Nihilism and Other Moldbug Errors

Moldbug lacks discipline. Moldbug's work stands as stupidity cancellation, used for defence against change. Moldbug, ironically, is a menshevik. 

How "right" wing you are in the modern world is largely down to how much cognitive dissonance you can stomach. If it's unlimited you join the Democratic Party or any of its various suppurating pustules, feasting heartily on the seepage. If slightly limited, the Republican Party. If distinctly limited, you read Moldbug. It would seem no level of intolerance is enough to genuinely take responsibility for your own life.

Moldbug lacks discipline and his popularity reassures you. You, too, have no need for discipline. Moldbug says, "Oh no, you haven't made a mistake. You read Moldbug after all! You're fine! It's all -those- poor idiots who have made a mistake."

Lacking discipline, Moldbug failed to question his assumptions. He claimed to be a nihilist, but doesn't know exactly what a nihilist is and thus can't tell he isn't one. 

I believe I have found the fundamental theorem of nihilism. It is this: life is a luxury. There is no such thing as a necessity. Die if you want, it's fine. Or live, that's okay too. If everyone chooses to drink their morning coffee and then walk off into the ocean, so what? (See also: Hume. Since everything is a luxury, there are only two reasons to pick one luxury over another. First, some of your whims are more durable than others. Second, your whims conflict and you can only choose decisions, not their consequences. You can postulate a God of Creation if you like, but it is not a relevant variable. Whether it's a caring universe, a Gnon, or a dead mechanical clockwork, you still can choose your decisions, but not their consequences. Indeed this principle binds even Gnon. Yahweh can choose not to put a Fence around the Tree, but then Adam eats from it.) A non-nihilist is someone who believes some of their whims are Necessary, which means anyone who does not share this special non-whim whim is lying or a devil or an Adversary or something. Basically they are fascinated and enthralled by their ingroup/outgroup reflex, exactly as a porn addict is enthralled by pictures of boobs.

Occult knowledge: theft is never necessary, outside of a true famine where there is no bread to steal. (My whim is to disdain segues.) Even if we pretend [life = luxury] is false, you can always earn it. Theft is never rational; you don't get more to eat and it makes enemies. Occult knowledge: you are your ancestors. 

If you think you need to replace the government, it's you that fucked up, (or your ancestors, who are you), not the government. Cities burning down? You dun fukked up. The government is getting what it wants. Certainly, you will form the whim to blame the government. Will it help? Have you tried it before? 

If the government is smart you don't need to outsmart it; cooperating with it is rational. If the government is dumb, then defecting on it isn't hard. Don't play its stupid game, it only offers stupid prizes. It's not your government. You can tell because you can't sell it. The pain is self-inflicted. Anyone happily buying into stupid games is prey; they should and will be eaten as such. (Only question: whether it's you or your enemies who will be doing the eating.)

Government for the people is impossible. The leader always leads for the leader's sake.
Government by the people is impossible. Also, circles don't have corners, bachelors don't have wives, and the sun does not rise at dusk.

In further shocking news, politicians lie. There is nothing to be recovered from what they say. If you are not discarding it you are building your foundation on the fossils of past (coercive, defective) power grabs. "Yes massa, can I have another." Is your whim to be a slave? It's fine, that's okay too. 

 

You don't care about The People. It is not your whim. I'm not going to let you pretend it is. No one else cares either. Any system which depends on caring about salus populi is a lie. Lies are bad, mmmkay. It makes enemies and you don't get any more to eat. E.g, it makes Gnon your enemy. 

 

Carl Sagan was a politician and it's probably fine to nuke the crap out of each other. Millions of strangers die of preventable causes every year. A nuclear war would be some of them. You haven't cared before and I'm not going to let you pretend to care now. (Reasonably preventable suffering constitutes some 97% of all suffering.) If you think a bomb might land on your own head, try standing somewhere else?

Special mention for [abstract theorizing, always the worst possible way to think]. In other words, "I can't think, therefore you can't think." The Dao is all one thing. Any attribute which inheres to abstract theorizing inheres to all thought. Empirical experiment is a kind of abstract theorizing. Anyone who cannot profit by thinking about abstract models cannot profit by experiment either; the errors you need to see are the same in both cases. This is Government by Steam, Moldbug Ver. E.g. if you don't remember to define nihilism before you call yourself a nihilist, you will also forget to define things like [prediction], [measure], and [result]. 

Speaking of assumptions, [we want the experience to be as dramatic and significant as possible]. Significant => significant to other humans => more significant to other humans than the other humans are => to be high status => to defect and not get punished. (Chicks dig defectors and the dimorphism barrier is leaky.) To define salus populi as this is to say that the health of the populace is for each individual to make the rest of the population unhealthy. I would /facepalm but I was expecting this level of brain damage. 

Of course, if you want to live a society based on a repaired version of this principle, that's fine. That's okay too. It will be terribly violent; you cannot choose the consequences. I personally would like to see a city where the only illegal act is making sidewalks and rooms flat. Ban easy terrain. (Imagine not trying it on the whole country at once.) I don't personally need death to be a likely outcome of failure, but some are degenerate or simplistic enough to need it. Being degenerate is, of course, okay. That's fine too.

Further, [that the indiscriminate pursuit of utility]. Nope. Not indiscriminate. E.g. you have to believe [life is sacred] or rather that death is profane. That anyone with a ""death" "wish"" is a liar or a devil or an Adversary or whatever. That nothing is more "valuable" than satisfying the whim of continuing to live. It is precisely due to the failure to be nihilist, not the sublimation of nihilism. 

[Is this progress? Soldiers are no longer pierced by steel. Sailors are no longer drowned rounding the Horn.] Many have whims of this nature, but they are largely illegal. Can't even have Roman gladiators. Play stupid games. 

Moldbug being literally Communist. [This policy is very simple: toy control. The rule is: all new children’s toys sold in any country must be handmade, from natural materials, by subjects of that country.] Lots and lots and lots of real jobs left undone, and Moldbug can't think of a single one of them. Paint the concrete. Replace the concrete with wood and paint that instead. Get the gum off the sidewalks. Strip off all the bad graffiti. Add more good graffiti. Etc, etc, etc, etc. Moldbug's solution to the lack of purpose is fake jobs? Brain damage. Lies are bad.

But no no it's okay! You don't need to stop lying. Moldbug lies through his teeth all the time and he's popular. As we all know, being popular is the essence of being Good. (High status; to defect and get away with it.) You just needed a better class of lies, unlike those stupid low-status proles. I bet they don't even try to be popular. What losers. Such outgroup. Many immoral.

Moldbug doesn't think of any of these undone jobs because his true purpose is not salus populi. His whim is to keep the proles properly oppressed and humiliated, like they deserve. He will look dramatic and significant by comparison. Uses the classic Fascist trick of calling a thing its opposite, and says dehumanization is the solution to dehumanization.

Democracy is the theory that we can dehumanize the peasants if we pretend the peasants are dehumanizating themselves. MoldbuGuilds is the theory we can dehumanize the peasants if they're tricked into thinking they're not being dehumanized. Laugh into your hand, they won't notice a thing.

Both to go above the human and below the human is dehumanizing. [Breaking one’s own windows is antisocial and deranged. Making one’s own toys is not antisocial or deranged. If you cannot tell the difference, Horatio...] Getting out ahead of the obvious true counter-point isn't he? (This is accounting denialism. Accounting is boring. It takes discipline to appreciate it.)

Conceivably try decriminalizing lemonade stands before we try Full Communism again, yeah? 

...you know chemistry sets used to be toys for children, right? And now they're banned? Just possibly, the fact the legal toys are made in faraway places isn't the problem here. Pretending this is the problem is a way of not looking at the problem, which you avoid because you already know what you would see if you looked. 

It would seem no level of intolerance for cognitive dissonance is enough to genuinely take responsibility for your own life. 

Which is correct, because you are a peasant. 

Peasants never fully mature. They need a Lord to take care of them, or they will not be taken care of. Perhaps you want Moldbug as your Lord? He does not appear to be taking serf applications. And why would he? How does a Lord profit by taking on more dependants? Anyway he would just force you to make toys by hand, as opposed to mastering the trade and doing it as effectively as you can grasp. Maybe reconsider.

Oversimplified recent history of the world:
Peasants: "We want to run our own lives!"
Lords: "Haha! Okay! Have fun with that!"
Peasants: "Oh no! Holocaust! Holodomor! All our cities are burning down!"
Lords: *snrk*

Fun physiognomic fact: Stalin had multiple deformities. He was born to a impoverished father who couldn't even manage to love his own children. His country (that which he could have sold if he wanted) was unhealthy. Surprising! Are you surprised? ([Impoverished] means [rebellious against Gnon].)