PYF Dark Enlightenment Thinker

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Alien Arcana: Feb 14, 2012; You're related to soup, Admiral.

Wait, what are the gray and red tribes?

# ? Jul 16, 2015 21:15

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# ? May 9, 2024 13:20

The Vosgian Beast: Aug 13, 2011; Business is slow

Alien Arcana posted:

Wait, what are the gray and red tribes?

Someone who's read more SSC than I have can probably give a more accurate account of this, but you know in America, states that tend to vote Republican are called "red states" and states that tend to vote Democrat are called "blue states"?

Well, some Less Wrong people, in their drive to feel superior, begin to refer to Republicans and Democrats as "the red tribe" and "the blue tribe" in partial analogy to a pair of feuding chariot teams in Ancient Rome whose conflicts caused riots and affected politics.

Then Scott decided he and his friends were beyond the left/right axis and created the term "gray tribe" to classify the magical smart unclassifiable people like him and the Homestuck Fascist.

# ? Jul 16, 2015 21:35

point of return: Aug 13, 2011; by exmarx

I thought "gray tribe" was just supposed to be Libertarians.

# ? Jul 16, 2015 21:57

The Vosgian Beast: Aug 13, 2011; Business is slow

point of return posted:

I thought "gray tribe" was just supposed to be Libertarians.

Pretty much yeah.

# ? Jul 16, 2015 22:03

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

"The intersection of libertarians and monarchists" is both 1. the perfect description of neoreaction, 2. an oxymoron.

It is awesome. If a novelist had come up with this poo poo, we'd call him a fantasy writer with too much imagination.

# ? Jul 16, 2015 22:05

Woolie Wool: Jun 2, 2006

The Vosgian Beast posted:

There's a difference between smart and evil.

Why are they mutually exclusive properties? Come to think of it the fact that brilliant people can also be utterly evil and do horrendous things was the #1 theme of the book series Yudkowsky wrote his obnoxious fanfic opus for and the whole uber-rationalist crowd seem not to have noticed. :laugh:

E: it's not just a theme, the wand shop guy spells it out in plain English early in the very first book.

E #2: gently caress you phone autocorrect

Woolie Wool has a new favorite as of 22:55 on Jul 16, 2015

# ? Jul 16, 2015 22:52

Woolie Wool: Jun 2, 2006

Cingulate posted:

"The intersection of libertarians and monarchists" is both 1. the perfect description of neoreaction, 2. an oxymoron.

It is awesome. If a novelist had come up with this poo poo, we'd call him a fantasy writer with too much imagination.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confederacy_Of_Dunces

Someone did just that in the 1960s.

# ? Jul 16, 2015 22:58

Aerial Tollhouse: Feb 17, 2011

Here's a pretty good paper about some of the ways that Libertarianism conflicts with liberal democracy and has a history of monarchism. Walter Block, libertarian hero, explains why this all fine and dandy, just like how he explained child labor, slavery, and extortion are all good things.

# ? Jul 16, 2015 23:15

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

I mean, you could easily have a monarch who takes a completely libertarian approach. There's nothing about the structure of government under monarchy that precludes having very lax laws (except about poaching a deer in the King's forest)

# ? Jul 17, 2015 00:05

The Vosgian Beast: Aug 13, 2011; Business is slow

I like to imagine Moldbug listens to this song and mourns for the utopian form of society it's talking about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUpTJg2EBpw

# ? Jul 17, 2015 00:16

A Festivus Miracle: Dec 19, 2012; I have come to discourse on the profound inequities of the American political system.

There isn't anything inherently bad about a monarchist government that necessarily precludes democracy. What DE morons want is someone who is literally like Hitler, Mussolini, insert fascist dictator here (Admiral Horthy comes to mind). They just won't admit it.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 00:43

Dr Pepper: Feb 4, 2012; Don't like it? well...

Theoretically a purely benevolent monarchy is the perfect form of government. This perfect Philosopher King would have only the best interests of the people at heart.

Of course, then reality sets in and such a person isn't around. So some form of democracy is the best bet.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 01:44

Curvature of Earth: Sep 9, 2011; Projected cost of
invading Canada:
$900

neonnoodle posted:

I mean, you could easily have a monarch who takes a completely libertarian approach. There's nothing about the structure of government under monarchy that precludes having very lax laws (except about poaching a deer in the King's forest)

A monarch is a private landowner and his state a corporation. It's not "taxes", it's rent.

Like in any proper capitalist society, weak businesses fail and strong ones survive. (Please ignore the fact that 75% of businesses fail within two decades, and that failure in a libertarian state equals civil wars, massive public health crises, and (gasp!) revolutions seeking to destroy glorious Libertopia and replace it with unnatural statist nonsense like "voting" and "rights" for the inferior peasants.)

# ? Jul 17, 2015 01:48

Merdifex: May 13, 2015; by Shine

The Vosgian Beast posted:

Then Scott decided he and his friends were beyond the left/right axis and created the term "gray tribe" to classify the magical smart unclassifiable people like him and the Homestuck Fascist.

Never understood why Scott thinks that NRx is not classifiable as either right or left. Even Moldbug had no illusions about that and was proud of being as right as right can be.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 01:54

The Vosgian Beast: Aug 13, 2011; Business is slow

Dr Pepper posted:

Theoretically a purely benevolent monarchy is the perfect form of government. This perfect Philosopher King would have only the best interests of the people at heart.

Of course, then reality sets in and such a person isn't around. So some form of democracy is the best bet.

I'm waiting until one of them goes full Plato's Republic and starts demanding the exile of artists from society.

I already saw one of them describe Qin Shi Huang as someone who "Found a good solution to the problem of destabilizing intellectuals"

# ? Jul 17, 2015 02:35

Ellie Crabcakes: Feb 1, 2008; Stop emailing my boyfriend Gay Crungus

Curvature of Earth posted:

A monarch is a private landowner and his state a corporation. It's not "taxes", it's rent.

Maybe in one or two very specific instances, but not usually.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 02:44

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

The Vosgian Beast posted:

I'm waiting until one of them goes full Plato's Republic and starts demanding the exile of artists from society.

I already saw one of them describe Qin Shi Huang as someone who "Found a good solution to the problem of destabilizing intellectuals"

Are you loving kidding me. Who looks at Qin and goes 'Yeah, those were excellent ideas?'

# ? Jul 17, 2015 02:49

Toph Bei Fong: Feb 29, 2008

Night10194 posted:

Are you loving kidding me. Who looks at Qin and goes 'Yeah, those were excellent ideas?'

Someone who brags about the results of their online IQ and Myers-Briggs tests.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 03:19

The Vosgian Beast: Aug 13, 2011; Business is slow

Well it's partly a "hee hee this is so NAUGHTY and TRANSGRESSIVE" thing that they can get away with because it was done by a man who died thousands of years ago instead of a more modern tyrant.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 03:45

sub supau: Aug 28, 2007

Toph Bei Fong posted:

Someone who brags about the results of their online IQ and Myers-Briggs tests.

Mods?

# ? Jul 17, 2015 04:03

Curvature of Earth: Sep 9, 2011; Projected cost of
invading Canada:
$900

Dr Pepper posted:

So some form of democracy is the best bet.

Actually, I think it's possible to have a good government without democracy. :words:

ahead. I've put far too much thought into this.

While NRx take "remove democracy" to mean "concentrate all power in the individual head of state", I go the other way: extend the conventions of the civil service that normally govern all the lower-level non-appointed workers up to the very top.

The civil service is actually more democratic than elected officials: you can't attend a family reunion without tripping over a dozen people who work in the government, be they secretaries, civil engineers, teachers, and so on. But you can go your whole life without ever meeting a single elected official.

Teachers have a drat good idea what methods for teaching kids work and don't work, and they know drat well what resources they need to do so. Remove elected officials from the picture and let those who are most qualified set policies. Same goes for civil engineers.

Oppression of minorities? (After all, traffic engineers did think it was a great idea to bulldoze predominantly black and poor neighborhoods to build the national highway system.) There are already a shitload of investigative, auditing, and regulatory departments and committees aimed at individual parts of the government. Give their enforcement powers actual teeth and let them do their job. We could also instate affirmative action, to the point of full-blown quotas. Forcing the government to accurately reflect the demographics of the people it's governing would go a long way towards fixing institutional prejudice.

Won't race/gender/religious/etc staffing quotas fill the government with incompetents? Actually, no. Provided they actually like their own jobs, the vast majority of people can be made competent by providing sufficient training and resources. The "best and brightest" make up a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the workforce. Providing the right conditions workers need to thrive in their jobs is vastly more important than hiring the best people.

There, I just put more thought into how a functional post-democracy government would work than dozens of wannabe monarchists.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 04:18

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

Merdifex posted:

Never understood why Scott thinks that NRx is not classifiable as either right or left. Even Moldbug had no illusions about that and was proud of being as right as right can be.

It's not that they aren't right-wing, it's that they don't fit into the cultural category Scott associates with typical Republicans, ie, they're educated, not necessarily religious, don't drive pickup trucks.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 04:33

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

Curvature of Earth posted:

Actually, I think it's possible to have a good government without democracy. ahead. I've put far too much thought into this.

While NRx take "remove democracy" to mean "concentrate all power in the individual head of state", I go the other way: extend the conventions of the civil service that normally govern all the lower-level non-appointed workers up to the very top.

The civil service is actually more democratic than elected officials: you can't attend a family reunion without tripping over a dozen people who work in the government, be they secretaries, civil engineers, teachers, and so on. But you can go your whole life without ever meeting a single elected official.

Teachers have a drat good idea what methods for teaching kids work and don't work, and they know drat well what resources they need to do so. Remove elected officials from the picture and let those who are most qualified set policies. Same goes for civil engineers.

Oppression of minorities? (After all, traffic engineers did think it was a great idea to bulldoze predominantly black and poor neighborhoods to build the national highway system.) There are already a shitload of investigative, auditing, and regulatory departments and committees aimed at individual parts of the government. Give their enforcement powers actual teeth and let them do their job. We could also instate affirmative action, to the point of full-blown quotas. Forcing the government to accurately reflect the demographics of the people it's governing would go a long way towards fixing institutional prejudice.

Won't race/gender/religious/etc staffing quotas fill the government with incompetents? Actually, no. Provided they actually like their own jobs, the vast majority of people can be made competent by providing sufficient training and resources. The "best and brightest" make up a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the workforce. Providing the right conditions workers need to thrive in their jobs is vastly more important than hiring the best people.

There, I just put more thought into how a functional post-democracy government would work than dozens of wannabe monarchists.

IIRC Moldbug essentially believes that civil servants run the government in practice already, and that's the problem.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 04:37

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Curvature of Earth posted:

Actually, I think it's possible to have a good government without democracy. ahead. I've put far too much thought into this.

While NRx take "remove democracy" to mean "concentrate all power in the individual head of state", I go the other way: extend the conventions of the civil service that normally govern all the lower-level non-appointed workers up to the very top.

The civil service is actually more democratic than elected officials: you can't attend a family reunion without tripping over a dozen people who work in the government, be they secretaries, civil engineers, teachers, and so on. But you can go your whole life without ever meeting a single elected official.

Teachers have a drat good idea what methods for teaching kids work and don't work, and they know drat well what resources they need to do so. Remove elected officials from the picture and let those who are most qualified set policies. Same goes for civil engineers.

Oppression of minorities? (After all, traffic engineers did think it was a great idea to bulldoze predominantly black and poor neighborhoods to build the national highway system.) There are already a shitload of investigative, auditing, and regulatory departments and committees aimed at individual parts of the government. Give their enforcement powers actual teeth and let them do their job. We could also instate affirmative action, to the point of full-blown quotas. Forcing the government to accurately reflect the demographics of the people it's governing would go a long way towards fixing institutional prejudice.

Won't race/gender/religious/etc staffing quotas fill the government with incompetents? Actually, no. Provided they actually like their own jobs, the vast majority of people can be made competent by providing sufficient training and resources. The "best and brightest" make up a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the workforce. Providing the right conditions workers need to thrive in their jobs is vastly more important than hiring the best people.

There, I just put more thought into how a functional post-democracy government would work than dozens of wannabe monarchists.

Engaging too much in this line of thinking might be a bit ofa derail, but that sounds like how the USSR and many other Socialist/Communist countries used to do things. They were complete failures, as "Dark Enlightenment" "thinkers" will be eager to point out.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 04:37

StandardVC10: Feb 6, 2007; This avatar now 50% more dark mode compliant

John Big Booty posted:

Maybe in one or two very specific instances, but not usually.

You need to think more like a libertarian, to whom all of existence can be boiled down to property rights and transactions.

Actually, don't do that.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 04:40

Merdifex: May 13, 2015; by Shine

Silver2195 posted:

It's not that they aren't right-wing, it's that they don't fit into the cultural category Scott associates with typical Republicans, ie, they're educated, not necessarily religious, don't drive pickup trucks.

You mean they don't signal being right-wing, and thus aren't really right-wing. Here's Scott's whole thing. He doesn't base his bullshit categories on what these people actually think and write about.

He can't even bring himself to criticize them anymore. He's basically abandoned his lengthy refutation of NRx ideas, too.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 04:51

Tiberius Thyben: Feb 7, 2013; Gone Phishing

Night10194 posted:

Are you loving kidding me. Who looks at Qin and goes 'Yeah, those were excellent ideas?'

Well, Mao Zedong did :v:

# ? Jul 17, 2015 07:17

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Tiberius Thyben posted:

Well, Mao Zedong did .

And the whole 'send all the young students to go do hard labor in the mountains' idea didn't work out much better, if I recall.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 07:19

Pope Guilty: Nov 6, 2006; The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty.

Night10194 posted:

And the whole 'send all the young students to go do hard labor in the mountains' idea didn't work out much better, if I recall.

I dunno, it seems like everybody who manages a particular sort of job ought to have at least some experience with the reality of it.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 07:28

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Pope Guilty posted:

I dunno, it seems like everybody who manages a particular sort of job ought to have at least some experience with the reality of it.

It works out a bit worse when you exile them permanently and demand they never return to their education because any kind of college will bring 'bourgeois sentiment'.

I am not an expert in Chinese history, but from what I do know, if it was a policy relating to winning a revolutionary war, Mao was a genius. If it was a policy related to economic and cultural development after the war, he was nuts.

Night10194 has a new favorite as of 07:37 on Jul 17, 2015

# ? Jul 17, 2015 07:34

Ellie Crabcakes: Feb 1, 2008; Stop emailing my boyfriend Gay Crungus

StandardVC10 posted:

You need to think more like a libertarian, to whom all of existence can be boiled down to property rights and transactions.

Actually, don't do that.

No chance of that. I'm going Sovereign Citizen. Should you quote me again, you will be subject to my fee schedule.

[edit] To be paid immediately with only purestrain gold.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 07:35

Pope Guilty: Nov 6, 2006; The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty.

Night10194 posted:

It works out a bit worse when you exile them permanently and demand they never return to their education because any kind of college will bring 'bourgeois sentiment'.

I am not an expert in Chinese history, but from what I do know, if it was a policy relating to winning a revolutionary war, Mao was a genius. If it was a policy related to economic and cultural development after the war, he was nuts.

That's weird, I generally associate MLism with favoring educated administrators. OTOH my understanding of Maoism generally is much weaker.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 07:43

Tiberius Thyben: Feb 7, 2013; Gone Phishing

Pope Guilty posted:

That's weird, I generally associate MLism with favoring educated administrators. OTOH my understanding of Maoism generally is much weaker.

Maoists tend to know very little about Mao, too, so you aren't alone.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 07:56

Gum: Mar 9, 2008; _{oho, a rapist

time to try this puppy out}

Tiberius Thyben posted:

Maoists tend to know very little about Mao, too, so you aren't alone.

really? my experience with real life maoists is that they tend to have everything said or done by the guy completely memorized and are very happy to tell you all about it in great detail, whether you want them to or not

# ? Jul 17, 2015 08:34

eschaton: Mar 7, 2007; Don't you just hate when you wind up in a store with people who are in a socioeconomic class that is pretty obviously about two levels lower than your own?

coyo7e posted:

Really? I never really delved into it, my first brush with it was in a copy of Snow Crash that came boxed with a tank videogame I got in the early 90s.. Do you have any sources I can check out, I'd be really interested thanks!

The game would be Spectre VR for the Macintosh, which I worked on.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 09:06

The Time Dissolver: Nov 7, 2012; Are you a good person?

eschaton posted:

The game would be Spectre VR for the Macintosh, which I worked on.

poo poo, I played the hell out of that. Honored to speak to you.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 09:56

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

The Vosgian Beast posted:

Someone who's read more SSC than I have can probably give a more accurate account of this, but you know in America, states that tend to vote Republican are called "red states" and states that tend to vote Democrat are called "blue states"?

Well, some Less Wrong people, in their drive to feel superior, begin to refer to Republicans and Democrats as "the red tribe" and "the blue tribe" in partial analogy to a pair of feuding chariot teams in Ancient Rome whose conflicts caused riots and affected politics.

I'm not at all familiar with the SSC backstory for the terms, but based on this description it sounds like a reference to the chariot teams of Constantinople, not Rome. The teams were identified by colour (Blues, Greens, Whites, and Reds), had fanatical and highly organised fans, and conflict among them led to the Nika Riots, which resulted in nearly half of the city being burnt to the ground.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 10:40

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Dr Pepper posted:

Theoretically a purely benevolent monarchy is the perfect form of government. This perfect Philosopher King would have only the best interests of the people at heart.

Curvature of Earth posted:

Actually, I think it's possible to have a good government without democracy. ahead. I've put far too much thought into this.

While NRx take "remove democracy" to mean "concentrate all power in the individual head of state", I go the other way: extend the conventions of the civil service that normally govern all the lower-level non-appointed workers up to the very top.

The civil service is actually more democratic than elected officials: you can't attend a family reunion without tripping over a dozen people who work in the government, be they secretaries, civil engineers, teachers, and so on. But you can go your whole life without ever meeting a single elected official.

Teachers have a drat good idea what methods for teaching kids work and don't work, and they know drat well what resources they need to do so. Remove elected officials from the picture and let those who are most qualified set policies. Same goes for civil engineers.

Oppression of minorities? (After all, traffic engineers did think it was a great idea to bulldoze predominantly black and poor neighborhoods to build the national highway system.) There are already a shitload of investigative, auditing, and regulatory departments and committees aimed at individual parts of the government. Give their enforcement powers actual teeth and let them do their job. We could also instate affirmative action, to the point of full-blown quotas. Forcing the government to accurately reflect the demographics of the people it's governing would go a long way towards fixing institutional prejudice.

Won't race/gender/religious/etc staffing quotas fill the government with incompetents? Actually, no. Provided they actually like their own jobs, the vast majority of people can be made competent by providing sufficient training and resources. The "best and brightest" make up a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the workforce. Providing the right conditions workers need to thrive in their jobs is vastly more important than hiring the best people.

There, I just put more thought into how a functional post-democracy government would work than dozens of wannabe monarchists.

The point of democracy is not that it's the best model for selecting optimal policies (and it's not easy to decide what is good or optimal government as a lot of it is fundamentally about values).

If you do not understand this, it's you: you're the reactionary.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 12:26

The Vosgian Beast: Aug 13, 2011; Business is slow

Gawker did something super-lovely yesterday, so be prepared for reactos being smug as hell about it.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 12:38

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# ? May 9, 2024 13:20

sub supau: Aug 28, 2007

The Vosgian Beast posted:

Gawker did something super-lovely yesterday, so be prepared for reactos being smug as hell about it.

I'm def. not reading loving Gawker, so you want to be a little less coy?

# ? Jul 17, 2015 13:09

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