the arguer's personality, i.e. interrogation. There is some tape out there of Ted during the study -- it can be heard in The Unabomber in His Own Words -- but there's no other evidence of other experiments taking place that would cause someone to turn out as radical as Ted; especially considering hundreds of people took part in the studies.

>>16926447
Everyone probably.

>>16925697
Artificial difficulty economy is incredibly lame.

>>16926527
Can you elaborate on that please?

>>16926481
Ted was the only one who actually stuck out the procedure, everyone else quit after the first session.

You're also sort of smoothing over what the procedure actually was: the participants would write a long-essay about their hopes, dreams, inner desires, sexuality, religious beliefs, etc. They were told that this would be reviewed by a professor, who would discuss their views with them. In truth, it was reviewed by a professional prosecuting attorney, who was instructed to rip the student to shreds. The students faces were videotaped as the attorney tore their hopes, dreams, inner desires, sexuality, religious beliefs, etc, apart. The videotape would then be played back to them, while the attorney tore them apart again.

Ted, being 16 at the time, apparently went into this with more innocence than the other participants, as he actually stuck out the entire procedure.

The stated purpose of MKULTRA was to develop methods of mind control. I'm something of a conspiracy theorist (which means I have a brain), so I'd wager that the actual goal was finding ways of mentally Canadian Phonebooking people for the purposes of torture. Ted was subjected to a procedure meant to make people insane. He went insane. That's not a statement about Ted, but the fact that the procedure works.

>>16926557
Why would anyone care what a stranger, clearly hired to play that role, opines on those personal topics?

>>16926557
The study was, basically, proto-interrogation, and, yes, it was later used by the CIA for nefarious means. However, there's zero evidence Ted was a unique participant in the study; and, again, the information that is actually out there is simply an interviewer insulting the person arguing in order to break them down.

Nobody outside of those who took part in the study and have access to the classified information can say more than what very little is known. It's just speculation beyond that.

>>16926557
source on the first claim? Your scenario sounds possible (I've wasted decades reading cia declassified papers, and it's entirely possible) but given that Kaczynski has debunked it himself I doubt it is true.

Doesn't matter, he's right about everything anyways. The terrorism is not even relevant to his works as he disavows it now, claiming all forms of terrorism to be counter-revolutionary.

>>16926557
>Canadian Phonebooking

What does this expression mean

Stop posting, Curtis.

>>16926641
I wish he posted here. He certainly is highly aware of IB culture.

>>16926542
It wastes time and includes bullshit jobs. He also has lines like, "While this kind of labor is not as dehumanizing as idleness". What a dunce.

>What a man actually needs, if his work be for his own benefit, is meaningful labor that trains him to the highest level of skill in his strongest area of human potential, then stably and predictably rewards him for exercising that skill.

He's shortsighted if he believes his hodgepodge artificial difficulty economy will get anywhere near this, assuming it's the right goal (it's not).

>>16925906
Where do people find his letters? I'd love to read through an archive.

>>16926658
That said, it sounds better than the current order's monstrosity. But it's a low bar to beat.

>>16926652
He's a historically illiterate blogger, like most software engineers who spend too much time on the internet. The only difference is he has a patron daddy billionaire.

And he certainly shills himself here.

I've never fully read this guy before, but judging by these quotes, he seems like an unbearable pseud. He's one of those people who can say something nonsensical and make people believe it has meaning.
>so that it is humanity's servant, rather than humanity's master
What the fuck does this even mean? How could technology (barring a hypothetical artificial intelligence, which I don't think he's talking about) even hypothetically be "humanity's master"? If that were true, wouldn't that just make the people who control the technology humanity's master as opposed to the technology itself?

>>16925906
>Kaczynski
Could he be labeled a neoreactionary ?

>>16926699
Anyone who reads Curtis's blog with an eye towards historical evidence and healthy skepticism (that is, anyone intelligent) immediately sees he's a shameless sophist with no serious philosophy. His formula is to confidently state pseudo-profundities, and then criticize democracy. You will never see a blog post from him that carefully examines specific historical evidence and weighs alternate theories as it reaches a conclusion. Instead you get deepities like "Cthulhu may swim slowly. But he only swims left.", which upon cursory examination is false, but sure sounds interesting.

>>16926699
>the people who control the technology
They don't have to exist.
Take nuclear weapons. Their presence constrains behavior, even for people who have them. Mutually assured destruction is not fully under anyone's control.
But I don't know if that's what he means. I'm not subscribed to his mailing list.

>>16926768
>MAD example
But in that one, each person with nuclear weapons fears the other guys with nuclear weapons. The Americans fear the Russians, who fear the Chinese, etc. Therefore, another person's technology constrains behavior so long as they are willing to use it (ie, Argentina felt okay invading the Falkland Islands in spite of British nuclear weapons because they thought the British weren't willing to use their nuclear weapons over the Falklands). Therefore, (just like any other technology) the people who own the technology constrain the actions of others (even if multiple people are constraining multiple others).

>>16926735
>cthulhu may swim slowly. but he only swims left
that made me chuckle

>>16925904
>Land is way too continental for Moldbug

Oh it shows. Seriously though, Land is my favorite person of all time.

>>16925697
He's finally ready for Bookchin

>>16926791
The net effect is that the existence of the technology restricts what people can do, and they might even all wish it didn't exist but don't have the power to get rid of it. Describing that as technology being humanity's master is melodramatic but fair, I think.

>>16926699
Same way a drug can be someone's master. Jesus, are you being intentionally obtuse or are you just extremely shallow?

>>16926828

>>16926735
You know this is not true. Yes, his language might be unnecessarily flowery, but you can't seriously claim he has no serious philosophy.

>>16926878
>you can't seriously claim he has no serious philosophy
What is his serious philosophy?

>>16926878
He has a philosophy only in the sense that Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow have a philosophy. The only difference is that his grift is less successful than theirs.

>>16925737
3 deep 5 u?

>>16926893
Depends on which dimension we're talking about. He doesn't really outline his metaphysics for example, but I would describe him as an inegalitarian humanist ethically.

>>16925906
gotta love the irony of ted selling his books through amazon
does he still respond to his letters?

>>16926900
You're hilariously unfamiliar with his thought if you actually believe this.

>>16926913
>inegalitarian humanist ethically
What do you mean by that? What exactly does he believe the purpose of ethics even is? What are his positions on actual ethical issues? How should one act? What should be the basis for any individual action we take?
Neither "inegalitarian" nor "humanist" are really ethical positions.

>>16926557
>Ted was subjected to a procedure meant to make people insane. He went insane
this is such a dishonest leap.

>>16925697
Technology cannot be tamed or mastered. Every time some thinker says "yeah x happened, but we just have to tame and master x" it never happens. You can't reverse it.

>>16926699
not even defending moldfag but you're completely retarded if you don't understand what this means. This isn't some schizo idea he came up with, it's bordering on a platitude.

>>16926928
What he thinks the purpose of ethics is, I don't know, but that's going into metaethics. Otherwise I'd peg him as a consequentialist utilitarian.

>>16926966
That faggot you're replying to is the literal definition of midwit.

>>16926971
>I'd peg him as a consequentialist utilitarian
Does he even ever justify the utilitarianism you've thrust upon him? If not, then what has he written about philosophy (as opposed to about economics, sociology, history, etc.)

>>16926922
On the contrary, I've read his blog off and on for the better part of a decade. Again, if you read him with an eye specifically for the role historical evidence plays in his "analysis" (which is especially relevant given his strong claims of scholarship on the history of the 20th century), you will find the unremarkable pattern of appealing to the basic sympathies and dispositions of a totally uninformed audience, much like Maddow or Hannity. You will not find serious careful regard for anything like actual evidence. If you would like specific examples, try reading literally anything in his book "An Open Letter to Open-Minded Progressives", which is composed of vague gestures to the zeitgeist, links to books, and "analysis" of third-hand comments made in mainstream journalism (which he rightly recognizes as perverse, but himself does no better than).

>>16926910
I think he’s sort of an arrogant pseud.

>>16926983
Yes. Unfortunately I don't remember which post in UR it is, but he talks about it extensively in the 'dismal problem' chapter. He also discussed it in the first three posts of his Substack if you want something more recent.

>>16927003
Name a philosopher that isn't?

>>16926946
Nothing could have ever been stopped since the agricultural revolution when surplus became possible. Surplus is the resource that enables power and power produces more resource. History is a vector of power accumulation. Capitalism is only the system that at this point works best for power-accumulation, when a better alternative emerges, power will shed capitalism. The concentration of power is a far more unstoppable force than the concentration of capital. It is the lone source that drives history by weaponizing man's existence itself vis-a-vis the Other. Man exists only as a byproduct of a hierarchical relation to other man. Women are the tools by which power-relations and power-structure get promulgated. Women are not the hand of biological evolution but the invisible hand of power evolution which alone drives the entire history of man. The process that will produce total technological surveillance and total power of one man over entire Earth by this technology is inescapable and intimately correlated, the end point of human history is an immortal transhumanist God-Emperor-Man who will colonize other planets and become the God their inhabitants, his creation, worship.

Moldbug was better in 2009, or at least it felt more fresh. The more I read Gray Mirror, it sounds increasingly deranged and self-referencing. Still enjoyable and preferable to most but can be compelling to those not in on the jig.

>>16926946
>>16927015
You're missing Moldbug's point. He correctly points out that humans are in part made up of Capital. He doesn't propose we tame it, he proposes we align ourselves with it in a way that is more beneficial to both sides.

>>16927015
The explosion in quantity of cuckold porn only prefigures the inherent castration anxiety that most men feel and they feel it because they know that fundamentally one God-Emperor-Man will appropriate all resources (including women) to himself alone, he alone will be a free man and everyone else, should they want to live, will be in bondage. This power process is inescapable and both men and women suspect it in their fundamental nature, giving rise to the popularity of "terror porn": cuckolding, cheating, BBC invasion on the masculine side and rape fetishes, humiliation and degradation on the feminine side. Both men and women know that the coming of God-Emperor-Man that in a single person subjects the entire human race to himself is the natural end of the power-process that drives history and this is reflected in their sexual fantasies which are both anxieties about the coming God-Emperor-Man as well as coping mechanisms that would allow an individual to exist as a slave or a concubine in the coming Empire. All philosophers, all intellectuals circulate around this point, never daring to make the jump into the brute reality but instead ascribe these mechanisms to completely secular movements like capitalism, neoliberalism or totalitarianism.

>>16927042
>He doesn't propose we tame it, he proposes we align ourselves with it in a way that is more beneficial to both sides.

This is a total fantasy, a coping mechanism for what is coming. Moldbug is one of those thinkers like I described:>>16927059

He circulates around the point but does not dare to say it, perhaps does not dare even to think it.

>>16927066
Even if we assume that what you're saying is true, it doesn't mean it'll be one man or even a human. In conclusion, take your meds.

>>16925697
someone confirm this with me - moldbug is the type of guy who is really good at analysis and deconstruction, but only focuses on hyperspecific parts of post-9/11 america which makes him look like a brainlet. If he actually rigorously studied some basic texts and started looking through a leftist perspective so he could understand their position he could definitely form some kind of standard for 2020s right wing thought

>>16927059
Indeed even Marx was mistaken, his communism after capitalism phase a total fantasy, an error stemming from his mistake of thinking that history is materially driven instead of realizing that material developments are only in service of the power-process, which alone is the fundamental process in history. After capitalism, there will be no communism, in fact what will come will far more resemble what a Marxist would never expect: feudalism. Our new era is a technological feudalism, where our new God-Emperor-Man is both the king, the pope, and God in one person while other estates are done away with, replaced by a far more effective dispenser of Emperor's wishes that has no interests of his own: technology. This will be the final state of human development.

>>16927081
It will be a transhumanist fusion of man and machine with the goal of immortality. The driving process in history has for its teleological final cause man's self-divinization through technology. This has been predicted from the start by the first rebellion of Lucifer who fashioned himself like God and who as Prince of the Air commands human history through those who give over himself to him and man has done so from the start, from Adam. The only reason why this will not take place is because God will be victorious over God-Emperor-Man who is Antichrist. You might not choose to believe this, but do so at your own peril. Babbling philosophers do not understand what they are dealing with therefore they ascribe their theories to laughable secondary phenomena such as historical materialism or capitalism or neoliberalism and such secondary or even terciary things, symptoms not causes.

>>16927103
Lol this fuckin ideology is so stupid. Close the tab, Curtis.

>>16927012
peak pseud

>>16927090
He has. He's already done it. It's Illiberalism. That's really all there is to it. The Left wants to prop up Globohomo. Globohomo, by its very nature, is global. The Right wants to destroy Globohomo. The Right, by its very nature, is local. "Read Old Books". That's literally it. Pick your broader goal for criticizing Illiberalism and work from there.

Again, Read Old Books.

>>16925875
>masters of tech will unleash a new cultural golden age
Not a chance. Their taste consists of K-pop, ironic 80s revivalism, Nordic minimalism, Rick and Morty, Harry Potter, The West Wing, young adult literature, Star Wars, Star Trek, transhumanism, stardust atheism, and secular humanism.

>>16925904
this is way too accurate

>>16927090
Moldbug does not do analyze or deconstruct anything. He makes strong claims with no reference to supporting evidence, then links to a couple thousand pages of reading with no comment on what specific evidence is to found in it, then pulls a quote from a journalist (present or historical) who says something blindly ideological, which Moldbug then points out is arrogant and wrong. That's his template, you can reconstruct any of his writings on any subject using it.

>>16927015

Not sure if shitpost but I've been thinking along similar lines in regards to the power process and ideology being ultimately flexible and subservient to it. Recommended reads for the power pill?

>>16927558
Unironically leftists, Foucault and Marx.

>>16926557
still waiting for you to source all these claims

>>16927558
>>16927575
Power processes are just the result of human expectations of strength which are 99% of the time entirely aesthetics

>>16927608
Imagine believing aesthetics drives power. Aesthetics merely signals the potential exercise of real power, and the same "aesthetic" affected by the powerless becomes embarrassing and funny.

>>16925697
Based Kojima

>>16926557
does having a brain mean making shit up so you can keep pretending people like Ted aren't right?

>>16926988
lmao Moldcuck on suicide watch

>>16926735
This is exactly what I felt when I started reading his blog. He has a humorous laid back attitude and random critiques of modernity that a childish reader will consider cool and witty, but as I continued reading I didn't find any idea that interested me. He is simply a pretentious and less funny Sam Hyde, there is no great wisdom coming out of his mouth or fingers.

>>16926735
>>16927368
>>16927892
Butthurt progs and lefties disgruntled that one of them diagnosed their pretentious ideologies
as pathological pseudo religious bullshit.

>>16927973
Sorry Curtis, you're going to have to read one of those books you link if you want to substantiate your claims.

trying to say that moldbug have no historical references/knowledge only show dishonesty of the people who criticize him

>>16928024
Allow me to point you to a particularly enlightening passage, Curtis, that illustrates how I reached the conclusion that you do not actually present historical evidence for your claims. This is from Chapter 7 of "An Open Letter to Open-Minded Progressives":

>Instead, in the Union period or Third Republic, what was by 20th-century standards a remarkably limited government, but by 18th-century standards an almost omnipotent one, fell into the hands of ethnic machines, corrupt politicians, quasicriminal financiers, sinister wire-pullers, unscrupulous journalists, vested interests, and the like. History, which of course is always on the side of the winners, has written this down as the Gilded Age.

>For all its faults, the Gilded Age system created perhaps the most responsible and effective government in US history. Architecture is always a good clue to the nature of power, and Gilded Age buildings, where they still stand, are invariably decorative. The country’s prosperity and productivity was, of course, unmatched. Its laws were strict and strictly enforced—nothing like today’s festering ulcers of crime were imaginable.

This last point is a really striking claim about the crime rates of the past compared to today, and surely it will at least strike some of us as something that will be supported by historical evidence. After all, the Gilded age saw two presidential assassinations and multiple violent labor riots that involved the wholesale destruction of factories and the murders of police officers and rioters alike. But perhaps Curtis will show us some evidence that crime in general was, in fact, very low compared to today's "festering ulcers of crime".

Or, perhaps he'll pass over it with zero comment and instead link to some books with little indication to what specific evidence they present for his argument. This is what immediately follows:

>An English journalist of Tory bent, G. W. Steevens, wrote an excellent travelogue of Gilded Age America—The Land of the Dollar. (It’s very readable, especially if you don’t mind the N-word.) Steevens, in 1898, was unable to locate anything like a slum in New York City, and his intentions were not complimentary. It’s an interesting exercise to compare the hyperventilations of a Gilded Age social reformer like Jacob Riis—the title How The Other Half Lives may ring a bell—to the world of Sudhir Venkatesh. Riis’s tenement dwellers are sometimes less than well-scrubbed. They can be “slovenly.” They drink a lot of beer. Their apartments are small and have poor ventilation—ventilation, for some reason, seems to be a major concern. All these horrors still afflict the present-day residents of the Lower East Side, who are hardly in need of anyone’s charity.

Interesting!

>>16928112
>But the Gilded Age political system was, again, criminal. In other words, it was democratic. The old American system is probably best compared to the government of China today. While they evolved from very different origins, they have converged in that universal medium, corruption. Government serves as a profit center, but (unlike in neocameralism) the distribution of profits is informal. The dividends are fought over with a thousand nontransparent stratagems. Since China is not a democracy, vote-buying is not practiced there. It was certainly practiced here.

>And the bosses and plutocrats were not, by and large, cultured men. Sometimes I feel this is the main objection of their enemies. The American intellectual aristocracy simply could not tolerate a world in which their country was governed by these corrupt, boorish thugs. So, as aristocrats will, they plotted their revenge.

I would like us to take a moment to reflect on the statement "Sometimes I feel this is the main objection of their enemies." Who, in particular, are these "enemies" Curtis talks about? Do Steevens and Riis talk about bosses and plutocrats this way? Is he referring to elected officials in New York or DC? Is he talking about labor union leaders? Is he talking about Teddy Roosevelt and the early progressive party? And what, specifically, are the objections their enemies made that make Curtis "sometimes feel" this way?

>>16928171
Here he references a famous muckraker:

>Politically, the deepest roots of the present regime are found in the Liberal Republicans and the Mugwumps of the early Union period. The cause they are most associated with is civil service reform, which removed the President’s power to staff the civil service and replaced it with competitive examinations—which tended to select, of course, scions of said aristocracy.

>La Wik has many other discussions of early progressivism: the settlement movement, the Fabians, the muckrakers. You were probably exposed to large doses of this in your 11th-grade civics class. (If you are still in 11th-grade civics class, take an extra hit for this material. You’ll need it.)

>It is interesting to go back and read, say, Lincoln Steffens, today. Unfortunately Google Books has failed us on his Shame of the Cities, but here is a sample. And Steffens’ Autobiography (really a series of rants drawn loosely from his life) is easily obtainable. What comes through is, most of all, a tremendous sense of smugness and arrogance. Steffens, for example, will be talking to Teddy Roosevelt. A close personal friend. But the Pres doesn’t always take Steffens’ advice. He compromises, sometimes. That’s because he’s weak, or ignorant, or corrupt, or maybe all three.

It is an interesting fact that Curtis decides the single piece of evidence he will present is that Steffens is smug towards Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt is the future founder and leader of the progressive party and famously championed reforms that ended the Gilded Age and began the so-called Progressive Era. Surely he counts as an enemy of the plutocrats. Perhaps Curtis will examine why and how Roosevelt opposed "the plutocrats"?

>>16925887
His reason was something about not wanting to be influenced by people who are responding to his ideas with their own so he can stay original or whatever.

>>16928224

But of course not. Curtis will instead take note of the fact that another journalist supported Lenin.

>Steffens’ tone only works if you think of him as the underdog. But underdogs are infrequently found in the Oval Office, and hindsight indeed shows us that this underdog won. Which makes him the overdog. And while its long-departed ghost is easily recognizable in the rhetoric of, say, a Michael Moore, a brief glance at Steffens’ work will show you that nothing like the political tradition he is attacking exists in the world today. (To the extent that there are ethnic political machines, they are firmly in the hands of Steffens’ successors.)

>Whereas Steffens’ tradition has flourished. He was the mentor, for example, of Walter Lippmann. If you traced the social network of modern journalism, all the lines would go back to Steffens and his cronies. And the lines lead overseas, as well: Steffens went to Russia in 1919, and he loved it.

Take a step back and ask what thesis is here. Compare two statements mere paragraphs apart:

>For all its faults, the Gilded Age system created perhaps the most responsible and effective government in US history.
>...
>But the Gilded Age political system was, again, criminal. In other words, it was democratic.

If this position confuses you, you should become even more confused when Curtis literally does not present a single source concerning the actual plutocrats or political leaders, but instead focuses entirely on journalists who documented living conditions (or said nice things about Lenin). Where is the support for his claims about the political effectiveness of the Gilded Age system? Where is the examination of the "enemies of the plutocrats" like Roosevelt and other New York aristocrats? Where is the evidence supporting his claims about crime rates?

As I said above: Curtis makes sweeping political claims, links to some books without indication to how the support his thesis, and then attacks some journalists.

>>16925747
Serves you right for being a phoneposter

>>16925697
what the fuck is he hinting at? that we need UBI?

>>16928506
Read him and find out

>>16925904
ding

>>16927558
Nietzsche and Deleuze obviously

>>16927558
>Not sure if shitpost

I'm shitposting but I'm also not shitposting. It's at the edge of shitposting but containing enough crumbs of truth to place the reader into a state of anxiety and questioning. Not sure I can advise you on what to read because my thought on this does not come from any specific readings.

>>16928793
Your shilling is so tiresome.

>>16927575
This would not be enough unless you understand that even thought which might describe the power process is itself a part of power process. With Marx especially this is pretty clear. Marxism appeared as a historical necessity as a byproduct of the historical power process. There is no ideology opposed to the power process except Christ's sacrifice on the cross. One could make an argument that the codification of this sacrifice through dogma and councils and philosophy is not unlike the failure of Jews that preceded Christ's crucifixion. Would the historical papacy accept Jesus Christ if he came into the world or would they turn out to be just another Pharisaical sect? Therefore there are only two processes historically, the process of the Prince of the Power of the Air and the process of God. Man's condition is to be by his Fall to be exposed to both of these, with the modern tendency being that it seeks to interpret the only power they see, the power process of the Prine of the Power of the Air, which leads them to faulty conclusions, a symptomatic criticism which manifests in criticism of capitalism, neoliberalism, extremists, racism and so forth. The expulsion of Holy Spirit from history in the French Revolution and Enlightenment has removed our ability to treat the problem at its fundamental level. The New Age of humanity will then be a Church cleaned of accumulation of plaque from its historical power-process and a restoration of Holy Spirit. When this happens, the symptoms which plague humanity today will then "magically" heal themselves.

>>16925697
“Resource cursed” countries coincidentally have their government overthrown by US and other western powers to be replaced by brutal dictators and puppets who sell their resources for pennies to western companies. Either that or they get put under brutal economic sanctions by western countries for resisting.

Economists: No, is the resource curse

Yeah.

>>16929178
Fucking thank you.

omfg! another standard anti-Land approach to technology.
WOWIE! glad we get even more of this crap. Maybe if we get double the current pseuds to say the same thing we repeat ad nauseum we finally will have the impact we desire (we wont) and not need to find more people to agree with us by spam,ming our horseshit everywhere.
>>16926634
>canadian phonebook
i would like to know this as well

>>16926928
It means that egalitarianism is an engine of human evil

>>16925739
>>16925887
Which interview was this?

>>16929495
His first Malice interview on YT IIRC

>>16925875
>The masters of tech will unleash a new cultural golden age.
Should I tell him?

>>16926460
True, there’s literally posts of his on unqualified reservations responding to the comments - quite a few of them. I was very confused when he made that claim. I still find his work enormously valuable, he is a genuinely important thinker and writer

>>16929757
>I still find his work enormously valuable, he is a genuinely important thinker and writer

I find it remarkable that people reach this conclusion. The argument that democracy breeds chaos and demagoguery is made by the foundational thinkers of the Western tradition, literally every single person who's read a bit is exposed to this perspective. Curtis writes as though he expects his audience to know only things they saw on basic cable or YouTube, and his arguments are well suited to such an audience.

>>16929808
Dude, the entirety of America and the west believes in Democracy with an exuberant, zealous religious faith. It doesn’t matter if you already know that. The mark of a triggered person is anyone who says “wow, this isn’t original at all, I’ve heard this! I’m smarter than this material, he isn’t saying anything new!”
Critique what’s being said or fuck off. Mind you he also wrote all of this in 2008 when nobody was thinking about this stuff. In addition, he uses the “foundational thinkers of the western tradition” to further his arguments and use them in new ways that relate to our current situation. “I’ve heard this before” isn’t an argument yet it’s the one almost all of the dissenters in this thread have made with the exception of one

>>16929808
Where do you see him making claims to novelty in his rejection of democracy? I've barely read him, but it seems he rests his credibility not on novelty, but rather on the arguments having been made before.

His more novel arguments are about what comes after, but I haven't read these and I don't know if he presents them as a derived truth or as spitballing.

>>16929808
https://web.archive.org/web/20190131142410/http://moldbuggery.blogspot.com

That's a list of articles on his old blog, with references. Tell me, how many YT videos do you see?

>>16926447
Most people on 4chins could probably be described as /armigercore/

>>16930094
You can refer to my running example in this thread, the 14 chapter blogpost "An Open Letter to Open-Minded Progressives". Go ahead and read Chapter 1, the thing has to be close to 9000 words. In it, he speaks directly to an audience who he characterizes as thinking "Republicans bad, Democrats good!" and spends a great deal of time skirting around but *never yet addressing* his actual thesis, which is that democarcy is problematic. Just look at this stuff:

>Where does this idea that, if NPR is wrong, Fox News must be right, come from? They can’t both be right, because they contradict each other. But couldn’t they both be wrong? I don’t mean slightly wrong, I don’t mean each is half right and each is half wrong, I don’t mean the truth is somewhere between them, I mean neither of them has any consistent relationship to reality.

>Let’s think about this for a second. As a progressive, you believe—you must believe—that conservatism is a mass delusion. What an extraordinary thing! A hundred-plus million people, many quite dull but some remarkably intelligent, all acting under a kind of mass hypnosis. We take this for granted. We are used to it. But we have to admit that it’s really, really weird.

>What you have to believe is that conservatives have been systematically misinformed. They are not stupid—at least not all of them. Nor are they evil. You can spend all the time you want on townhall.com, and you will not find anyone cackling like Gollum over their evil plan to enslave and destroy the world. They all think, just like you, that by being conservatives they are standing up for what’s sweet and good and true.

All of this is building up to the absolutely mundane thesis that American liberalism, just like conservativism, is a political organization that requires drumming up support among the masses by presenting information that portrays itself favorably, and that this does not necessarily mean they tell the truth. What could his target audience be other than people with zero exposure to basic political philosophy? I cannot think of a single self-styled "progressive" I know who would not immediately agree that it is *obvious* that political organizations are not truth-seeking.

>>16931033
I did not say he references YouTube videos. I said he speaks to his audience as though they do not have any exposure to anything outside things like YT--that is, he speaks to them as though they have never heard of elementary ideas such as outlined here >>16931207

>>16929958
>Critique what’s being said or fuck off.

This is honestly just funny, because I wrote a lengthy and highly specific critique of the structure of his argument and the use of sources here:

>>16928112
>>16928171
>>16928224
>>16928339

And every single one of you ignored it

>>16931207
A Gentle Introduction to Unqualified Reservations is much more sophisticated and representative of Moldbug's thought. If you want to understand him, read that one.
>I cannot think of a single self-styled "progressive" I know who who would not immediately agree that it is *obvious* that political organizations are not truth seeking

Would a single self styled progressive immediately agree that the entirety of the apparatus that controls both policy and public opinion has been completely dominated, controlled and operated by Progressivism since 1933 if not far earlier, and that the history of the United States is the history of uninterrupted leftist victories, including the American Revolution?

>>16931207
Again, there's no claim of novelty here so its lack of novelty isn't an objection. I read The Machiavellians on his rec and it's from 60 years ago saying the same stuff. Where's the con? It just sounds like in your quote he's speaking to normies and trying to deprogram them.
>he speaks to his audience as though they do not have any exposure to anything outside things like YT
Most people haven't -- maybe that's who he's trying to recruit.

>>16925892
He has been shipped for years by the same autists. Don't get your hopes up for it stopping anytime soon.

>>16931243
>A Gentle Introduction to Unqualified Reservations is much more sophisticated and representative of Moldbug's thought. If you want to understand him, read that one.

I have read dozens of Curtis's blogposts over the years, long before he started shilling them here and using the word "based" in his posts. I understand him.

>Would a single self styled progressive immediately agree that the entirety of the apparatus that controls both policy and public opinion has been completely dominated, controlled and operated by Progressivism since 1933 if not far earlier, and that the history of the United States is the history of uninterrupted leftist victories, including the American Revolution?

No, they quite clearly wouldn't. And only Curtis's amorphous notion of "progressivism" could justify such a claim. Perhaps the most telling illustration of Curtis's reliance on the reader's ignorance is his very brief characterization of Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent. It is a very obvious touchstone of the left, and it speaks directly to the propaganda role of the media that occupies a central place in Curtis's "Cathedral". One would expect, then, that if he intends to speak to the left, he would address the differences in how they perceive this media propaganda to take place, and who they serve--especially because he specifically identifies himself as the anti-Chomsky. What does he have to say about Manufacturing Consent?

>What you'll see is that Chomsky is, in every case, demanding that all political power be in the hands of the Cathedral.
...
>Which set of individuals exerts more influence over American journalists? American professors, or American CEOs? ... The answer is clearly the former.

I mean, this stuff is so thinly argued I'm not even sure how to reply to it.

>>16931280
>It just sounds like in your quote he's speaking to normies and trying to deprogram them.
>...
>Most people haven't -- maybe that's who he's trying to recruit.

But this is precisely what I criticized him for--using arguments that are extremely scant on specific historical evidence, and leaning heavily on the political naivety of his audience. If you want to see a specific illustration of how bad his historical arguments are, once again, I refer you to my sequence of posts that starts here >>16928112, where I look at a passage and show how its sources are totally disconnected from the argument it makes.

>>16931340
Those two statements from Yarvin regarding Chomsky are not at odds. Moldbug argues that it is not the State that has real political power in America, but the media, education system and universities first and foremost that are in control - they are what dictate policy which is in turn carried out by the civil service, not congress or the White House, which have no power. Chomsky believes, falsely, that the latter are in charge and that the media is simply their lapdog which drums up support for the government’s decisions. Chomsky would prefer that intellectuals, experts and universities would instead dictate policy - what he doesn’t realize is that they already do, and already have.

>>16931458
Sorry if I wasn't clear--I didn't mean to imply that those statements were contradictory. What I thought was clear was how simplistic they are. Chomsky wants "all political power" in the hands of journalists and professors? I would surely like Curtis to at least present some passages to this effect. They don't strike me as statements that are intended to persuade someone who has actually read Manufacturing Consent.

>>16931518
>what I thought was clear was how simplistic they are
Again, who gives a fuck? Your argument against moldbug is that you're already familiar with what he says? He even admitted in a recent video that much of what he wrote in unqualified reservations is now very familiar to many people. You argument is
>This isn't even deep!

Give me an example of a thinker from the past 20 years whom you consider to be profound and insightful. Post a short passage.

>>16931566
I have now three times pointed directly to specific criticisms of the historical analysis in this very thread.

>>16928112
>>16928171
>>16928224
>>16928339

The fact that you assiduously ignore it is telling.

>>16931584
I stand corrected. I don't have any counter argument to those specific criticisms and they do appear to demonstrate a poor argumentation in those specific passages. All I can recommend is to read a gentle introduction to unqualified reservations, I suspect you will find its historical basis to be more convincing.

he jewish

>>16931752
Yeah?

>>16931846
yeah

>>16925697
>Your task is not to defeat technology, but to tame and harness it—so that it is humanity’s servant, not humanity’s master
how presumptuous.

>>16925739
>Never read him according to a recent-ish interview
amazing he wouldn't read his biggest supporter after Peter Thiel. the more I hear from him the less I give a shit. how was Neoreaction allowed to persist without massive criticism from within the right wing?

>>16926735
>"Cthulhu may swim slowly. But he only swims left.",
Well there are no monarchies left in the West(real ones) so it seems like it is accurate

>>16926862
this is my favorite tweet of all time

>>16927012
not that anon, but Kant

>>16931899
Oh no, Muldbug’s stupid.

>>16925697
Did any of you moldbugfags read the other nrx guys back in the day? I thought some of them were actually more interesting than him, especially Spandrell, Handle, and blogjim. There were a bunch of other people but I've forgotten their names.

Blumpf

>>16925875
>The masters of tech will unleash a new cultural golden age

Oh it will be a cultural age alright, just not a golden one

>>16931928
You know what's interesting? Last year Thiel was at Bilderberg for the first time ever.

>>16932061
Spandrell is interesting but also some of the ideas i already readed somewhere else
https://spandrell.com/2017/11/14/biological-leninism/

>>16926557
>canadian phonebooking
come again?

>>16925875
>The masters of tech will unleash a new cultural golden age.
Tech destroys culture. It doesn't engender it

>>16926557
sounds like me on /lit/ everyday, and I turned out fine!

>>16931236
>This is honestly just funny, because I wrote a lengthy and highly specific critique of the structure of his argument and the use of sources
haven't posted in this thread up til now but just wanna let u know i appreciate u, based critical effortposter
t. moldbug reader, moderate fan

>>16933640
Honestly the same criticisms could be leveled against most public thinkers. Pick up a Chomsky book and you'll get the exact same problems. It's autistic to, for example, demand multiple proofs for every claim. Still, I also appreciate effort posting. I'd even respond to it in equal detail if imageboards didn't ruin my attention span.

>>16933862
Right, because public thinkers have to appeal to the lowest common denominator. But at the same time, taking something that is complicated and explaining it in lay terms is a rare skill that should be appreciated, no matter if you agree/disagree with the thinker's core message. At the very least, it opens people up to new lines of thinking. As an example: even though Moldbug's arguments may be hit or miss in terms of rigor used to justify them, because of his writing, I started reading the work of other thinkers (Baudrillard, Deleuze, Foucault).

Bump

>>16934370
Honestly, Moldbug(according to himself at least) wasn't really writing for anybody other than himself - at least in the beginning. It makes sense - his tone is very screed-y in the first few UR posts.