Formalism is Irresponsible

Moldbug's first post is real good. Also it summarizes almost 90% of the rest of the blog, so that's nice. 

However, it has a serious problem.

America is not formalizable. It is structured like this: "I retain the right to lie to you." For example, "I retain the right to cheat and steal elections."

"the fact that the US extracts regular payments from the aforementioned fur-bearing critters means no more than that it owns that right."

"the fact that USG regularly defauds the voting process means no more than it owns that right"

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You can't openly state that you own this property without devaluing the property entirely. To formalize this property is to destroy it.

This "property" is inherently irresponsible.

The Formalist Manifesto is an apologia for irresponsibility - for leftism. "This creates an incentive for violence—something we formalists try to avoid," where [this] refers to Formalism itself, as applied to America and to any other irresponsible regime. (All centralized regimes have been irresponsible.) America is inherently hostile to the facts about America.

Put another way: "You are morally obligated to pay me tax because my guns are bigger than yours," is nothing more than an argument that you ought to enlarge your guns until I can't tax you anymore. Naturally I am likely to resist, so this form of argument leads to violence. Criminal acts are inherently and irrevocably violent. To argue that you can use a justification to turn violence into not-violence is to argue that you can debate the sun into being dark.

Aside from that it's a damn fine post, however. 

 

P.S. Gee, how did an entity inherently hostile to facts end up sponsoring an idea market where lies have value and truth does not? Surely there must be some complicated, counter-intuitive reason for this, which we can explain and therefore show off how smart we are! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯