Some links
Too much to read and comment at length upon
Round up of some of the good and bad things I have read and haven’t had the time or energy to finish writing on. Otherwise known as “I want to close the 500 tabs I have been leaving open.”
Caplan on safety (good)
If there were a control panel by which one could turn on or off words, simply make them disappear from everyone's lexicon, picking either "safe" or "dangerous" might be a strong move. Make the relevant spectrum "Very safe - Not Safe" or "Hardly dangerous at all - Incredibly dangerous", instead of "Safe - Dangerous". I'd vote for nixing safe, myself, but you could make either one work.
It occurs to me that a good heuristic for finding subtle mental errors and nasty word play would be too look for words that sound like, and are used as, antonyms, but really are just overlapping areas on a spectrum. “Quite safe” and “A little dangerous” are just reframings of the same thing, and we are all susceptible to framing.
Sasha Stone on who is a “semi-fascist” (good)
“Fascists” today seem to occupy the same role that “Jews” filled in the 1930’s: the omnipotent boogey men that must be defeated, despite being a tiny minority, yet somehow can be defeated despite their omnipotence. I am working on a longer essay around this, but Stone very nicely points out that the people calling everyone fascists seem to have a very strong whiff of the rods and ax themselves. Much better than just screaming
…although really that is about all they deserve.
Related: Legal Insurrection.
Pierre Lemieux over at EconLog on Left/Right Authoritarianism (pretty good)
Generally a good essay highlighting how the Democrat and Republican parties have both gone pretty hard into authoritarianism. It brings to mind the in fighting between fascists, communists and socialists in the early 20th century, not because they were very different, but because they were competing for the exact same customer base. If you wanted to get fanatic fascists you didn’t recruit from the normies, you recruited from the communists, and vice versa. Likewise, often communists were as quick to kill off socialists instead of their mutual enemies. (See Eric Hoffer’s “The True Believer” and George Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia”)
My quibble with Lemieux is that he, like the articles he references, isn’t always clear on the distinction between the official Party, the rank and file registered party members, and people who vote for the parties. The actual Party members, the politicians elected to office and those who call the shots for the organizations themselves, seem to be very authoritarian to me. I am somewhat more sanguine about the rank and file members and voters… they often seem a little less authoritarian, yet inclined to follow their leaders down whatever road to hell is advocated.
Verma on epistemology and complexity (good)
Bit of an older one, but I didn’t find it till recently. Megha starts small, then really hits on one of the and quite possibly THE fundamental issue of modernity: our belief that we understand the world well enough to replicate it while only scratching the surface of understanding. An excellent essay from the point of view of a classicist, which makes for a breath of fresh air. It is nice to see someone else taking complexity seriously.
Handwaving Freakoutery on rapidly evolving “basic human decency” (good)
I have a draft essay entitled “The Principle of Principles” in which I am basically trying to make the argument that if you don’t have established principles that periodically limit your behavior you cannot be good, either as a person or group. The principles don’t need to be immutable, but stable enough that they make you do something you might rather not do sometimes. HF there demonstrates how the Woke mind virus avoids that, and how dangerous a system that updates what is right or wrong at the drop of a hat can be, both for those outside and inside the religion. It reminds me Pratchett’s “Monstrous Regiment”, in which one country’s god was batshit insane, adding to a list of “abominations” that were detailed and contradictory, to the point no one knew what the hell was allowed at any given time. It is disturbing how close reality has gotten to that, only worse.
Koehli on State Capitalism and Socialism (good)
It won’t make you smile, laugh, or otherwise feel happy, but you might be somewhat comforted that what we see today has happened before. Granted, it didn’t go well before, either, but at least we know we are not in entirely new territory.
el gato malo on ungorvernability as the USA’s first virtue (good)
el gato is always good, especially on COVID matters, but this is especially good. In a time when the political debate seems to function on who gets to dictate all the rules, it is a good reminder that the best answer is “No one.”
Rollins on the weapons of destructive dominance (good)
Jay Rollins’ writing style is often fantastical, shamanistic, spiritual, not because he is a woo woo practitioner, but because that is how humans can most easily understand some sorts of things. The nature of the panic inducing trick he describes is worth thinking about; such techniques are common enough in literature to justify some higher prior probabilities. I hope to have him perform it on me so I can understand it better.
Even if you disbelieve in the existence of a body language hack that jostles your mind around, ask yourself if you are disagreeing with the outcome, or the mechanism. Why do so many people bow to the church of woke, despite not really buying into what they are selling? I have some ideas, such as the modern left not having a self limiting principle that keeps it from just spinning off into internally consistent madness, but that only explains compliance in half the US population… what is keeping the other half in line?
… I should have one bad thing, right? Hmmm… well, I intend to write more on this later, but I don’t want to lose it and I might not have the energy so…
Yarvin defends his Elf/Hobbit System (bad)
I really don’t like Curtis Yarvin, although I recognize the value of people like him. It is good to be willing to point out unpleasant truths, raise deeply uncomfortable questions, and basically be an asshole. However, if history has taught us anything, putting your assholes in positions of power over people just gets your people all covered with shit. When you think “Would Republicans really abuse power like the Democrats do?” think of Yarvin, whose argument boils down to “Look, little people, someone is going to rule you. The best you can do is support the people who hate you less, because you can’t rule yourself.” That might be true, but acting as though it is true leads one to accept the lessor of two equivalent evils, instead of periodically killing the evil bastards when necessary. You might not be able to avoid being ruled by people who aren’t like you, but that doesn’t mean you have to put up with rulers doing whatever they like.
Also, don’t post links I know will be worth my time (because they’re mediated by you) WHEN I ALREADY HAVE ENOUGH TO READ IN MY FEED.
Also, thanks for the good links.
🤷♂️
In Caplan’s piece “when the truth sounds bad, people lie”. That’s a keeper.