GoneWithTheTornado posted:

The Awl recently put out an article about the dork enlightment, with emphasis on Nick Land: http://www.theawl.com/2015/09/good-luck-to-human-kind

I'm not too convinced by the conclusion that NRx might become a serious, popular movement.

quote:

TREEFINDER computes phylogenetic trees from molecular sequences.

License change in October 2015:

Starting from 1st October 2015, I do no longer permit the usage of my TREEFINDER software in the following EU countries: Germany, Austria, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain, Sweden, Denmark - the countries that together host most of the non-european immigrants. For all other countries, the old license agreement remains valid. USA has already been excluded from using Treefinder in February 2015. This is all in accordance with the license agreement stated in the TREEFINDER manual since the earliest versions, which reserves me the right to change the license agreement at any time. I can do this because Treefinder is my own property.

The reason: I am no longer willing to support with my work the political system in Europe and Germany, of which the science system is part. There is no genuine democracy, and I disagree with almost all of the policies. In particular, I disagree with immigration policy. Immigration to my country harms me, it harms my family, it harms my people. Whoever invites or welcomes immigrants to Europe and Germany is my enemy. Immigration is the huge corporations' interest, not peoples' interest. I am not against helping refugees, but they would have to be kept strictly separated from us Europeans, for some limited time only until they return home, and not being integrated here as cheap workers and additional consumers. Immigration unnecessarily defers the collapse of capitalism, its final crisis. The earlier the system crashes, the more damage can be avoided. Possibly a civil war in Europe. Not to mention the loss of our European genetic and cultural heritage.

...

License change in February 2015:

Starting from 1st February 2015, I do no longer permit the usage of my TREEFINDER software in the USA. For all other countries, the old license agreement remains valid.

...

My reasons:

(1) I want to protest against American imperialism, which I regard as the cause of most of all evil in the world: wars, tyranny, poverty, migration.

...

Cingulate posted:

Gangolf Job may not be my absolutely favourite NRx, but I still want to nominate him for something. NRx of the month, do we have that?


Via Slashdot.

Red-pilled as gently caress, isn't he?

Race Realists posted:

I wish, desperately, for Race Realism/Human Biodiversity/Dark Enlightenment to reach mainstream culture, only to see it get called out as the Pseudo-Intellectual bullshit that it all is

Race Realists posted:

but dont you know, not being able to be a total piece of poo poo in public is "Just like 1984"


above all the poo poo tropes nrxs and garden variety not-racists tend to spout, that is the most infurating

GoneWithTheTornado posted:

The Awl recently put out an article about the dork enlightment, with emphasis on Nick Land: http://www.theawl.com/2015/09/good-luck-to-human-kind

I'm not too convinced by the conclusion that NRx might become a serious, popular movement.

quote:

The Curious Case of Mencius Moldbug


A software engineer’s odious political writing got him booted from a tech conference. It shouldn’t have.


What does a bizarre project to reinvent software from the ground up have in common with 19th-century reactionary political philosophy? That question has become the unlikely heart of a computing controversy involving this September’s Strange Loop programming conference in St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 2009, Strange Loop is a yearly three-day conference with talks and workshops on new computer science technologies. The conference had accepted an apolitical presentation on a fairly obscure project by a software engineer named Curtis Yarvin, only to reject it last week after it received complaints about political views Yarvin espoused on his blog.
David Auerbach David Auerbach

David Auerbach is a writer and software engineer based in New York, and a fellow at New America.

Yarvin’s canceled presentation centered on Urbit, an idiosyncratic software platform he created, and an associated virtual machine called Nock. I’ve read the specifications, and Yarvin’s project is an intriguing attempt to create an entirely new, universal computation framework based around a virtual machine that is truly distributed from the ground up, so that even tiny amounts of computation can be apportioned across multiple machines. It may, as I suspect, be utterly impractical, but it’s undoubtedly different and a worthy experiment. I would attend a talk on it. But I wouldn’t be able to at Strange Loop now, thanks to a strange figure named Mencius Moldbug.

That’s the nom de Web under which Yarvin writes mind-numbing political tracts. Yarvin/Moldbug is a self-proclaimed “neoreactionary,” an unabashed elitist and inegalitarian in the tradition of Thomas Carlyle, one of his heroes. (He fits neatly into the “Natural-Order Conservative” category of a conservative taxonomy.) His worldview: Democracy sucks, the strong should rule the weak, and we could use a good old-fashioned dictator to clean up this mess. That, and he believes that “human biodiversity”—as in the “science” of racial differences, à la The Bell Curve—is real, valid, and very important. Neoreactionary thinking is far more complicated and far more verbose than this—which is in part a deliberate attempt to keep the great unwashed from paying too much attention to such Important Thought. If you’re curious, the tireless Scott Alexander of Slate Star Codex has written extensive rebuttals of neoreactionary theory, which go to prove Brandolini’s Law: “The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” The neoreactionaries make up a small and mostly ignorable corner of the Internet, but because they include a number of techies and wonks, they have drawn attention and criticism from outlets like the Baffler and the Daily Beast, all of which served to raise the neoreactionary profile far higher than it ever would have made it on its own. If you want serious reactionary activity, look to Congress.

Normally I would have no cause to write about neoreactionary politics—it is eminently inconsequential—except that Yarvin was tossed out of Strange Loop because of his writings. Strange Loop creator and organizer Alex Miller made this public statement regarding his decision to rescind Yarvin’s invitation:

quote:

A large number of current and former speakers and attendees contacted me to say that they found Curtis’s writings objectionable. I have not personally read them. ... If Curtis was part of the program, his mere inclusion and/or presence would overshadow the content of his talk and become the focus.

The decision to toss Yarvin is foolish but not because it’s censorship. By making the issue about Yarvin being a “distraction,” Miller has created a perverse incentive. By that logic, anyone could get tossed from the conference if enough people object for any reason at all. Miller admits as much when he says he hasn’t even read Yarvin’s political writing. (I can’t blame him.) Ergo, make enough noise, and you can get your target kicked out of Strange Loop. This is the mentality of “no platforming,” as it’s known in the U.K., a tactic that was once used to exclude (sensibly, in my opinion) National Front members from public life but has now become so widespread that even the hard-left New Statesman is objecting to the practice. If the problem is, as Miller wrote to Yarvin, that people’s “reactions are overshadowing the talk and acting as a distraction,” then all objectors need to do is create a distraction to get a presenter thrown out.

Let us extend this principle. In 1978, members of the International Committee Against Racism entered a talk being given by sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson, threw water on him, and chanted, “Racist Wilson you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!” By Miller’s logic, the possibility of this sort of distraction, however ungrounded, would still be grounds for tossing out Wilson. Moreover, Miller’s logic directly encourages this sort of troublemaking. Hacker and technologist Meredith L. Patterson suggested a better strategy last week: “If [Yarvin] gets up on stage and makes with the casual racism, by all means, end the talk early and boot him ... [P]re-acting to something that hasn’t happened yet is nonsense.”



Strange Loop’s rationale is cowardly and irresponsible, but what gets me more is the disingenuousness of people who say that Yarvin’s speech should be censored. Angel investor Alex Payne wrote last Thursday that Yarvin’s political opinions weren’t the problem but that Yarvin’s “support of racism and slavery” crossed the line into unprotected “hate” speech. Payne gave no examples of such hate speech, but others pointed to Yarvin’s 2009 celebration of Carlyle’s abstract celebration of slavery. This and other Yarvin pieces certainly reveal him to be a bigot at the very least, but it’s a major reach to call them hate speech, since they’re about as intimidating as skim milk. Calling it such insults those who suffer under the very real and violent hate speech of actual hate groups.

If Yarvin’s speech crosses the line, then there are many other celebrated thinkers who go much further. Since the content of Yarvin’s talk was not the problem but other beliefs the thinker held, then anyone who holds problematic beliefs is now up for removal. The influential economist Vilfredo Pareto was quite the elitist and fascist. Philosopher Martin Heidegger’s unpublished writings just seem to get worse and worse, with one recently published notebook declaring that the Holocaust is actually world Judaism “self-destructing [Selbstvernichtung],” yet people bafflingly still cite “The Question Concerning Technology” as some sort of incisive leftist counterpoint to the scientific approach. James Watson changed science forever by co-discovering the structure of DNA, but he’s also undoubtedly a “peevish bigot” who makes Yarvin look like Stephen Jay Gould.* One fact does not invalidate the other. If Watson is still capable of giving a substantive scientific presentation (which, I admit, is unlikely), he should not be barred from doing so. And I assure you, for every Yarvin who is enough of a blowhard to express his unpalatable views, there are a hundred people with such views who keep them quiet.

When it comes to gatherings like Strange Loop and scholarly venues in general, we should draw the lines for acceptable speech as widely as is feasible, because people have a terrible habit of being wrong. I doubt there will ever be a time when Yarvin’s political views are proven right, but that doesn’t mean we should trust the anonymous mob of people who complained to Alex Miller, even if we ostensibly agree with them. There is a recent strain of leftist thinking that suggests that double standards and vigilantism are acceptable as long as the target is “powerful.” The problem is determining who the “powerful” are and applying that standard consistently. For example, Anil Dash, a millionaire tech CEO with 500,000 Twitter followers, advocates that we “[d]oxx the powerful,” seemingly unaware that he belongs to that very category. According to the New York Times, Dash believes that “online mobs can sometimes serve a public good, as in cases when the powerless are given a voice to hold the ruling class accountable.” That rings false given Dash’s friendship with and endorsement of Chris “moot” Poole, owner of 4chan, the site that flooded Jezebel with “gifs of rape porn and violence” and incubated the dreaded Gamergate. (Poole no longer operates the site, having turned head moderation duties over to the pseudonymous “RapeApe.”) When 4chan happens to pick a powerful target, would Dash say they are serving a public good?

This sort of opportunistic hypocrisy becomes unctuous when it wears the clothes of moral superiority. Sometimes, as in the case of Payne’s pseudo-logic, it attempts to mask its partiality in the guise of unjustified redefinitions of legal terms like hate speech and ruling class, hoping to lower the weight of societal disapproval onto the head of the chosen target. These tactics are not “political correctness” or “social justice.” They are acts of illiberal bullying. Liberalism demands rigorous consistency and disinterest: One should not dox Anil Dash or Alex Payne or moot or Curtis Yarvin.

Yet the political hypocrisy here remains secondary to the need for science to reject ideological litmus tests. Plenty of repellent people have contributed to science (Isaac Newton, Thomas Edison, and onward), and one strength of science is its ability to accept substantive contributions from people whose nonscientific views are worthless and even offensive and to foster productive discourse between people who would hate each other discussing any other subject. Strange Loop is ostensibly a conference of science, not social thought, and that’s why the exclusion of Yarvin’s apolitical talk is more bothersome than someone getting fired for inappropriate jokes. Companies do whatever they think will get them the best P.R. and the most money; science should be better than that. Miller is running a diverse conference committed to progressive causes and the promotion of marginalized groups in technology; he should have the confidence that Yarvin’s presence would not overshadow those efforts. Moreover, he should be consistent. By acting as he has, Miller has come to overshadow the Strange Loop conference. (Look at what Slate is saying about him!) He should either reinvite Yarvin or resign over the distraction he’s become.

Race Realists posted:

that article had a link that led to this

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/06/curtis_yarvin_booted_from_strange_loop_it_s_a_big_big_problem.html

Heresiarch posted:

If it's hypocritical to boot Yarvin out of a tech conference then I need to reexamine my opinion on hypocrisy.

The Vosgian Beast posted:

Any exclusion of reactionaries is silencing and abuse, and as progs are silencers and abusers, any exclusions of progs is just pre-emptive defense.

Race Realists posted:

Nessus posted:

Oh, so it's the ol' truism that only right wing political speech is valid, eh

Woolie Wool posted:

That article about Nick Land makes me want to ask him why people shouldn't support the Cathedral since, if you actually follow his worldview to its logical conclusion, it's in the self-interest of 99% of humanity to support it, stand by it, and defend it to the death. (presupposing that any of it is true, which it is not)

The cybernetic neoreaction future will take away your political voice, appoint a corporate dictatorship over you, replace your role in society with an AI, and throw you away like so much dead weight. Please do not support the people that are working to stop this, that's irrational.

Come to think of it, his political philosophy sounds like the plot of a video game...but in that video game the Cathedral would be the good guys.

Woolie Wool posted:

That article about Nick Land makes me want to ask him why people shouldn't support the Cathedral since, if you actually follow his worldview to its logical conclusion, it's in the self-interest of 99% of humanity to support it, stand by it, and defend it to the death. (presupposing that any of it is true, which it is not)

The cybernetic neoreaction future will take away your political voice, appoint a corporate dictatorship over you, replace your role in society with an AI, and throw you away like so much dead weight. Please do not support the people that are working to stop this, that's irrational.

Merdifex posted:

You're taking the neoteny thing out of context. Wesley originally used it to refer to a supposed culture which likes cupcakes or something. Biology had little to do with it. Mostly stupidity and impotent rage.

Hate Fibration posted:

Yes. For example, one of the things held up as an example of 'Neoteny Culture' was...

The Mountain Goats.

Count Chocula posted:

Is it based on this great essay about 'cupcake fascism'? Because it seems to be written by a socialist, or somebody on the Left. https://infinitelyfullofhope.wordpress.com/2013/06/22/cupcakefascism/

quote:

liking The Mountain goats
being in favour of open borders
eating cupcakes
taking cocaine
giving 10% of your income to charity
playing the ukulele

Count Chocula posted:

Is it based on this great essay about 'cupcake fascism'? Because it seems to be written by a socialist, or somebody on the Left. https://infinitelyfullofhope.wordpress.com/2013/06/22/cupcakefascism/

Count Chocula posted:

Is it based on this great essay about 'cupcake fascism'? Because it seems to be written by a socialist, or somebody on the Left. https://infinitelyfullofhope.wordpress.com/2013/06/22/cupcakefascism/

Woolie Wool posted:

Is this Leftist Philosopher Mad Libs or something? I'm going cross-eyed trying to parse this rambling nonsense.

The Vosgian Beast posted:

Finally, a proof of Horseshoe Theory.

Woolie Wool posted:

Is this Leftist Philosopher Mad Libs or something? I'm going cross-eyed trying to parse this rambling nonsense.

Woolie Wool posted:

He has a way of making cake sound disgusting.

quote:

If we think to what cake should be, I mean in terms of the ideal form of cake, or what the sort of cake one wants to devour looks like, it is overflowing with creamy icing, moist and falling apart.

Woolie Wool posted:

Is this Leftist Philosopher Mad Libs or something? I'm going cross-eyed trying to parse this rambling nonsense.

The Vosgian Beast posted:

It's this annoying thing where you pretend that everything you have a personal or aesthetic dislike for ties together with political views you're against. Like you can't just find something gross or annoying, it has to be evil.

Zohar posted:

e: If it helps any, the American analogy is that pointing out that driving SUVs and waving Confederate flags is a product of and feeds into right-wing ideology in the United States is not trying to turn a personal or aesthetic dislike into political argument, it's observing a fact.

quote:

tea-drinking, knitting, cycling, sorting out one’s recycling properly, organic food, free-range eggs and local produce, gin, real ale, Cath Kidston bags, throws on the couches, making your own chutney, and Rugby Union.

Zohar posted:

e: If it helps any, the American analogy is that pointing out that driving SUVs and waving Confederate flags is a product of and feeds into right-wing ideology in the United States is not trying to turn a personal or aesthetic dislike into political argument, it's observing a fact.

Silver2195 posted:

Which of these things is comparable to the Confederate flag?

Woolie Wool posted:

This article by him immediately calls to mind Theodore Dalrymple's conservative blithering about society being infantilized to take away their ~personal responsibility~ using largely the same "evidence".

quote:

and cars are sold (no longer with promises of awesome masculine power but) by showing them trundling round a mock-up toytown.

Zohar posted:

It's not that hard to understand.


Except the adoption of twee signifiers of middle-class Britishness does, in fact, go hand in hand with right-wing opinions.

e: If it helps any, the American analogy is that pointing out that driving SUVs and waving Confederate flags is a product of and feeds into right-wing ideology in the United States is not trying to turn a personal or aesthetic dislike into political argument, it's observing a fact.