Multiheaded comments on Rationality Quotes May 2012 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: OpenThreadGuy 01 May 2012 11:37PM

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Comment author: Eugine_Nier 12 May 2012 09:27:59PM 4 points [-]

Taboo 'ruthlessness'. For example Japan was certainly ruthless while modernizing by any reasonable definition.

Comment author: Multiheaded 13 May 2012 09:30:30AM *  -1 points [-]

It didn't fully come into the "Universalist" sphere, ideologically and culturally, until its defeat in WW2, and the most aggressive and violent of its actions were committed in a struggle for expansion against Western dominiance.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 13 May 2012 06:33:28PM 2 points [-]

Konkvistador's argument would be that it wouldn't of been able to modernize nearly as effectively if it had come into the "Universalist" sphere before industrializing.

Comment author: Multiheaded 14 May 2012 06:13:37AM *  0 points [-]

Maybe, I don't know. On the other hand, maybe it would've avoided conquest and genocide if it had come into that sphere before industrializing.

Or maybe my premise above is wrong and its opening in the Meiji era did in fact count as contact with "Universalism" - note that America and Britain's influence had been considerable there, and Moldbug certainly says that post-Civil War U.S. and post-Chartist Britain (well, he says post-1689, but the Chartist movement definitely was a victory for democracy[1]) were dominated by hardcore Protestant "Universalism".

1- Although its effects were delayed by some 20 years.