Azathoth123 comments on Open thread, Nov. 17 - Nov. 23, 2014 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: MrMind 17 November 2014 08:25AM

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Comment author: Azathoth123 08 December 2014 01:28:34AM *  3 points [-]

To put it shortly, it seems to me we have lost the ability to build new things, and became an online debate club.

Did LW as a group ever have this ability? Going by the archives it seems that there were a small number (less than 10) of posters on LW who could do this. Now that they're no longer posting regularly, new things are no longer produced here.

try creating a new one from scratch, or whatever?

A reasonable case could be made that this is how NRx came to be.

Comment author: Vulture 11 December 2014 06:24:35AM 0 points [-]

A reasonable case could be made that this is how NRx came to be.

If this is where NRx came from, then I am strongly reminded of the story of the dog that evolved into a bacterium. An alternative LW-like community that evolved into an aggresive political movement? Either everyone involved was an advanced hyper-genius or something went terribly wrong somewhere along the way. That's not to say that something valuable did not result, but "mission drift" would be a very mild phrase.

Comment author: Lumifer 11 December 2014 07:31:31AM 1 point [-]

evolved into an aggresive political movement?

As far as I can see it evolved into mostly smart people writing dense texts about political philosophy. That's a bit different :-)

Comment author: bogus 11 December 2014 09:19:55AM -1 points [-]

As far as I can see it evolved into mostly smart people writing dense texts about political philosophy.

That would describe quite a few political movements, actually - it's hardly exclusive to NRx.

Comment author: Lumifer 11 December 2014 03:31:17PM 1 point [-]

Nope, political movements and political philosophy belong to different categories.

Some political movements evolve out of political philosophy texts, but not all political philosophy texts evolve into political movements.

Comment author: Vulture 11 December 2014 04:41:21PM -1 points [-]

I think that at this point it would be fair to say that a movement has developed out of NRx political philosophy.

Comment author: Lumifer 11 December 2014 04:47:07PM 1 point [-]

Show me that movement in actual politics. Is any NRx-er running for office? Do they have an influential PAC? A think tank in Washington, some lobbyists, maybe?

Comment author: [deleted] 11 December 2014 05:15:02PM 0 points [-]

Nah, man. Once you get to that level of politics, you're already pozzed.

Comment author: Vulture 11 December 2014 05:14:29PM -1 points [-]

Oh, I think we're using the phrase "political movement" in different senses. I meant something more like "group of people who define themselves as a group in terms of a relatively stable platform of shared political beliefs, which are sufficiently different from the political beliefs of any other group or movement". Other examples might be libertarianism, anarcho-primitivism, internet social justice, etc.

I guess this is a non-standard usage, so I'm open to recommendations for a better term.

Comment author: Lumifer 11 December 2014 05:23:19PM *  1 point [-]

Yep, looks like we are using different terminology. The distinction between political philosophy and political movement that I drew is precisely the difference between staying in the ideas/information/talking/discussing realm and moving out into the realm of real-world power and power relationships. What matches your definition I'd probably call a line of political thought.

Mencius Moldbug is a political philosopher. Tea Party is a political movement.