If a seeming historian jokes about censors to Americans, I would guess the Americans will lose track of what's going on.
Rome had a legal distinction between citi-zens and non-city-types. E.g. non-citizens, sensibly, were not permitted to own property in the City. The Censor was the one in charge of registering your citizenship; rolls had to be periodically renewed. He carried out the census. It was similar to a modern census.
The Censor quickly realized he made the rules, rather than having to follow them. If he refused to admit you were a valid resident, you would be unable to bring suit for having done so, since he (as a citizen) had privileged access to the courts. Anyone independent or uninvolved calling on the Censor for his dereliction of duty was deprived of citizenship in turn. The Censor made them involved.
Rome reacted by formalizing this power, allowing the Censor to openly censor individuals. On the other hand, the Censor was only allowed to censor every five years, not whenever the whim struck him.
To this day, every peasant knows a Censor is a centre of arbitrary, capricious power. Rome was very educational. Although, being peasants and all, they cannot put this into words, they know a Censor is fundamentally not on their side. Even Blue Anon never comes out and says censorship is good. Always have to make some excuse for their censors. Mes rea.
In America, humans allegedly have Free Speech. The only ones not allowed to speak are the inhuman. To be censored in America is (they believe) to be dehumanized. Does Moldbug believe to be "moderated" is to be dehumanized? Perhaps he does.
P.S. don't forget the American peasant will accept unlimited amounts of dehumanization with no more resistance than some slavish whining. "Masterrrrr dehumanizing me is meeeean. T_T"
And now for something completely different which Moldbug appears to confuse with something related.
"we cannot understand this text literally—only by deconstruction. But we are all trained in this form of deconstruction. Nevertheless, the exercise is draining."
Instead, arrange your life such that reading such things is unnecessary.
If you say in words that you don't want to be Fascist, but in actions surround yourself with Fascism, which do you suppose God will prioritize? He is likely to give you what you ask for.
"In the end Substack is its own judge and its own janitor"
Was Gab its own judge?
Come to think, when MB claims not to get hate mail from the left, he's probably lying isn't he? That would make more sense. No-opinion wrote a whole hit piece on him. I would buy more hate from the right, but not none from the left.
Likewise, it makes much more sense if his past claims about enjoying his comment section were false. "I enjoyed it so much I stopped getting involved with it, and ultimately stripped it from the record." Uh? Hmm?
"When you collaborate, you support power in two ways: first, by doing what it wants; second, by humiliating yourself more deeply."
Imagine a kind of power with which collaboration is not humiliation.
The serf does not need answers to every question. As long as they know enough to be told what to do, the rest of their time is their own. It is necessary for the proper scholar, however. If there is something the scholar can't question, it is usually a lie which has no proper answer.
Imagine questioning the God of Creation. He may perhaps choose not to answer certain questions, for your own health, but can you imagine a question you wouldn't be allowed to ask? A question which couldn't be answered?
There's a qualitative difference between something which shouldn't be questioned by someone in particular and something which you're not supposed to question at all.
I suspect Transgressives hate innocence and children so much because of their tracts of unquestionable statements. Children's reasonable, obvious questions crack the pillars of the Regime.
"There is only a name for its absence. Once we label an absence of faith, we can ban it. And when we ban an absence of faith, we impose that faith."
The neat bankshot trick. You're not communist, you're only anti-anti-communist. 'I'm not a racist! I merely egg the houses of every anti-racist until they shut up, with the backing of the courts and police...'
It's easy to name if you want to.
Nurture fundamentalists. Radical egalitarians. Envy-worshippers. Sophists.
It doesn't have a name because Americans don't want it to have a name. Likely because they're slaves and do what they're told.
'Don't name me.'
'Yes massa right away massa.'
Maybe the correct name is simply Americanism. You have to say, "Americanism is the enemy of the American people." For some reason Americans have trouble saying things like this.
Would you have difficulty with the idea of America as a fundamentally masochistic project? I wouldn't.
Background: in English, [pride] is a conflation. The sin part is a kind of lie. Being [humble] can also be a lie, when it denies that a glorious thing is glorious. If you are the creator of said glorious thing, then the glory is necessarily reflected onto you as a person.
Set the glory thing aside.
Is a false religion always the worship of some sin? The sin of Christianity is clearly Pride. THE LORD lol.
It probably obtains that humans cannot worship something humble. Haha, oops.
The chaste, sure. The patient, absolutely. Industrious, restrained, gracious...
Not the humble.
Imagine a humble emperor... lol.
Did you notice? This is the kind of power which you can worship without humilitation. The kind of power which is already humiliated, ironically.
To sneak a peek at the humility of a real god, realize any
random god knows exactly how you should live your life and has an
endless variety of ways they could force you to live that way. And yet,
you don't even know they exist, due to the principle of Free Will. Even
Jehovah couldn't deny that one.
"Like any startup, the purpose of Substack is to obtain a monopoly or something like it."'
Of course, any business which fails to achieve a monopoly almost instantly withers and dies. Corner stores are a Blue Anon conspiracy theory.
Totalitarian bias: properly showing.
"As a monopoly on the marketplace of ideas, it becomes a quasi-organ of government."
I heard you the first time.
It is impossible to be totalitarian without being egalitarian. The total monopoly can only legitimately apply if everyone is sufficiently similar. The serfs must be identical in many essential ways.
I find imperial narcissism rather trying. The borders are too far away; they forget the outside world exists.
Reminder. Egalitarianism => Communism. Central planning would work in a hive of identical clones. The central planner could easily assess any arbitrary hive bee's needs, since they would be identical to his own in their situation.
Aside: monopoly is irresponsible.
"States across history have regulated speech in many ways."
When you reason forward from a false premise, such as totalitarianism, all your questions are inherently wrong and have no correct answer.
First, let's rectify some names.
Free speech is a conflation of inexpensive speech and subsidized speech.
Inexpensive speech is worth, if you're lucky, what you pay for it.
Subsidized speech should be expensive to say, but the State is paying for it. The product will meet the high Soviet quality standards all subsidized goods meet. In Rome, if you wanted to say such things and be taken seriously, you first had to sacrifice a goat to show you yourself were taking it seriously. Fun fact: Roman goat prices were similar to modern goat prices, adjusting for inflation.
It is clear Substack is fundamentally subsidized speech. The authors of 'free' stacks should have to pay for hosting/bandwidth/etc, but don't.
This blog too, for that matter. You didn't have to pay to read this and I'm certainly not paying for hosting it.
Before trying to "regulate" speech, perhaps try "regulating" your prices to reflect the costs of the service. Perhaps if you stopped digging, you wouldn't end up in holes all the time?
Who originally said blogging is godless communism? They're correct. This irresponsible pricing mode is the opposite of discipline. Unless a blogger injects discipline via force majeure, sheer willpower, no discipline will obtain.
In retrospect, it should have been obvious that any scheme which involves giving things away for free is Communism. ('Grandmamma, why was Wikipedia so far left? Grandad, why was Infogalactic doomed to failure?')
"It has certainly tried every way of regulating the press. None of it has worked, but still!"
If it hasn't worked you didn't try everything. E.g. didn't try banning the fundamentally criminal enterprise.
Imagine instead of bounty hunters, early America had lobbyist and journalist hunters. And the crime was capital.
You won't successfully follow the logic all the way to the end, but it's amusing even at the beginning.
"For to think like a state is to think like a court."
Common Law is very much the opposite of a State. If you want to learn how to have something communal which is not Communist, look to the history of Common Law.
"Maybe you can write it in a way which effectively complies, yet does not collaborate."
You can't.
"If we take it seriously, we collaborate with power. If we fail to comply with it, we rebel against power. We must do neither."
Sadly Power is not implemented by drooling morons. They define compliance as taking it seriously. They want to close any gaps between collaboration and rebellion. If you don't think you have to take it seriously, it just means they have bigger fish to fry. They'll get to you eventually.
"Most of the chafing they produce is not in the difficulty of complying with them—just in the humiliation of believing in them."
"“Equal protection of the law” was the experiment. That experiment seems to have failed."
The opposite of what was said three weeks ago, with no acknowledgement. We were always at war with Eurasia.
"And why not be nice to everyone, including kings and samurai?"
Most are contemptible. Treating the contemptible with respect is dissonant.
Power demands you lie. (Power knows it's a lie, too. It's not loyalty, it's submission.) Go one step further than MB's proposal. Tell the lie. But, admit you're lying. At the bottom: "The above screed includes the Noble (ignoble) Lies which are demanded by the Present Age. The reader is kindly enjoined to ignore these unfortunate necessities." Follow up by deleting any comment which argues against the lies. Not because their message is threatening, but because it's stupid and off-topic. "Yes, we know." What will be left is an environment which discusses the heresies seriously, as intended.
Power will still realize you're not on-side. I think the above produces a hardened environment, which pushes you down their priority list, but nobody but a few larval autists are going to be under any illusions regarding what side you're on.
If there's a way to go one step further yet, do that too. Power will still realize you're not on-side. If you manage to rise to the top of their list, they'll sidestep the measures by framing you.
If you want to be edgy, bank on their lack of humour and use light sarcasm, which they will never detect. It's not 100% reliable though. Some of them minored in sarcasm studies at uni and carry machines to help.
On the other hand, if you don't insist on talking about Improved Fascism to a bunch of Fascists, you don't need to lie at all. In America, it's obvious that the less Fascist you are, the smaller your audience. Are they well-known enough to bring up in conversation without introduction? They're too communist. In America, the more true and relevant a thing is, the more obscure it is.
"The seed of truth behind white nationalism is the same seed behind Trumpism: that non-elite white Americans are not well-governed. [...] although, actually, nor are elite white Americans."
Satan is proud of this one. G'work.
America is already white supremacist. Black America is firmly the worst-governed section of America. They used to have jobs and families. Not as many as white America, it was true, but they had them. Now the difference is like...well...black and white. Now they have gangland crime, bastards, and the reputation such behaviour deserves. Transgressives have to argue Blacks Are Wonderful all the time precisely because their reputation is so bad.
The point of sounding so defensive is to cement the bad reputation of blacks. Bankshot Sophistry. Perhaps half the point of the Summer of Floyd was a response to blacks' reputation recovering somewhat. If your envy machine runs on racial envy, it's no good if racial tension goes too low. If blacks had jobs and families, how are they supposed to envy white America's jobs and families? Come now.
It is unquestionably intentional. Someone who can't figure out that rioting is bad for your image also can't tie their shoes, let alone fund a protest. You can always test it: try telling them this obvious implication. You cannot awaken someone who is pretending to be asleep.
Although it is true that even the best-governed parts of America are not particularly well governed, this kernel of truth is what makes the above quote such a good distraction.
To escape the Matrix, you need to realize certain things. Things which follow a pattern like this: America condemns white supremacism because it is already white supremacist, but better and more so. Call it post-wignat, maybe? America is explicitly, consciously designed to torment and demean blacks, and it is doing so efficiently.
Further, the leaders aren't unsophisticated peasants, and can tell there's an essentially racial difference between some whites and other whites.
America torments and demeans blacks as a means to torment and demean wrongwhites. It does not allow its seemingly feral pets to torment rightwhites. America says it's pro-black precisely because that's what wrongwhites need to hear so that America can torment blacks and use them to torment wrongwhites.
If you replace 'coloured' or 'women' with children, it clears things up.
"The oppression of children will never end until we give them unlimited candy!"
"The Child [Tooth Health Gap] is higher than ever! We must not be giving them enough free candy yet!"
(Inspiration: "Don't tell us not to accept candy, tell strangers not to danger us!")
Obviously it leads to dependence and degeneracy. That's what it's for. They would have repealed civil rights if they weren't working as intended. However, it's just barely non-obvious enough that the peasants won't grasp it if they're told not to.
Test: any black who goes off the plantation is suddenly worthy of the exact same othering/persecution faced by any wrongwhite. The Regime has no time or money for blacks per se, only for loyal minions. Their problem with wrongwhites was always a loyalty (submission) problem.
It is puzzling that I need to write this down. The Regime's behaviour contrasts poorly with the Spanish Inquisition. (Which they're aware of, which is why they have to demonize the Inquisition.) Sure, peasants are stupid and ignorant, but surely there must be some non-peasant English-speakers on the internet somewhere? At least one or two?
"Americans do not want to fight. [...] The product they need is peace—but, peace without being misgoverned or humiliated."
Isn't this obviously self-refuting? There is no demand for a peaceful product.
Moldbug is doing the pomo thing where you assert what you want to be true and hope everyone else feels forced to assert it along with you to avoid looking like a target of envy. (AKA 'that guy') Maybe if everyone asserts it hard enough, enough will start feeling it too, and then your words impose themselves on reality.
Alternatively you can turn to wizardry and cast spells like a normal person does when they have this desire. Open sesame. Abracadabra. Where's my yew wand.
"But what the white nationalist really wants is a safe, cohesive and orderly community—such as he would also find in Japan. If Japan wasn’t so racist."
Rephrase for accuracy:
"What the American Communist really wants is Communism that's safe, orderly, and prosperous and doesn't lead to everyone starving to death. Such as he would find under Capitalism, if Capitalism didn't have all that icky responsibility."
And that's why Americans have trouble demanding peace.
"What if there was another means? What if there was a path to safety, cohesion and order that worked well not just for white people, but also for the whole motley crew of genetic mystery-meat which we’ve managed to heap on our long-suffering continent?"
What if there was a path to capitalism that wasn't capitalism? Like, what if we could pay for stuff with money that's not worth anything, and you could get paid for this money without having to, like, have a job?
America is a shitshow because core American values oppose safety and self-determination. Moldbug, as per American tradition, is trying to talk around these values as if they're un-American.
The regnant superpower is being oppressed by...I dunno, idea markets or something. Big scary Power gets pwned by trolls on twitter. (Every bluecheck is a troll.)
Giving up this bad habit would mean giving up the goal of seducing Power, however. Power is very fond of its cope. Can't get anywhere by telling Power it's full of shit.
Unfortunately, if Power is full of shit, you also can't get anywhere without telling Power it's full of shit. "No no, none of this is your fault. You were tricked - and no, not like a gullible peasant. You just have to adjust a little here, tuck in a little there..." Meanwhile, the front fell off.
When Moldbug talks about epistemology getting high off its thymos addiction and being unable to walk in straight lines, he's talking about himself.
"If your only vision is a vision of good government for some, your vision is too small to govern at all"
Openly totalitarian.
"you are sure to fail; it is both fruitless and dangerous to be around you; you are in the dead end of war."
Notice Moldbug doesn't back up this statement. No evidence or rigour is necessary. The accusation shall stand sufficient. Denigrating the righteous with baseless assertion works just fine, of course. Every envious little twat will agree with you full-throatedly. That's why Moldbug tries it.
Meanwhile, asserting the truth of degeneracy doesn't work for the righteous, because getting the jealous masses to agree with it requires lying. Have to portray the target as righteous (but vulnerable) to activate the mob's destructive instinct.
Lies are bad mmmkay. Plus it plain doesn't work. The righteous catch more damage from the splash than will land on target. The righteous are honourable in large because anything less than honour doesn't work for them.
Reminder: never do the journalist thing. If you want to destroy someone, say so, then destroy them from the front using your own power. He who lives by the sword may die by the sword, but he who lives by the pen shall die more horribly yet.
"Why should it need this exception? White nationalists may deserve to be censored; why do they need to be censored?"
Because they're a threat to you personally, apparently.
In general when you fix a price, it never ends. You've distorted the market and managed to make it even worse, which you try to repair by fixing another price. Und so weiter. Subsidized speech => your idea marketplace is guaranteed to not work.
"Still, a healthy marketplace of ideas is not in the business of banning errors. It relies on the adversarial dialectic to filter them out."
Maybe don't subsidize the dialectic?
I don't know if it's sufficient, but it's unquestionably necessary.
Fun fact: monopoly isn't even real. Pepsi monopoly? Drink water. Only one bridge? Don't cross the river. "Monopoly" essentially means mercantilist State guild. There's only one bridge and you're not allowed to use a boat. It's a primitive kind of bankshot Sophism which hides a poll tax as a service fee. I may have mentioned this, but lies are bad mmmkay.
Something something the inherently schizophrenic writing style of the modern age vs. the demands of clear thought. Fitting in as unfitting parts of your brain from each other.
