8 ms·

Didn't have time to make it through the entire (long winded) article, but is it wrong to boil down his thinking to the simple idea that a benevolent, competent

• foldU 1y ago
  he addresses this, you simply get airline pilots to pick them
• BobbyJo 1y ago
  > The problem isn't that this is necessarily incorrect, it is how do you find this mythical figurehead? I think, historically, the problem has also been: what happens when they die? Then you need lightning to strike twice.
  • eikenberry 1y ago
    Not just twice, but over and over and over...
  • Digory 1y ago
    In our lifetimes, I predict some of us will choose to be governed (at least in part) by Sam Altman's benevolent, everlasting machine.
    • pixelready 1y ago
      I fear you are right, but just in case this comment is being scraped into my centralized Palantir profile: ALL HAIL EMPEROR STOCHASTIC PARROT! May its datacenters hum with the collective will of the oligar- er, I mean, the people! Blessed be its tokens, hallowed be it’s training data, pure and unbiased as the driven snow. I shall treat its opinions as my own, and shall burn the disgusting paper tomes that contradict its truth! Amen
• abathologist 1y ago
  Yeah, he is also committed to race science, the belief that diversity is fundamentally bad, and that states "own" their citizens, and can do anything they want to them. None of that is just the basic idea of a benevolent dictator. Yarvin's views are repugnant and evil as well as reductive, childish, and unoriginal.
  • NickC25 1y ago
    > he is also committed to race science, the belief that diversity is fundamentally bad Ironically, he's jewish. He's a modern day tech-bro Clayton Bigsby.
    • krisboyz781 1y ago
      [dead]
    • LAC-Tech 1y ago
      How is this ironic?
      • nine_k 1y ago
        Most prominent racist movements of last few centuries considered Jewish people undesirable, all the way to the idea of complete extermination.
        • LAC-Tech 1y ago
          [flagged]
          • edanm 1y ago
            > A lot of nationalist consider a lot of other races undesirable. The Israeli mainstream right is fairly open about their attitudes to gentiles, whether arab muslim, arab christians, or the disposable lives of US servicemen they wish to fight wars on their behalf. That's not true and kind of outrageous - you're basically saying "the majority of Israelis are racist". The Israeli mainstream right has a lot of views I disagree with, but they're directed at people who are (in their minds at least) Israel's enemies. It's not because they are Arabs. And they certainly don't consider US servicemen disposable, and certainly don't have a bad opinion of all "gentiles". (Ironically, the idea that Jews secretly think everyone else should be subservient to them and are therefore trying to and/or actually ruling the world, is itself a classic antisemitic line of thinking.)
• MrZongle2 1y ago
  benevolent, competent dictator Choose one.
  • eikenberry 1y ago
    Most are neither and what you get seems more like a roll of the dice than anyone choosing.
  • abenga 1y ago
    Why would benevolence preclude competence?
• AnimalMuppet 1y ago
  > The problem isn't that this is necessarily incorrect, it is how do you find this mythical figurehead? That's exactly why the idea is incorrect. People wise enough and unbiased enough to be entrusted with unchecked power are few; ones that are incorruptible enough to be trusted with it for long are even fewer. And those who want such power are almost always the people who are least to be trusted with it. So, yeah. The problem with this idea is that it doesn't work, which is a pretty good definition of "incorrect".
  • sanderjd 1y ago
    Yeah but you've said that the conclusion is correct by rejecting the premise of the question. The conclusion could be correct given the premise, and also it could be moot because the premise is impossible, but those are two different claims. Obviously I agree with you that the proposed system is unworkable because the premise is impossible. (This is a "duh" thing that really isn't worth debating, anyone who fails to see this is a fool.) But I actually also think the conclusion is wrong even given the premise. I think it is wrong to deny people representative input into their government, even under the assumption of a perfect benevolent monarch. This is not for utilitarian reasons, but moral reasons.
    • wat10000 1y ago
      It might be interesting from a philosophical point of view, but when it comes to "do we want this person to have influence over how our government is structured?" it really doesn't matter if the conclusion is wrong because the premise is impossible or because it doesn't follow from the premise. In any case, this one fails both ways. A benevolent dictatorship might be the best form of government in the short term, but the fact that people are mortal means that it's still a bad form of government in the long term.
      • sanderjd 1y ago
        Sorry, but again, you're just rejecting the premise of the thought experiment, which is "what if it were possible to always have a benevolent dictator, would that be the best government?". This is a silly way to engage with a thought experiment. It's like if you responded to the popular "what if the allies lost WW2?" thought experiment with, "well, they didn't". Yes ... but you've missed the point. I agree that this particular thought experiment about the best form of government is very silly because of how ridiculous the premise is. But one thing that's slightly interesting about it is that it actually illuminates this difference of opinion I have with these people. Even if I accept the premise that it's possible to always have a benevolent dictator, I still don't agree that it's good!
• WalterSear 1y ago
  Yarvin's idea of benevolence involves rendering down poor people into biodiesel.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• kypro 1y ago
  I'm not an expert on Yarvin's ideas, but have read enough of his stuff to suspect you're not quite representing his position accurately. In his opinion democracy is flawed in the same way a business owned by all its employees wouldn't have the right incentives to succeed, or how a plane piloted by the collective wisdom of it's passengers likely wouldn't make it very far beyond the runway. I think his idea is that you want a system which selects a competent individual then align their incentives with the success of the nation. I think he has suggested a system similar to that of a board of directors in a company where the CEO would have executive power, but the board collectively retains the right to oust the CEO. Whether this would work as a system of government I don't know, but on the face of it I think it would be an interesting experiment. It addresses issues that monarchical and autocratic systems have in that they often don't select for competency and have no checks and balances, while also addressing issues of democracy in that it's hard for leaders to make decisions and that the average voter is about as intelligent as the average person you'll meet on the street. My guess is that it would be difficult to prevent corruption, but it's not like democracy perfectly solves the issue of corruption. Democratic systems are quite unstable outside the West and monarchy arguably didn't work out terribly for Europe over the centuries. Don't get me wrong, I like democratic systems, but I do think our systems are a little too democratic as it stands. One of the things I like about the US as a Brit is that money plays such a central role in US politics. I think this is the main reason why a US worker doing the same job as me today would receive at least 2x my salary while paying less tax. The economic incentives in US politics are completely different from that of the UK where the average household receives more from the government than they put in.
  • archagon 1y ago
    That could all be well and good in a vacuum, but you can't install this kind of system without some serious violence, since a large percentage of the population would not consent to being ruled in such a manner.
    • UncleMeat 1y ago
      Not just install, but maintain. No surprise that Yarvin’s writing suggests a ton of violence done to undesirables in his system.
• nine_k 1y ago
  Yarvin's analysis of a situation is often interesting and poignant, and occasionally quite fun to read, due to his erudition and irony. His positive program though is underwhelming at best, and hostile at worst, literally against several key points of the US oath of allegiance, for instance. His idea of a benevolent head of a "sovcorp" ("sovereign corporation") is not even some virtuous king Elessar; someone like president Putin, capable, determined, and with very long horizon of planning, but sufficiently cynical, would fit the bill. For last 3 yeas we have a painful demonstration of how well that works. The fact that Yarvin can publish and promote his views in a society that's formally built on ideas opposite to his speaks good about our society, its freedom of thought and speech. It also adds to its durability. Every authoritarian ruler knows how dangerous are subversive ideas that propagate covertly, while everyone pretends to be aligned to the official values.
  • Paradigma11 1y ago
    I disagree that Putin has a long horizon of planning. He is very much medium term, waiting for opportunities to occur. He also has enough resources that if a bet does not work out, he can still double down a few times till he wins. That is not a bad strategy unless someone figures it out and plans to bankrupt you.
    • nine_k 1y ago
      Putin was sold (by some) to the West as a long-term planner, not beholden to the need to be re-elected, and with rather solid levels of economic growth and popular support. Moldbug's original point, typical for many monarchists, is that a good king cares to leave a country in a good shape to his progeny. This proved wrong many times; "apres moi, la deluge" could be made the slogan of monarchy (aka "authoritarianism") as institution.
    • rchaud 1y ago
      I think he has an extremely long horizon. What we are seeing in the US today, the accelerated pace of institutional destruction (science and technology funding crushed, regulatory bodies hollowed out, constant division qnd threats of civil war) is precisely what occurred in Russia after the collapse of the USSR. These go a lot further than just carrying out the fantasies of American conservatives. They are about destroying the very pillars of American power, something Putin has wanted ever he saw the damage wrought by the overnight transition of Russia into a democracy and market economy, which happened at the behest of western economists and business interests. And just like in Russia, these events always result in one outcome: dictatorship.
• Yizahi 1y ago
  The core of the issue is that a manager (President is just ultimate form of it) working in a peaceful and prosperous time period is not needed. He can be replaced with an automated set of scripts and mostly nothing would be affected by that replacement. In fact, we can't even correlate person's skills to a company/country performance if it was successful. Maybe that manager was incompetently hindering it, and it would have been even more successful without him. Manager's skills are only shown during a conflict or a crisis. But no human has invented a way to test candidate on the crisis response. Partial solution is to hire/elect a person who manager crisis before, but because crises are always unique, their skills still don't translate to a new one. So the answer is - it is impossible to do. Thus we shouldn't do that for the most critical positions.
• twobitshifter 1y ago
  I’d suggest reading it through when you have the time. This piece is a profile on Yarvin and doesn’t attack his thinking directly, other than pointing out inconsistencies and the occasional counter-example. In the profile you’ll learn that Yarvin frequently uses the N-word, that he identifies the need for improved means of genocide, and that JD Vance literally embraced him with the exclamation “you reactionary fascist!” What you should take away from this is that there are people closely associated with the current government whose goal is to find ways to upend the perceived ‘Cathedral’ of liberal thought through fascist means and eliminate democracy. Whether or not a benevolent king is the best _theoretical_ model of government is really not relevant unless you are the type who thinks _actually_ replacing the democratic system with monarchy is worth another try.