Musings on Moldbug

Someone got me the first three books of Game of Thrones for a present, whereupon I learned books are a kind of game and you can lose. E.g. if the last character you care about dies in the Red Wedding, then you've lost the book. Likewise the book has lost me, because I stop reading. 

As of this writing, I lost an essay. "Historically, fascism is Sulla or Marius; monarchism is Caesar or Augustus." Big nope. In short Sulla was good for Rome but he stepped down. Caesar and Augustus mortally wounded the Empire. Fun fact: personnel is policy. The kind of person who would step down is exactly who you want running the place. Julius Kaisar (kae̯sar) was a criminal. He crossed the Rubicon because he would have been instantly arrested and tried for breaking approximately every law if he didn't. ProTip: don't let lawbreakers administer your law.

(Bonus facts: apparently caesar is spelled wrong due to an incompetent translation from German, which correctly used the k. Also, "veni vidi vici" is pronounced more closely to "weni widi wichi." Their Ws were harder than ours.) 

At least when China did this, it was the law's fault. ("What's the penalty for lateness?" "Death." "What's the penalty for armed rebellion?" "Death." "Well...we're late.") 

 

"this would make you not a populist political democrat (ie, a fascist, or at least a type of fascist)"

One of the selling points of my logical techniques (and as a result, my blog) is that you get there earlier. Months, sometimes years early.

 "A board can and ideally should go decades without taking any meaningful action."

The higher IQ your subordinate, the less supervision they need. CEOs are very smart indeed. I can regularly tell exactly what someone wants me to do solely by standing silently in the same room as them, and I can safely assume most CEOs are at or near that level. Elon Musk likely doesn't have to even meet his board members to know exactly what he would be fired for doing, and he's a bit on the low end for CEO IQ. Elon Musk is sharp but has some dull edges; many CEOs will cut you just by standing too close. 

 "to create a board which, initially stamped with his image, will retain it permanently."

This happens whether you try to do it or not. Unfortunately America is still governed in the spirit of revolutionary firebrand John Adams. Also known as terrorist nutjob John Adams. Took the whole "fire" bit just a little too literally; tyrants gonna tryant. No, really, don't let lawbreakers administer your law, dumbasses.

"The party is a pop-up restaurant, a purely temporary one-time organization. Its goal is to succeed and then not have to exist."

Moldbug repeatedly throws shade at our boy Sulla, then advocates doing exactly what Sulla, uniquely, actually did. It's all so tiresome. 

Perhaps this will motivate you: to avoid shaming your descendants, please, for the love the heavens, pay attention to what's coming out of your mouth. Anti-intellectualism is bad actually. 

"The purpose of the government is to nurture and protect its human beings, all of them."

lol

super lol

Anyway, just to be different, I'm now going to try to be positive, rather than ripping this thing to shreds in a rather predictable way. There's enough sewage on the internet already without me spinning up my sewage-printer and copying it out. Let's, for once, signal boost the good parts instead.  

 "In any case, the problem of choosing the “benevolent dictator,” making sure he or she stays “benevolent,” and replacing her or him with an equally benevolent successor, is not an impossible and unimaginable paradox. It is an engineering problem."

Quite so!

(Maybe we should start trying!)

 "It manages or perverts democratic mechanisms to produce an informal simulation, never formally acknowledged, of a dictatorship."

What man can make, man can unmake. Everything can be perverted away from its natural state. However, it's still best to make things that have to be perverted to do evil, rather than things that must be perverted to do good. 

Generally Hungary functions because it's on the periphery of Empire and correctly surmises that the Regime has bigger fish to fry, when it deigns to remember they exist at all.  

"But this key need not just be for nuclear weapons. Rather, all the military’s weapons can be prevented from operating without it."

While crypto-locks can't stop the populace from arming themselves entirely, it doesn't need to. It just needs to make it more expensive without costing too much, and as a matter of empirical fact, bank security works. Code-based locks are already used extensively.

"These hypermodern illuminati are impossible to coerce, because they are impossible to identify."

In general, it's safe to assume anything modern Fascism (pretends to) do is the opposite of a good idea. The (pretend) ruler is shone in high spotlight, you're told practically everything about them, therefore we can safely assume that who rules you is kind of none of your business. The less you know about politics, the better. You also don't know who manages your water and power, because these are kind of solved problems. They just work. Politics is also a solved problem and it's something of a mystery that it's allowed to act un-solved so reliably.

Of course modern Regime security already works this way... most deny that there is even something to secure. Something something Satan's greatest trick. 

Why do movies get credits and roads and houses don't get credits? What if your local road had a website where every worker who contributed to it was listed by name? What if your house came with a certificate showing who was responsible for its lumber?

Given that water is largely a solved problem, what would be wrong with offering some gratitude to your local water czar? "Great work again this year, thanks buddy. Would literally be dead without someone like you!" Basically a sort of anti-Twitter. 

The world is huge and you are not. Attention is a very limited resource, and thus very valuable. Consider carefully how to spend yours. Perhaps the internet could be less toxic if they knew anyone who was worthy of nontoxicity, instead of inviting over the worst bits of hazardous waste they can find to every party they can. 

Might need a bit of coaxing to start, but it's not like humans are totally incapable of discipline, much as we're often told that's the case...

Bonus round: what if your water czar is kind of a dick? Maybe someone can, for once, leave childhood and become an adult. In part, by understanding that sometimes a total dick can be good enough and nevertheless worthy of praise. Starting by being made aware that they exist. 

"he must combine the two most important ingredients of [alleged] hypermodern [...] communication: irony and sincerity.

This entire project of 21st-century monarchism (on the blockchain!) is both utterly ironic, and completely sincere. Every part of making it happen will feel like a joke."

Dao gonna Dao.

If it's funny because it's true, you're likely on the right track. The Creator God is not like an angel, nor like a devil, but more like a trickster. His princes are Loki and Coyote. Existence is a joke and if you really get it you'll laugh. 

Like, have you seen sex? Come now. Nobody was even trying. You going to stop having (trying for) sex just because it's obviously a prank? 

Life begins when you make a total fool of yourself.