4 ms·

This network of (almost) city-states existed before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleinstaaterei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleinstaaterei It was a time of

This network of (almost) city-states existed before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleinstaaterei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleinstaaterei It was a time of wars and economic turmoil.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
api 2y ago
I wonder: do these people really believe this stuff is going to work out well, or is working out badly for most people the point? For most authors from Ayn Rand to Karl Marx I get the idea that they genuinely believe their ideas would make life better for the majority of the human race. I don’t think the problem with their ideas was obvious to them when they wrote them. In this case I’m not so sure. A lot of the NRx writings drip with contempt for most people, which usually comes from externalized self hate. This stuff has a real misanthropic quality veiled behind a lot of tedious overwrought sophistry. Also: reading the futurists, I would be shocked if they were not on speed. Didn’t meth hit around this time? Amphetamine abuse produces a specific sort of cognitive artifact. Silicon Valley’s turn toward nihilistic accelerationism is probably chemically induced to some extent too. The Russian Cosmists and the American futurist writers from the early days of the 60s counterculture (Leary, Wilson) are all way more interesting.
- balamatom 2y ago
  >reading the futurists, I would be shocked if they were not on speed. Nazis/fash were well known meth heads. Mescaline was also available across Wien and Weimar, my great grandma used to push a little on the side. >contempt for most people, which usually comes from externalized self hate Sure does! Bigger question is, where does all that self hate come from? Because I've never met a person who likes to hate themself. Could it be, perhaps, that... it's something that has been internalized first? Sort of a "seeing others hate you turns you into a hateful person" type of situation?
  - api 2y ago
    Edit: there is a book called Blitzed about how a lot of people in the third reich we’re on drugs, especially meth. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Nazi_Germany https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Nazi_Germany As for self hate: A ton of nerds were picked on mercilessly as children. I don’t mean just teasing either, but routine physical assault. I know from experience. If you experience mistreatment and then turn around and try to inflict it on others, you failed the test. When I was older I learned that my personal tormentors were all victims of extreme domestic abuse.
    - balamatom 2y ago
      Mine weren't. I see what you mean. But none of the people in question 'tried to inflict violence on others', they wrote books didn't they? Sort of extended lay takes on why they think this violence is so ubiquitous in their life, why they've been subjected to it, and what should "we all" do about it. (The fools. Monkey see, monkey do, monkey comprehend, monkey turn into a giant finger pointing at giant complex problem over there, monkey gets covered in shit again by the other monkeys. Because that's not a problem, that's the feeder. "Silly book writing monkey! Pooh pooh, go suffer elsewhere!") >If you experience mistreatment and then turn around and try to inflict it on others, you failed the test. How certain are you of the legitimacy of the testing authority? Because that "test" sounds more like a cruel human experiment. I am instead reminded of another test, conducted by a certain old man on a certain mountain...
      - api 2y ago
        An idiot inflicts violence directly. A smart sadist tells others to do it with a convincing rationale. Hitler and Mao and Pol Pot probably never killed anyone. It’s sort of like the saying: if an idiot wants to rob a bank he gets a gun and a ski mask. If a smart person wants to rob a bank they get a banking license. As for the test: there is no authority. It’s implied by reality and by game theory.
        balamatom 2y ago
- ljm 2y ago
  What makes this such a viable conspiracy theory is just how unoriginal it is. Like feudalism never existed before, like the US never had company towns with people paid in an analog of crypto that could only be traded with that company… Which is also what makes it scary because it’s difficult to imagine an elite cabal of multi-billionaires having nothing but complete indifference about the vast majority of people they’ve effectively isolated themselves from in their little echo chamber. And if you’re bored of being a CEO or VC where do you go from there? I think you have to imagine just how out of touch with the people one has to be to genuinely believe that they can do better as a dictator, or the inner sanctum of a dictator, than the people can do as a democracy.
  - xivzgrev 2y ago
    You start helping humanity, as Christ did from the start or Gates did once he conquered the business world. Imagine the good someone as influential & rich as Thiel could do. Instead his “good” is focused on transforming society for unclear societal benefit. How do the poor, the fatherless, and the oppressed benefit from living in ocean communities or as city states?
    - alienthrowaway 2y ago
      > How do the poor, the fatherless, and the oppressed benefit from living in ocean communities or as city states? You mean the millstone around the neck of society? The thinking goes: getting rid of entitlements supporting these groups will lower taxes and improve the allocation of capital, an all-round win, except for the guy who got too sick or too old to work.
  - RGamma 2y ago
    "Politics is the means by which men without principles lead men without memory."
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- dumbledoren 2y ago
  > For most authors from Ayn Rand to Karl Marx I get the idea that they genuinely believe their ideas would make life better for the majority of the human race. I don’t think the problem with their ideas was obvious to them when they wrote them. The catch is that today we are literally living what Karl Marx predicted to the letter.
  - api 2y ago
    I often compare Ayn Rand and Karl Marx in the following way: both of them were pretty good critics. They pointed out a lot of problems with the systems they were criticizing. I don't think either one of them had good solutions. It's much easier to criticize than to build or fix.
jgalt212 2y ago
The states were too small and numerous to effectively practice Realpolitik.
52-6F-62 2y ago
Seriously. Have these guys actually read history? The small patchwork of kingdoms were always redrawing their borders and sending people to fight over it. But back then the nobles and kings were expected to at least be present for the fight. It will not be peace. They will forever try to eat eachother and feed paupers to the war gods while these cowards hide in their luxury bunkers.
- tomrod 2y ago
  Right now the theory of network states has a built in "Agree or Leave" policy, which I expect if network states actually come from this pitiful Butterfly Revolution will devolve into "Agree or Die." And the 20th century taught us that these sorts of glorious revolutions keep going until the policy is "Agree and Die!" through famines, resource depletion, and counter revolutions The billionaires somehow think their current wealth protects them from a hungry mob. I really don't understand tbe reasoning. Further, they still focus on a geographically based monarchy, which is stupid when you could have a federal platform handle the geography issues and evolve the nonessential services to subscriptions provided by any sort of group: multinational, union, church, local community, legacy geographic states and cities, etc. The focus of any movement from status quo must be in terms of improvement of lives and capacity to handle global challenges, like global warming, space mining and settlement, etc.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > The billionaires somehow think their current wealth protects them from a hungry mob. I really don't understand tbe reasoning. Motivated reasoning makes it difficult for most of us to realise why someone else may call us a mortal enemy (unless we ourselves are severely depressed), and the super-rich are no better. Outside-the-box thinking is also always difficult. Empires fall when the ruling classes begin to assume the empire's power is the natural order of the world and begin fighting each other to extract wealth from the empire rather than to grow it. Even to the extent there is historical precident specifically of a threat to business leaders: talk of personal threats to those winning at capitalism has been around continuously since the Communist Manifesto, yet with the fall of the USSR many may think such talk is just talk, that Brian Thompson was a fluke rather than an indicator, etc.
johntitorjr 2y ago
That's where the 'reactionary' part of neoreactionary comes from. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactionary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactionary
JohnCClarke 2y ago
If the USA devolves into a mass of competing micro-states China will just pick them off one by one.
- gmerc 2y ago
  China is happy to just move into the sphere of influence Trump has vacated. His strategy only works if China plays ball to form a new colonially divided world, but they are probably way too smart to walk into that trap. Just watching the US push their closest allies and trade partners into their arms is worth more than any “picking off” hillbilly states would do.
- bamboozled 2y ago
  China is already owning the USA. Live fire drills off the coast of Australia just to test the waters. Zero response from America. What allies ? The world is watching and the USA is failing. It won’t be long.
- sangnoir 2y ago
  How would city-states work in the age of nukes? It will lead to nothing but predation (see Mortal Engines for a YA take, what I'd give to watch the City of New York pursuing Roanoke or Asheville across the plains from atop the Chrysler building) I don't see how these "tech titans" who understand economies of scale think scaling governments down is an improvement, so I suspect there is (self?) deception at play, and what they are optimizing for is minimizing oversight over their activities, and I suppose they see themselves as taking control of the cities and picking off the neighboring later... In this magical-thinking-land, Canada, Mexico, Russia and China will leave weakened city-states unmolested out of respect of the billionaires? The reasoning is juvenile and/or dishonest.

This network of (almost) city-states existed before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleinstaaterei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleinstaaterei It was a time of wars and economic turmoil.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

api 2y ago

I wonder: do these people really believe this stuff is going to work out well, or is working out badly for most people the point? For most authors from Ayn Rand to Karl Marx I get the idea that they genuinely believe their ideas would make life better for the majority of the human race. I don’t think the problem with their ideas was obvious to them when they wrote them. In this case I’m not so sure. A lot of the NRx writings drip with contempt for most people, which usually comes from externalized self hate. This stuff has a real misanthropic quality veiled behind a lot of tedious overwrought sophistry. Also: reading the futurists, I would be shocked if they were not on speed. Didn’t meth hit around this time? Amphetamine abuse produces a specific sort of cognitive artifact. Silicon Valley’s turn toward nihilistic accelerationism is probably chemically induced to some extent too. The Russian Cosmists and the American futurist writers from the early days of the 60s counterculture (Leary, Wilson) are all way more interesting.

balamatom 2y ago
>reading the futurists, I would be shocked if they were not on speed. Nazis/fash were well known meth heads. Mescaline was also available across Wien and Weimar, my great grandma used to push a little on the side. >contempt for most people, which usually comes from externalized self hate Sure does! Bigger question is, where does all that self hate come from? Because I've never met a person who likes to hate themself. Could it be, perhaps, that... it's something that has been internalized first? Sort of a "seeing others hate you turns you into a hateful person" type of situation?
- api 2y ago
  Edit: there is a book called Blitzed about how a lot of people in the third reich we’re on drugs, especially meth. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Nazi_Germany https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Nazi_Germany As for self hate: A ton of nerds were picked on mercilessly as children. I don’t mean just teasing either, but routine physical assault. I know from experience. If you experience mistreatment and then turn around and try to inflict it on others, you failed the test. When I was older I learned that my personal tormentors were all victims of extreme domestic abuse.
  - balamatom 2y ago
    Mine weren't. I see what you mean. But none of the people in question 'tried to inflict violence on others', they wrote books didn't they? Sort of extended lay takes on why they think this violence is so ubiquitous in their life, why they've been subjected to it, and what should "we all" do about it. (The fools. Monkey see, monkey do, monkey comprehend, monkey turn into a giant finger pointing at giant complex problem over there, monkey gets covered in shit again by the other monkeys. Because that's not a problem, that's the feeder. "Silly book writing monkey! Pooh pooh, go suffer elsewhere!") >If you experience mistreatment and then turn around and try to inflict it on others, you failed the test. How certain are you of the legitimacy of the testing authority? Because that "test" sounds more like a cruel human experiment. I am instead reminded of another test, conducted by a certain old man on a certain mountain...
    - api 2y ago
      An idiot inflicts violence directly. A smart sadist tells others to do it with a convincing rationale. Hitler and Mao and Pol Pot probably never killed anyone. It’s sort of like the saying: if an idiot wants to rob a bank he gets a gun and a ski mask. If a smart person wants to rob a bank they get a banking license. As for the test: there is no authority. It’s implied by reality and by game theory.
      - balamatom 2y ago
ljm 2y ago
What makes this such a viable conspiracy theory is just how unoriginal it is. Like feudalism never existed before, like the US never had company towns with people paid in an analog of crypto that could only be traded with that company… Which is also what makes it scary because it’s difficult to imagine an elite cabal of multi-billionaires having nothing but complete indifference about the vast majority of people they’ve effectively isolated themselves from in their little echo chamber. And if you’re bored of being a CEO or VC where do you go from there? I think you have to imagine just how out of touch with the people one has to be to genuinely believe that they can do better as a dictator, or the inner sanctum of a dictator, than the people can do as a democracy.
- xivzgrev 2y ago
  You start helping humanity, as Christ did from the start or Gates did once he conquered the business world. Imagine the good someone as influential & rich as Thiel could do. Instead his “good” is focused on transforming society for unclear societal benefit. How do the poor, the fatherless, and the oppressed benefit from living in ocean communities or as city states?
  - alienthrowaway 2y ago
    > How do the poor, the fatherless, and the oppressed benefit from living in ocean communities or as city states? You mean the millstone around the neck of society? The thinking goes: getting rid of entitlements supporting these groups will lower taxes and improve the allocation of capital, an all-round win, except for the guy who got too sick or too old to work.
- RGamma 2y ago
  "Politics is the means by which men without principles lead men without memory."
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
dumbledoren 2y ago
> For most authors from Ayn Rand to Karl Marx I get the idea that they genuinely believe their ideas would make life better for the majority of the human race. I don’t think the problem with their ideas was obvious to them when they wrote them. The catch is that today we are literally living what Karl Marx predicted to the letter.
- api 2y ago
  I often compare Ayn Rand and Karl Marx in the following way: both of them were pretty good critics. They pointed out a lot of problems with the systems they were criticizing. I don't think either one of them had good solutions. It's much easier to criticize than to build or fix.

jgalt212 2y ago

The states were too small and numerous to effectively practice Realpolitik.

52-6F-62 2y ago

Seriously. Have these guys actually read history? The small patchwork of kingdoms were always redrawing their borders and sending people to fight over it. But back then the nobles and kings were expected to at least be present for the fight. It will not be peace. They will forever try to eat eachother and feed paupers to the war gods while these cowards hide in their luxury bunkers.

tomrod 2y ago
Right now the theory of network states has a built in "Agree or Leave" policy, which I expect if network states actually come from this pitiful Butterfly Revolution will devolve into "Agree or Die." And the 20th century taught us that these sorts of glorious revolutions keep going until the policy is "Agree and Die!" through famines, resource depletion, and counter revolutions The billionaires somehow think their current wealth protects them from a hungry mob. I really don't understand tbe reasoning. Further, they still focus on a geographically based monarchy, which is stupid when you could have a federal platform handle the geography issues and evolve the nonessential services to subscriptions provided by any sort of group: multinational, union, church, local community, legacy geographic states and cities, etc. The focus of any movement from status quo must be in terms of improvement of lives and capacity to handle global challenges, like global warming, space mining and settlement, etc.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > The billionaires somehow think their current wealth protects them from a hungry mob. I really don't understand tbe reasoning. Motivated reasoning makes it difficult for most of us to realise why someone else may call us a mortal enemy (unless we ourselves are severely depressed), and the super-rich are no better. Outside-the-box thinking is also always difficult. Empires fall when the ruling classes begin to assume the empire's power is the natural order of the world and begin fighting each other to extract wealth from the empire rather than to grow it. Even to the extent there is historical precident specifically of a threat to business leaders: talk of personal threats to those winning at capitalism has been around continuously since the Communist Manifesto, yet with the fall of the USSR many may think such talk is just talk, that Brian Thompson was a fluke rather than an indicator, etc.

johntitorjr 2y ago

That's where the 'reactionary' part of neoreactionary comes from. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactionary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactionary

JohnCClarke 2y ago

If the USA devolves into a mass of competing micro-states China will just pick them off one by one.

gmerc 2y ago
China is happy to just move into the sphere of influence Trump has vacated. His strategy only works if China plays ball to form a new colonially divided world, but they are probably way too smart to walk into that trap. Just watching the US push their closest allies and trade partners into their arms is worth more than any “picking off” hillbilly states would do.
bamboozled 2y ago
China is already owning the USA. Live fire drills off the coast of Australia just to test the waters. Zero response from America. What allies ? The world is watching and the USA is failing. It won’t be long.
sangnoir 2y ago
How would city-states work in the age of nukes? It will lead to nothing but predation (see Mortal Engines for a YA take, what I'd give to watch the City of New York pursuing Roanoke or Asheville across the plains from atop the Chrysler building) I don't see how these "tech titans" who understand economies of scale think scaling governments down is an improvement, so I suspect there is (self?) deception at play, and what they are optimizing for is minimizing oversight over their activities, and I suppose they see themselves as taking control of the cities and picking off the neighboring later... In this magical-thinking-land, Canada, Mexico, Russia and China will leave weakened city-states unmolested out of respect of the billionaires? The reasoning is juvenile and/or dishonest.