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Viliam_Bur comments on Why is Mencius Moldbug so popular on Less Wrong? [Answer: He's not.] - Less Wrong
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To give an example. Cthulhu may swim slowly. But he only swims left. Isn't that interesting?
I wish he could say things using less then million words, or at least provide a short summary afterwards. My attempt at a short summary would be this:
People are more likely to prefer solutions that provide more power to them personally. Even if they are trying to choose the best solution for everyone, they still have this bias; they honestly think that a solution which gives them more power is the best for society.
In democracy, everyone has the power, in theory. But when we ask how their opinions are formed, there are two important sources: schools and media.
Therefore we should expect politics to move in a direction where schools and media have more power. (Or perhaps a direction where the average former student, media consumer, has more power? The same thing.) This direction is called "the Left".
Every other direction, e.g. trying to give more power to church, or entrepreneurs, or medieval nobility, or armed forces, or extraterrastrial lizards, or genetically superior mutants, or whatever... faces the same problem: the schools and media have no selfish reason to support them. These directions are collectively called "the Right".
There is no way to fix this, to remove the power from the schools and media, unless we remove democracy.
What is this an argument for? I can't figure it out. Is he saying that it's bad that people want more power?
Whether something is real or not, is independent on whether it is "good" or "bad". So in the first place, MM says that this is what happens: that people in democracies on average vote for more political power for the average Joe, which consequently means more power to those who form Joe's opinions -- the schools and the media.
True or false?
To me it seems essentially correct, with the addition that we should go further and examine who owns the schools and who owns the media, how much those owners influence the content of the message, and what are the incentives for the owners. As I understand MM, he says that successful journalists get their ideas from the schools, the whole school system gets their opinions from university professors, and the university professors are almost independent... except for their dependence on money from government. Which motivates them to descibe the world in a manner that calls for more money from the government to university professors.
Then, as a specific consequence, the university professors have an incentive to promote central planning over free market, because in central planning the government will pay them for research about how to plan things better. This is almost like paying them for saying: "central planning is the correct answer". On the other hand, promoting free market or other forms of citizens deciding independently of government (and professors) is almost like saying: "my job is superfluous, please fire me". Professors will have bias against that.
Only after we decide whether something is true or false, we should look at the consequences. MM says that the consequence of biased government decisions is ineffectivity in general, and specifically higher crime rates. (I did not check his numbers.)
I would say that the "more power" which people get, is mostly illusory for most people. It can make you feel good to have a right to vote for Republicans or Democrats or Libertarians or Greens, but so what? Either way Libertarians and Greens will lose, and both Republicans and Democrats will continue doing the things you hate, such as war, taxes and spying on citizens. On the other hand, the higher crime has more impact on you. So maybe... having more of this "power" is actually a net loss for the average Joe.
Does it seem correct to you because it is the way you would expect the world to be, or because you have good observational data to back it up? I ask mainly because to me it seems a question whose answer is hard to establish; it's true that in all democratic countries the average Joe gained some additional power in the course of the last century, but 1) it was mainly a result of suffrage extension; after establishing universal suffrage over 18 I don't see any systematic increase of average Joe's power, 2) when trying to conclude the direction of a very slow power shift, we need precise ways to define and measure power, unless we want to risk our conclusions being infested by bias and random errors; when asked whether the average José in Spain has more power now than he had fifteen years ago, not only I am unable to answer, but I also lack a clear idea what information to check if I seriously intended to do some research and find it out.
Not only I am not sure whether the average Joe has, on average, more power now than he had ten or twenty years ago (not speaking about countries which went through an abrupt regime change), but I also doubt whether the average Joe actually votes for more (political) power. I see election campaigns putting much emphasis on social security, taxes, crime, healthcare, corruption, even morality and religion in some countries, but comparably few parties promise more power to the citizens. If getting more power was one of the more important goals of the average Joe, why do the parties so rarely include it in their programs?
Another question is whether the average Joe thinks he's an average Joe -- given how self-serving biases work, I doubt it -- and if not, why would he vote for more power for someone else?
The average Joe knows that he is not a millionaire, he is not a movie star, and he did not get Nobel price. His biases will probably make him believe that he is between 60th and 70th percentile. He can still vote for less power for the top 10%, or more popularly 1%.
The rest of your questions... I don't really know. Right at this moment it occurred to me that perhaps the feeling of power is more important that the power itself; most people don't notice the difference. Saying "senator Sam will reduce crime and give you free healthcare if you vote for him, Joe" makes Joe feel powerful. Saying "milionaire Mark made his money legally, you can't take his money away and use it as you want, Joe" does not make Joe feel powerful. Even if in reality senator Sam has more money than millionaire Mark, and senator Sam makes some rules that reduce Joe's freedom, while Mark only provides cheap shiny toys for everyone. Generally, if Joe feels that he can influence the state (even if that influence is mostly illusory), a more powerful state will make Joe feel more powerful. But I don't know how to measure this feeling precisely.
The tale of Senator Sam and Millionaire Mark is written as if the average Joe trusts more the former and less the latter (please correct me if it wasn't your intention to make it sound that way). This is still somewhat contrary to my experience, in which people generally distrust both millionaires and senators, hard to tell whom of them more. (This is more of a side note than an objection.)
Anyway, the hypothesis that people support democracy because voting makes them feel powerful even if it doesn't make any difference is plausible (althought it is certainly not the only plausible explanation). However, doesn't it contradict the Moldbuggian view, in which voting makes a difference -- else he couldn't assert that the power shifts towards the average Joe because he votes for that. (Disclaimer: I don't suppose that you are defending Moldbug's theory, only ask as you seem to have read more Moldbug than me.)
A related anecdote, not sure what to make of that: I am a member of a political party and last week we had a district conference where several functionaries have been elected. Originally it was supposed that three men would compete for the position of a district chairman, but just before the election two of them resigned from their candidatures, leaving the current chairman (in my opinion clearly worst of them three) an easy victory. The district committee had also composed a list of people they nominate for all the posts; the delegates of the conference had no duty to respect this nomination and can vote for whomever they wish (the election was of course secret), but out of about 30 positions all winners were those written on the list, getting from 60% to 80% of votes, no candidate who wasn't suggested by the committee succeeded. Those people seem to have absolutely no desire for power.
I have read Moldbug recently (this Friday + Saturday), so the ideas are not very much processed in my head yet. Obviously I am shifting from what MM said, through how it makes sense to me, to my explanations which are not really based on MM's texts. I guess I should stop doing this, because I am basicly defending someone else's bottom line.
Your anecdote suggests that you missed an opportunity to become a chairman! :D
I also had some small experience with politics, and it also suggests that if a person has a desire for power, they can get it surprisingly easily. A few years ago I was a candidate in a municipal election. I did almost nothing to increase my chances (procrastination, lack of experience, lack of social skills, lack of desire for power...), and yet I received 50% of necessary votes. So I guess if I were just a little more agenty, I could have been a member of the municipal government. It was interesting to see that when the idea of being elected switched from far mode to near mode ("so, can we put your name on the official list of our candidates?"), many previously enthusiastic people became nervous and step back. This suggests there is some juicy low-hanging fruit here. I wonder what happens on the higher levels -- whether the competition suddenly becomes tough after the people with no desire for power are removed, or whether it is also surprisingly easy to become e.g. a member of parliament.
I was actually elected a chairman of a local organisation (the lowest level) this spring and that is about as much as I have time for. The district chairman has to invest more time (organising events and kicking procrastinating collaborators' asses) and money (phone calls, probably also bribes); needless to say, he gets his money back through processes I am not actually willing to participate in. And probability to assume that function for myself would be negligible even if I tried; I wasn't even elected as a delegate for the regional conference.
I know Moldbug thinks it's true -- as much as anyone can know what that guy really thinks. I just think it's a facile argument in fancy clothes.
What's preferable to letting people feel powerful, even if it's illusory? How opposed to the free market are professors, really? If your summary is faithful, it seems like he's overstating the entrenchment of bad ideas in academia, or at the very least understating the feedback between disciplines where bad ideas are stickier and disciplines where bad ideas are quickly revealed as such. And are there many reasons to believe that application of central planning isn't getting more and more precise over time?
MM does not oppose central planning. His idea of a good state is to hire Steve Jobs and make him a dictator (or dictator's minister). Supposedly Steve Jobs is smart enough to prescribe central planning where central planning works better, and prescribe free market where free market works better, and measure the efficiency of both.
On the other hand, a democratic government decides between central planning and free market based on the popular opinion, which is based on professors' advice, which is driven by their desire to get more grant money. This leads to a choosing a policy not because it gives the best results, but because it is the best topic for writing papers about. For example: nobody really understands Keynesian economics, probably because it does not really work, which allows professors to publish many papers about it, which makes it popular among professors, and journalists (with some hyperbole here).
Essentially: Central planning as done in democracy is imprecise because academia introduces systematic biases into central planning. A non-democratic ruler could avoid this bias.
Whilst imposing plenty of their own, eg Grab The Money and Run, Impose My Religion on Everyone, Trees Are More Interesting to Talk to than People, etc, etc.
The whole thing seems to hinge on the arbitrariness of professors' intellectual leanings. How do we know they are so arbitrary? If you polled all the economics professors of major universities in the US, would their outlook confirm MM's argument? Or is his data obsolete, based on a stereotype?
Perhaps some journalists get some wrong ideas from some professors. I don't know why I should believe that it's an irretrievably bad situation, however.
This sounds to me like burning down the house to get rid of termites.
I don't model academia as having a single bias. In my experience, it is a bunch of subcultures -- for instance, economics professors tend to love libertarianism, and sociology professors tend to hate it. I have been "informed" from time to time that my university education was nothing but left-wing propaganda, although I don't recall much mention of politics on my physics course.
Another thing that is peculiar about this argument is the relative lack of emphasis on the influence of familt, church, etc on people's thinking. If the tertiary education sector is so influential on the US, why aren't most US citizens believers in evolution?
By some metrics a slight majority of people in the US accept evolution, but your basic point is sound.
Your description omits the most important question: why are the schools and media for things other than democracy that we know to be "Left" ideologically - e.g. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or feminism, or other such stuff? Where have they got those memes originally? Me, I'm saying Robert Nisbet and Zizek are right: Progressivism derives directly from 1st Century Christianity (although its road was long and twisted).
Moldbug has made similar claims.
His "Calvinism" thing looks completely baseless and arbitrary to me, though, especially in the face of Nisbet's argument. Could it be more of an attempt to sweeten the pill for the "conservative" part of the audience by avoiding blaming "mainline" Christianity?
Or maybe Moldbug is just bad at processing/modelling religious feeling due to him being... neurodiverse... in a way that inhibits religion-connected parts of the psyche? I bet that's so.
I think this is precisely and amazingly correct. And Nisbet's argument has been around in "approved", non-contrarian science long before Moldbug!
You are plain wrong on this. I find this suspicious and strange since you didn't used to be.
He explicitly states that American progressivism is the descendant of mainline protestantism. As to his audience if anything most of his "conservative" non-atheist readers are probably protestant and nearly everyone reads him as blaming at the very least mainline protestantism too if not Christanity as a whole. Moldbug does rant less on Catholicism but I think that is because he sees the same thing Muflax speculated on:
I wanted to link to his profile too but he seems to have delete his LW account. :(
I can think of several Catholic reactionaries who are linked to Moldbug. I cannot think of any Protestants. From what are you extrapolating your estimate?
I'm not sure how it looks to you, but looking from an outside perspective, I can certainly see the similarities between Calvinism and Progressivism (specifically the form you seem to belong to).
In a number of places you expressed utter horror at the notion that people should face what they deserve. This reminds me of the Calvinist idea that everyone deserves to get thrown into hell.
Specifically, both strike me as possessing an alief, if not a belief, that being virtuous requires that one constantly feel guilty. What one should be feeling guilty about differs.
In the case of the Calvinist one should feel guilty about original sin, of which one is reminded whenever one experiences sexual attraction, or enjoys one's food, or has fun when one could be doing work. In the case of the Progressive one should be guilty about one's white/male/upper class/straight/righty/etc. (select all that apply) privilege, of which one is reminded whenever one perceives one is receiving the benefits of said privilege.
One can be a supporter of mainstream western democracy without having any of those attitudes.
Agreed for certain values of "mainstream western democracy". In the comment I was referring specifically to certain forms of progressivism.
If those attitudes are only representative of a minority, then "Calvinists" are only a minority, and "Calvinism" isn't the essence of democracy.
Taboo "essence".
Are you saying that under-privileged "Progressives" are typically devoid of a mechanism of self-control through guilt, since they spend their time attacking teh evil white cis straight man, and feel themselves to be naturally blameless by comparison, part of a saintly group that can do no wrong?
Here, for example, is the kind of disclaimer that can be often seen attached to "checklists" of white/male/class/cis/etc privilege:
(Note that in the context of the linked post, which is about neurotypical privilege in particular, both you and me could probably use a little more of said neurotypical privilege in our daily lives! There's far more ways to be excluded from it than just being on the autism spectrum, of course.)
Does this sound like the "party line" of left egalitarianism includes guilt-tripping Average Non-Diverse Guys over their lack of Diversity? Or is it like what Orwell said back in the 30s - the worst advertisement for Socialism and Christianity is their [stereotypical] adherents?
I was mainly talking about "privileged" Progressives, i.e., the ones who are intellectual descendents, and frequently also familial descendents, of Calvinists.
In the context of these discussions of privilege, the "we're not guilt tripping you" disclaimers read like suspiciously specific denials, since they then proceed to engage in something that looks very much like guilt tripping.
In this case I was referring to how both Calvinists and Progressives guilt-trip themselves.
In any case, if I'm misunderstanding what you meant here by
could you correct me. Specifically, what do/did you think would consist of "holding you responsible for your actions" and why?
There is an interesting diversion to be made along these lines. Nick Land, who has written up a series (The Dark Enlightenment) about Moldbug and the neo-reaction in general, has just written this, in which he posits the politically-assisted decoupling from reality as a progressive eschatology:
"The unforgivable crime is to accept that there are consequences, or results, other than those we have agreed to allow."
This meme, a seriously morbid distortion of epistemology, is common to many adaptive belief systems, but I would propose that it is more crucial to progressivism than any other.
Land is a little horrifying in his Nietzchean/Stirnerian lack of barriers, to be honest.
About accepting/not shrinking from shocking facts about reality: I see two basic types of failure modes here - firstly, denying the presense of any given horror (like e.g. innate group neurological differences - race, gender, etc - creating inherent power and knowledge differences in a society and making brutal unyielding inter-group hierarchy such a society's "natural", least costly to maintain and most economically productive state) is indeed more common to people with liberal/Universalist leanings... -
...- but there's a second failure mode in normalizing and rationalizing such facts despite them registering as "evil" on one's moral intuition meter, and I think that one is much more common to reactionaries/anti-Universalists, including Land himself. Where a liberal could be happily deluded about the difficulty of fixing "natural" evils with artificial policies, a reactionary could calm his (let's be honest, they're almost exclusively male) conscience with redefining "evil" and accepting life as it is. I see no more reason to accept that complacency than I see to accept deathism.
What say you?
EDIT: I've read the article - well, yeah, Land is guilty of siding with reality. I wonder what he thinks about transhumanism.