ArisKatsaris comments on Open Thread, October 16-31, 2012 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: OpenThreadGuy 16 October 2012 10:43PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 23 October 2012 05:49:08PM *  6 points [-]

My problem with him is the general problem with radicals-- he needs to offer better arguments that what he's suggesting will be reliably better than the current set-up. Speaking of Nazis and Communists, it's possible to make things a lot worse because your theory sounds so attractive.

I agree. A strong argument in favour of our current order (social democracy) is the Burkean conservative one. I've said in the past that Moldbug is good at diagnosing but bad at providing treatments and I think his plan as it stands is more likely to go terribly wrong than terribly right. But hey we tried socialism so many times in so many different places, and we still haven't given up on it, can't we try Neocameralism in a charter city somewhere?

However, in the US and Europe, there are violent neo-Nazis but (unless I've missed something) little or nothing in the way of violent communists, so it makes sense to be more concerned about Nazis.

There are plenty of violent left anarchists / anti-fa (Communists in the sense Moldbug is using) in Europe. To cite an example from Greece:

Protesters set fire to a Marfin Bank branch on Stadiou Street with Molotov cocktails; witnesses said that protestors marching past the bank ignored the employees' cries for help, while others chanted anti-capitalist slogans.[33][34][45] Most of the bank's employees managed to escape the burning building, but two employees who jumped from the second-story balcony were injured and two women and a man were found dead after the fire was extinguished.

Social Justice in action, I'm sure the protesters had "legitimate grievances" which foreign media where sympathetic to. Question time, if Neo-Nazis had burned down a building do you think it more or less likely for you to have heard of an incident like this? Can Neo-Nazis ever have "legitimate grievances"?

Indeed we have a ready made test case for this, check out foreign reports on Golden Dawn then compare them to their actual relevance. The double standard regarding this is ridiculous.

As is the amount of resources spent on "fighting" the far right in the EU compared to the amount dedicated to fighting the far left. Even if ceteris paribus Nazis (in the wider sense of the word) are more competent at takeovers and causing damage than Commies (in the wider sense of the word), diminishing returns have almost certainly kicked in for fighting Nazis but not for fighting Commies.

It was amusing to see that Mencius Moldbug, Dark Lord of the Convoluted Sentence, is a pretty average speaker.

Yeah Good writer =/= Good speaker. Unfortunately Eliezer seems to be another example of this.

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 26 October 2012 06:04:14AM *  0 points [-]

The murderousness of certain Greek left-wingers is true, but I would wish that you didn't downplay the murderousness of Golden Dawn. They contributed to the slaughter of Srebenica in Bosnia -- they are currently killing immigrants, They are officially in the parliament and yet they've not ceased with their numerous death threats against everyone who stands in their way.

Sorry, but though the murderousness of certain off-parliament Greek left-wingers is certainly a fact, and the sympathy they receive from inside the parliament likewise, the actual bloody neonazi murderers are in the Greek parliament. With 7% vote they're already killing people and nobody here really gives a damn, are you sure they won't commit acts of genocide when they reach 30%?

Comment author: [deleted] 26 October 2012 08:52:22AM *  2 points [-]

They contributed to the slaughter of Srebenica in Bosnia

You are referring to the Greek Volunteer Guard? Some allegedly had links to Greek Neo-Nazi groups including Golden Dawn, though you have to admit terming that as "Golden Dawn contributed to the slaughter at Screbrenica" is importing stronger connotations.

but I would wish that you didn't downplay the murderousness of Golden Dawn.

I didn't intend to downplay their murderousness, I wished to downplay the relevance of media reports on them. Which I think are disproportionate to their importance for non-Greeks. Also I hoped people would note the soft handed treatment anarchist/communist/anti-fa violence is given compared to the uniform condemnation of far right violence.