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I am genuinely curious - how did you end up with such beliefs? thank you in advance.

• api 7y ago
  I'm not NRx but I'll answer your question as best I can. The main thing I think is that we are in an era of profound disillusionment with current systems, some of which is justified. For this reason many people have gone into things like NRx, alt-right / neo-fascism (they are not quite the same), and also into hard left ideologies like Neo-Marxism or even a revival of old school Marxism. People are looking for alternatives. The answer someone might have for "why did you go NRx" probably overlaps a lot with someone else's answer to "why did you go Leninist?" NRx is particularly appealing to the hacker crowd because its popularizers successfully packaged it as transgressive and rebellious, a packaging that is paradoxically modern. It's also unapologetically elitist. There's always been a strain of that in the hacker world, so it fits that nicely. As far as why there's so much elitism in the hacker world I could write a treatise on that. Maybe I should. Short short version: many people with these interests were socially excluded as children while simultaneously being told they were super-intelligent, resulting in a pretty serious mind-fuck. If someone asked me to design a brainwashing program to turn kids into sociopaths I'd basically describe my childhood, and I know for a fact that many others in the hacker world have similar experiences. I've worked hard to deprogram myself but I have sympathy for those who haven't as few human beings ever recognize that their youthful neurological imprints are maybe not optimal.
  • tandr 7y ago
    Thank you. It still would be interesting to see how much it resonates with @dropit_sphere personal path. On a "rising elitists" - you actually made me thinking how much of my own childhood contributes to what I am, albeit from polar experience of "shut up already, be like everybody, why do you always have to ask questions etc". I still have these barriers , for better or for worse - I don't know. Probably kept me "out of sight, out of trouble" more than once, but also prevented me from going faster in life too.
    • dropit_sphere 7y ago
      I tend, as policy, not to answer these questions. The fora in which they're asked are often not conducive to actually, you know, thinking about them. Somewhere in this thread someone linked the Atlantic article, wherein you can see greater minds than I refusing to speak with the author. The answer to your question: how did I get such beliefs---is pretty boring: I read, and I thought. Some things I read I agreed with, others I didn't. The much more interesting question is: what are those beliefs? You'll notice that many in this thread are eager to tell you, but the only person who's actually identified themselves as NRX is being cagey. This is not a coincidence. Outside observers tend to see NRX through their own lens, while one of the chief goals of NRX is changing the lens in the first place. So someone might ask: "NRX huh? What do you think about <political issue?>" A fully enlightened (tm) neoreactionary will answer, "Why, am I in charge of it?" Neophyte neoreactionaries see this as a front to hide their plotting. Experienced ones see it as an eminently sensible answer to an insane (though common) question. Who cares what I think? Am I paid, expected, or empowered to run a society? Why do people keep asking me what I'd do if I did? There's a whole life out there outside of politics. https://twitter.com/wrathofgnon https://twitter.com/wrathofgnon If you still want to know, go read Moldbug.
      • tandr 7y ago
        thank you