3 ms·

I've never read moldbug but I know people who know people in certain circles - and I can't tell if his ideas genuinely captivate the imagination of the elite, o

I've never read moldbug but I know people who know people in certain circles - and I can't tell if his ideas genuinely captivate the imagination of the elite, or if he's a kind of Judas goat, because the non-elite are definitely captivated by his ideas. I feel like his work came at a time when the Right lost its core conservative values. Libertarianism was poised as the successor but was defeated, leaving a vacuum for something new. I think yarvin's ideas also satisfies the right's need for something intellectual to stand up to left wing ideology, but there's the possibility that its simply an intellectual trap - consistent and elaborate, but untrue due to false assumptions. Strange times.

pas 1y ago
ideologies usually perform better if they are inconsistent (or "not even wrong" and vague), so they can serve the emotional/rhetorical needs of the group promulgating them, no?
- disambiguation 1y ago
  Yeah rhetorical flexibility is probably an important ingredient for an effective social order (not necessarily a moral one) but you have to consider what it takes to embrace an idea. My sense is that ideologies usually emerge bottom up from individual values - anything top down runs the risk of being misaligned, and therefore incompatible and won't be accepted. Further, if its too inconsistent or incorrect then its vulnerable to opposition and is no longer "the least bad choice in the room."
  - pas 1y ago
    It seems that these populist ideologies are built on the shared values of chauvinism, revanchism, and various maladaptive psychological copings to the usual problems and hardships of (modern) life. And it seems that the ends of the spectrum exhibit different manifestations, as in the current "left" uses ideology for purity testing and the "right" uses it for loyalty testing. (I wanted to link to some details on this, but I can't find it now. :/)

pas 1y ago

ideologies usually perform better if they are inconsistent (or "not even wrong" and vague), so they can serve the emotional/rhetorical needs of the group promulgating them, no?

disambiguation 1y ago
Yeah rhetorical flexibility is probably an important ingredient for an effective social order (not necessarily a moral one) but you have to consider what it takes to embrace an idea. My sense is that ideologies usually emerge bottom up from individual values - anything top down runs the risk of being misaligned, and therefore incompatible and won't be accepted. Further, if its too inconsistent or incorrect then its vulnerable to opposition and is no longer "the least bad choice in the room."
- pas 1y ago
  It seems that these populist ideologies are built on the shared values of chauvinism, revanchism, and various maladaptive psychological copings to the usual problems and hardships of (modern) life. And it seems that the ends of the spectrum exhibit different manifestations, as in the current "left" uses ideology for purity testing and the "right" uses it for loyalty testing. (I wanted to link to some details on this, but I can't find it now. :/)