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I started responding to your post but after a while I found that we're not on the same page on so many things that you just seem to be stating as fact that I'm

I started responding to your post but after a while I found that we're not on the same page on so many things that you just seem to be stating as fact that I'm not sure if this is bridgeable. All of these things are worthy of a major discussion of their own. > Sooner or later, like the rise of the Communists, brute strength wins out over elegant attempts to moderate, basically mob rule followed shortly by blood rule with tyrants. Year Zero. A Reset. It has happened countless times in history. > Democracy leads to entropy. Competition has the potential to take us to Moloch. > Mediocrity is a threat (Entropy). > We all know smart people achieving mediocre results (via Molochian competitions). We all know not-as-smart people achieving, if not success in the sense of being on the first page of a top ten Google search results, achieving success in their local maximum. These are major statements that you can't really just assume to be true or that the other person finds them true. And I don't agree with any of them. Not to mention the lack of context on highly vague terms like entropy. A lot of this smells like neoreactionarism.

internaut 10y ago
> fter a while I found that we're not on the same page on so many things that you just seem to be stating as fact I try to make clear what my priors, assumptions are. And which portions I think are personal opinion. I don't mind my assumptions being attacked, but I do mind that people "show their work". How many internet discussions have you had with people who did not clearly delineate what their premise was? That leads nowhere because the premise has a tendency to evolve (ever more detailed refinement) when disagreement. If you know what I think you're not shadow boxing with a set of stereotypes. > These are major statements that you can't really just assume to be true or that the other person finds them true. Of course not, but I'm not making an argument for them here. I'm writing an internet comment, not a book. > And I don't agree with any of them. That is fine, although I don't really yet know your interpretation of what we see. > Not to mention the lack of context on highly vague terms like entropy. Here I must take askance. Entropy is widely used across topic areas but it is not a vague concept. Entropy is another word for randomness and disorder. In the context of a society, you could say a Dark Age was less ordered than the previous age when the Roman empire ran the show. Typical hallmarks of anti-entropy effort include roads, aqueducts and cities. Ruined cities, disintegrating roads and falling bridges are results of entropy. The social and physical meanings of entropy are intertwined. If that is not evident to you then you are correct to say our discussion is not bridgeable. If there is one thing I find disagreeable it is a relativism that posits all states are equally good. At that rate people will be flinging their brains into bins. > A lot of this smells like neoreactionarism. And what if it is? You shall find everything interesting happens at the peripheral. Conservatism and liberalism are after all, if nothing else, definitely repeated routines of thought. Hard to take good observations there. Of course if there is nothing to fix then there is no need to!
- projektir 10y ago
  > How many internet discussions have you had with people who did not clearly delineate what their premise was? Too many. And I often have the same problem since my premises are often far from what is expected. I try to bridge it as I can, but limitations of the human language and text space and all that. > Of course not, but I'm not making an argument for them here. I'm writing an internet comment, not a book. But it seems like you're making an argument /from/ them. Your definition of mediocrity is different from mine (mine is defined as: a person who will by others be considered mediocre in some context, which often resolves to a person who has low-to-medium relative ability in a skill). I don't have a definition of "entropy" to begin with, because it's not really something I care about. Randomness and disorder is the official definition, yes. I can't splice "randomness and disorder" onto reality. Reality seems to actually tend in the opposite direction, at least on a planetary level (i.e., dust -> planets -> creatures on planets). Mediocrity, given these definitions, seems utterly orthogonal to entropy. A football player called "mediocre" by others because he fumbled during a random game, or a person who is moderately OK at tech support being considered "mediocre" because they're not great, to me do not at all contribute to entropy. So I can only imagine your use of the word "mediocre" is something else. > In the context of a society, you could say a Dark Age was less ordered than the previous age when the Roman empire ran the show. Typical hallmarks of anti-entropy effort include roads, aqueducts and cities. Ruined cities, disintegrating roads and falling bridges are results of entropy. The social and physical meanings of entropy are intertwined. My problem is that the definitions are too vague. As well as culturally biased. Rome is more ordered than mud huts. But is Rome more or less ordered than modern USA? Mongol clans? Soviet Russia? Czarist Russia? Maybe there are different flavors of orderliness? I'm not really sure. Not to mention, if you consider it on a global level, you have to sum up the results in some way, and then determine whether the entire Earth is more or less ordered than some other timeframe. I think there's a difference between "everything is relative and all states are equally good" and "everything is not relative but I'm not convinced on what's more ordered and I don't trust your methods, either". Nonetheless, I still fail to see the relevance of the football player being called mediocre or the tech supporter not doing too great of a job to the fall of Western civilization. > We all know smart people achieving mediocre results (via Molochian competitions). We all know not-as-smart people achieving, if not success in the sense of being on the first page of a top ten Google search results, achieving success in their local maximum. In my opinion the second is in some sense smarter than the first because they are better adapted to their niche, they have a better foundation on which to ultimately progress. From the earlier post. This to me sounds like an amalgamation of just-world hypothesis and "nature is good". I don't correlate any specific outcomes to one's "smartness" since I don't believe in either. I don't respect "niches" too much since I don't believe in the latter. I disagree with both, and THAT disagreement is fairly fundamental, it's very hard to find a bridge between the "nature is bad and the world is not fair" and "nature is good and the world is fair" groups, or even the other combinations. > And what if it is? You shall find everything interesting happens at the peripheral. Conservatism and liberalism are after all, if nothing else, definitely repeated routines of thought. Hard to take good observations there. Of course if there is nothing to fix then there is no need to! Sure, let's say all the interesting ideas are there, but there is still a problem in assuming a specific vocabulary or axioms when talking to someone who is not already familiar. I have my own framework that's not conservatism, liberalism, or neoreactionism, but I try to keep it more or less under wraps or contextualize parts of it, because otherwise discussion gets very confusing. The whole line about communists and democracy and entropy and year 0 didn't make any sense to me until I considered neoreactionist thought. For other people I think a large portion of the post is likely just gibberish.

internaut 10y ago

> fter a while I found that we're not on the same page on so many things that you just seem to be stating as fact I try to make clear what my priors, assumptions are. And which portions I think are personal opinion. I don't mind my assumptions being attacked, but I do mind that people "show their work". How many internet discussions have you had with people who did not clearly delineate what their premise was? That leads nowhere because the premise has a tendency to evolve (ever more detailed refinement) when disagreement. If you know what I think you're not shadow boxing with a set of stereotypes. > These are major statements that you can't really just assume to be true or that the other person finds them true. Of course not, but I'm not making an argument for them here. I'm writing an internet comment, not a book. > And I don't agree with any of them. That is fine, although I don't really yet know your interpretation of what we see. > Not to mention the lack of context on highly vague terms like entropy. Here I must take askance. Entropy is widely used across topic areas but it is not a vague concept. Entropy is another word for randomness and disorder. In the context of a society, you could say a Dark Age was less ordered than the previous age when the Roman empire ran the show. Typical hallmarks of anti-entropy effort include roads, aqueducts and cities. Ruined cities, disintegrating roads and falling bridges are results of entropy. The social and physical meanings of entropy are intertwined. If that is not evident to you then you are correct to say our discussion is not bridgeable. If there is one thing I find disagreeable it is a relativism that posits all states are equally good. At that rate people will be flinging their brains into bins. > A lot of this smells like neoreactionarism. And what if it is? You shall find everything interesting happens at the peripheral. Conservatism and liberalism are after all, if nothing else, definitely repeated routines of thought. Hard to take good observations there. Of course if there is nothing to fix then there is no need to!

projektir 10y ago
> How many internet discussions have you had with people who did not clearly delineate what their premise was? Too many. And I often have the same problem since my premises are often far from what is expected. I try to bridge it as I can, but limitations of the human language and text space and all that. > Of course not, but I'm not making an argument for them here. I'm writing an internet comment, not a book. But it seems like you're making an argument /from/ them. Your definition of mediocrity is different from mine (mine is defined as: a person who will by others be considered mediocre in some context, which often resolves to a person who has low-to-medium relative ability in a skill). I don't have a definition of "entropy" to begin with, because it's not really something I care about. Randomness and disorder is the official definition, yes. I can't splice "randomness and disorder" onto reality. Reality seems to actually tend in the opposite direction, at least on a planetary level (i.e., dust -> planets -> creatures on planets). Mediocrity, given these definitions, seems utterly orthogonal to entropy. A football player called "mediocre" by others because he fumbled during a random game, or a person who is moderately OK at tech support being considered "mediocre" because they're not great, to me do not at all contribute to entropy. So I can only imagine your use of the word "mediocre" is something else. > In the context of a society, you could say a Dark Age was less ordered than the previous age when the Roman empire ran the show. Typical hallmarks of anti-entropy effort include roads, aqueducts and cities. Ruined cities, disintegrating roads and falling bridges are results of entropy. The social and physical meanings of entropy are intertwined. My problem is that the definitions are too vague. As well as culturally biased. Rome is more ordered than mud huts. But is Rome more or less ordered than modern USA? Mongol clans? Soviet Russia? Czarist Russia? Maybe there are different flavors of orderliness? I'm not really sure. Not to mention, if you consider it on a global level, you have to sum up the results in some way, and then determine whether the entire Earth is more or less ordered than some other timeframe. I think there's a difference between "everything is relative and all states are equally good" and "everything is not relative but I'm not convinced on what's more ordered and I don't trust your methods, either". Nonetheless, I still fail to see the relevance of the football player being called mediocre or the tech supporter not doing too great of a job to the fall of Western civilization. > We all know smart people achieving mediocre results (via Molochian competitions). We all know not-as-smart people achieving, if not success in the sense of being on the first page of a top ten Google search results, achieving success in their local maximum. In my opinion the second is in some sense smarter than the first because they are better adapted to their niche, they have a better foundation on which to ultimately progress. From the earlier post. This to me sounds like an amalgamation of just-world hypothesis and "nature is good". I don't correlate any specific outcomes to one's "smartness" since I don't believe in either. I don't respect "niches" too much since I don't believe in the latter. I disagree with both, and THAT disagreement is fairly fundamental, it's very hard to find a bridge between the "nature is bad and the world is not fair" and "nature is good and the world is fair" groups, or even the other combinations. > And what if it is? You shall find everything interesting happens at the peripheral. Conservatism and liberalism are after all, if nothing else, definitely repeated routines of thought. Hard to take good observations there. Of course if there is nothing to fix then there is no need to! Sure, let's say all the interesting ideas are there, but there is still a problem in assuming a specific vocabulary or axioms when talking to someone who is not already familiar. I have my own framework that's not conservatism, liberalism, or neoreactionism, but I try to keep it more or less under wraps or contextualize parts of it, because otherwise discussion gets very confusing. The whole line about communists and democracy and entropy and year 0 didn't make any sense to me until I considered neoreactionist thought. For other people I think a large portion of the post is likely just gibberish.