Reading some of your comments I can't shake the feeling that you for some reason see their intellectual ammunition as so much more formidable than what is usually consumed by intellectuals that it despite the massive incentives against it threatens to one day quite suddenly break out and become popular among the smart fraction. Is this a correct reading?

Sort of yes! I've always been a little terrified of the power of naked, unashamed technocracy, of either despotic or Randian aspect. Even the more ruthless bits of Moldbug's (rather comfortable and watered-down) technocratic fascism are, I fear, hardly a glimpse of what's to come, if the "rationality" of geeks and engineers, finally free from either today's humanist quasi-theocracy and the sober bounds of old-time coonservatism, gets free rein. Perhaps many here on LW, especially non-neurotypical people (who I tend to sympathize with a lot, but also be wary of if their condition includes any change in empathy) would be tempted by such a Ubermensch thing. Think of a hybrid of Speer, Eichmann and a weak UFAI and you'll understand how this nightmare of mine goes.

(I'm actually integrating a sinister-yet-rationalist one world government based on these fears in my science fantasy novel - instead of a generic villainous empire I started out with - except that in my story it was formed by voices of moderation in high places after the Axis victory in WW2 and the ensuing cold war, not as the radical elitist movement that I can phantom it as in the real world.)

The opponents of the Civil Rights movement would, I think, have weaponized it and used it to blame the Blacks entirely for their own problems, not to say they didn't have partial responsibility, of course.

My thoughts exactly! Even today you see the more extreme elements of the Right scouring the net in what can be described as a search for ammunition, their bottom-line being already as entrenched as that of the Left extremists. And most of the radical Right do conspiciously seek to absolve traditional society of whatever stripe they prefer of absolutely any moral guilt. Back to the report in question, it seems well-founded in asserting that the black community had some faulty traditions and regressive ways of raising its new generations (as, from a modern perspective, might some other communities). However, it doesn't outright deny the economic angle of the problem, nor, especially, does it paint a picture of fundamental hostility between the races, yet it is undoubtedly used to "support" such a picture even now by the real racists!

I wonder if Moynihan himself feared that key the message he apparently tried to send - "White people, in view of their historical fortune, have a duty to help struggling minorities out in an intelligent way, even if it might hurt some feelings in the short run when some structural elements of society need to be altered" - would be co-opted by some unsympathetic fucks to "prove" that n**rs are culturally inferior and should be subjugated by the "superior" races.

Also since we all agree democracy is a good thing this isn't even very political.

Do we agree on that? I think there are quite a few on LessWrong who are no more in favour of democracy than Ben O'Neill. Or by linking "democracy" to the Sequences post on applause lights, do you mean to imply you mean the opposite of that sentence? Yet it is embedded between two others apparently intended straightforwardly.

Silphium was reputed to have birth controlling properties because its seeds were heart-shaped. I was talking about something a little more... reliable... such as, say, Premarin.

As to the survivability of such technology -- TFR explosions are a problem. birth control would be introduced to cut down overpopulation resultant from implementing immunological practices (vaccination and antibiotics.) The problems of modern fertility rate have far, far less to do with birth control and far more to do with the economics of raising children in a postindustrial environment. Even then, it turns out that TFR is showing a reversal of the declining trend in the last few years.

Overall I'd say there's pretty little to worry about. Especially since I'd have a good five decades of longevity to play with; I could pretty reliably introduce computing and electronics within that window, and that would be enough to ensure humanity develop AGI sometime in the next few centuries.

• Step 1: Purchase a plantation in the Spanish province (A traditional harvesting grounds for recruiting of soldiers. Few citizens, mostly considered 'backwater' at the time.)

• Step 2: Introduce the horse-collar, the plow, 'terra preta' (tilling of charcoal), fertilizer (easiest in this case: baked pig manure), insecticide, pennicillin, and wind-mill-powered pumped irrigation. These things together will result in massive harvests at low costs. They will also ensure that my peasants' children don't die, and are well-fed. My wealth will after one or two years of this expand massively. The absence of disease will also enable me to convince the local population that I am favored of the gods.

• Step 3a: Utilize newfound wealth and the introduction of the pulley, the A-Frame, and the leaf-spring to build a fleet of Conastoga wagons for transport of crops and local goods at faster rates than anyone else could accomplish. Additionally introduce the water screw and associate it with the aeolipile (already-existing but unutilized historically) for water transport. Introduce distilling for alcohol (another trade good) and also for methalization of olive oil for biodiesel for fuel for simple steam-turbine engines (aeolipile --> low-efficiency turbine pretty easily). These will then be the power-train for both Conastogas and for boats, again increasing mobility of my products.

• Step 3b. Reinvent the Girandoni air rifle. Work with metalsmiths under my control to do so. These rifles are 20-shot .46-caliber air-powered rifles first used for military applications in the 1780's. While technically difficult to create, the metalsmiths of Rome could accomplish this. These smiths would be kept under death-watch; 24/7 watch of guards dedicated to keeping the secret by killing any smith who was about to be captured or defected. Said smiths will otherwise be granted lives of utter luxury. Equip motorized Conastogas w/ flame throwers. Recruit/conscript local peasantry into service in newly minted mobilized infantry.

• Step 3c. Aeolipile/turbine biodiesel engines provide sufficient weight/power ratio for ultralight aircraft. Constructing a small core of these and training young-teen pilots will enable scouting profiles unlike that of any people to have come before. These will not, however, be available until the third or fourth year, as building the frames will require bamboo grown from imported plants. (Some variety of phyllostachys, likely.) Amongst their other purposes, the bamboo shoots will be used to construct lightweight frames for ultralight craft. Coupled with simple radios, these would prove invaluable for distribution and acquisition of information. Between the mobilized infantry and ultralight air superiority, even a small force -- say, four groups of ten wagons w/ twenty soldiers each, and five ultralights -- would be an equal match to a single Roman legion despite being outnumbered several times over. (less than a thousand men vs. 11,000-16,000 men.) (Logistics are also an issue. But it's relatively easy to beat that problem just by using blown-glass bottles and corking them while boiling.)

This lets my troops move faster and strike harder than any unit of traditional troops -- several times over.

• Step 4. Expanding my scope of influence. Establishing myself as a military force to be reckoned with, I will position myself for further trade for economic expansion before initiating aggressive hostilities. ( I want to wait until the Emperor's people make the first move to 'suppress' me so when I come as a conqueror I have a plausible excuse; I was simply 'defending' myself against a mad emperor.) In so doing, I will introduce arabic numerals and double-entry book-keeping. This will enable me to engage in fractional-reserve banking and begin moneylending to foreign persons, thereby expanding my own wealth and influence. I will further develop a telegraph system to permit communication amongst disparate parties (and distract from the existence/use of radios, whose crafting will also be another 'secret of the gods', similar to the making of the rifles. Unlike the rifles, the radios will be far easier to be stolen. Need to plan ahead for encrypted communications.) Abaci, too, will be introduced for accountants.

At this point it is four to five years into "the plan". I now own a massive swath of plantations, each of which are producing yields at unheard of rates. I will have introduced greenhouse farming for things like strawberries or rice for sustained harvests as well. My fleets of motorized wagons and steam-boats will be making an expanding circuit of influence. The peasants under my care will be practically immune to disease (vaccination and antibiotics.) -- an intentional campaign of propaganda (this will require introduction of the printing press and advances in grammar such as punctuation and word spacing [ !! ], as well as use of radios w/ loudspeakers for 'town-square addresses'. ) will ensure that the people are suitably convinced that this is because I am the favored son of Vulcan, god of the forge. My troops will be invincible, and terrifying. (Ultralights could also be used to deliver non-inconsequential quantities of 'greek fire' (gelatinized biodiesel in this case) to ensure that enemy fortifications are essentially indefensible. This will spread fear and further reinforce the Vulcan-myth; I harness fire to move vehicles through the very air itself, and rain fire down from above.)

Years six through ten depend on unforseen variables for whether there will be protracted suppression of luddites and conservatives, or if my reputation precedes me sufficiently that Rome begs me to induct her into my Constitutional Republic of Aligned City-States.

Years 6+ will also involve the introduction of schools for training the children of regions in my control in basic rationality arts; skepticism, falsificationism, logic, mathematics, etc., etc.. They will also introduce further socioeconomic and technical advances that require a more advanced base than 0-year Rome possessed. These include factories, vacuum tubes (and through them early-tech varieties of computers), birth control and other forms of concerns for quality-of-life, and various forms of chemistry and so on.

Here's why nowhere above did I mention gunpowder: it's too easily stolen a technological advantage, and explosives in combat are too effective at reducing the advantage of disparity in technological gaps. One guy on horseback w/ a tube-launched gunpowder rocket could maul a Conastoga wagon; one hundred men with such weapons would eliminate the combat-efficacy of my above mobilized infantry. Mortars would be even worse. The same goes for the ultralights; they are defenseless against massed gunfire, AA weapons like rockets, and the like.

However -- knowing this myself, I can keep that in reserve for the second-generation of technological-advantage combat revolution. Motorized bicycles or bronze-plated half-tread conastogas require more technical prowess initially but make for just as effective a force, especially if they too are using light cannon, rockets/mortars, and the like. Ultralights equipped with unguided mass-fire rockets are less valuable but after 6-10 years would be more expendable. And their value can be expanded through use of dirigibles as carriers. (Extended range plus heavier craft w/ more-powerful motors.)

Through a careful management of new agricultural, medical, economic, industrial, and military technologies as above, conquering Rome would be easily achievable within 5-10 years at the absolute most.

If one wishes to gamble more, one year would be the minimum necessary to assemble an elite corps of four hundred Girardoni air-rifle troops (coil-spring-driven boltguns would make clumsy but effective pistols for close-range combat in a pinch) riding motorized Conastogas equipped w/ flamethrowers, assuming we acted piratically, canniballizing a few small towns in the countryside to sustain ourselves through the build-up period. These would then be used to launch a Hannibal-esque strike upon Rome itself, designed to assassinate the Emperor and place myself upon the throne.

EDIT: I just realized that it's possible to hand-solder transistors from raw materials (As well as capacitors and other similar parts). This means that it is possible to create electronic components using Roman-era tools to build the tools necessary to assemble said electronics. While they wouldn't be up to snuff for modern designs, they would certainly be sufficient for crude robotics. Including 'rapid' prototypers. I was already failing to fully utilize my time during the aggri-business expansion (year 1) -- this would adjust for that. I could build machines to handle much of the industrial bootstrap up. (Gun manufacture in particular.) I wouldn't even need blacksmiths for the guns or turbine-engines. Sintering, casting, and assembler-bots would be capable of producing the equipment as needed. (As was also noted to me by another person; clockwork automata can achieve complex if stereotyped patterns of behavior up to and including fine manual dexterity actions like uncorking and pouring bottles of wine. The industrial applications of this are immense. I wouldn't even need gunsmiths or engine-smiths; I could instead automate the nearly entire process.)

• Step 1: Purchase a plantation in the Spanish province (A traditional harvesting grounds for recruiting of soldiers. Few citizens, mostly considered 'backwater' at the time.)

• Step 2: Introduce the horse-collar, the plow, 'terra preta' (tilling of charcoal), fertilizer (easiest in this case: baked pig manure), insecticide, pennicillin, and wind-mill-powered pumped irrigation. These things together will result in massive harvests at low costs. They will also ensure that my peasants' children don't die, and are well-fed. My wealth will after one or two years of this expand massively. The absence of disease will also enable me to convince the local population that I am favored of the gods.

• Step 3a: Utilize newfound wealth and the introduction of the pulley, the A-Frame, and the leaf-spring to build a fleet of Conastoga wagons for transport of crops and local goods at faster rates than anyone else could accomplish. Additionally introduce the water screw and associate it with the aeolipile (already-existing but unutilized historically) for water transport. Introduce distilling for alcohol (another trade good) and also for methalization of olive oil for biodiesel for fuel for simple steam-turbine engines (aeolipile --> low-efficiency turbine pretty easily). These will then be the power-train for both Conastogas and for boats, again increasing mobility of my products.

• Step 3b. Reinvent the Girandoni air rifle. Work with metalsmiths under my control to do so. These rifles are 20-shot .46-caliber air-powered rifles first used for military applications in the 1780's. While technically difficult to create, the metalsmiths of Rome could accomplish this. These smiths would be kept under death-watch; 24/7 watch of guards dedicated to keeping the secret by killing any smith who was about to be captured or defected. Said smiths will otherwise be granted lives of utter luxury. Equip motorized Conastogas w/ flame throwers. Recruit/conscript local peasantry into service in newly minted mobilized infantry.

• Step 3c. Aeolipile/turbine biodiesel engines provide sufficient weight/power ratio for ultralight aircraft. Constructing a small core of these and training young-teen pilots will enable scouting profiles unlike that of any people to have come before. These will not, however, be available until the third or fourth year, as building the frames will require bamboo grown from imported plants. (Some variety of phyllostachys, likely.) Amongst their other purposes, the bamboo shoots will be used to construct lightweight frames for ultralight craft. Coupled with simple radios, these would prove invaluable for distribution and acquisition of information. Between the mobilized infantry and ultralight air superiority, even a small force -- say, four groups of ten wagons w/ twenty soldiers each, and five ultralights -- would be an equal match to a single Roman legion despite being outnumbered several times over. (less than a thousand men vs. 11,000-16,000 men.) (Logistics are also an issue. But it's relatively easy to beat that problem just by using blown-glass bottles and corking them while boiling.)

This lets my troops move faster and strike harder than any unit of traditional troops -- several times over.

• Step 4. Expanding my scope of influence. Establishing myself as a military force to be reckoned with, I will position myself for further trade for economic expansion before initiating aggressive hostilities. ( I want to wait until the Emperor's people make the first move to 'suppress' me so when I come as a conqueror I have a plausible excuse; I was simply 'defending' myself against a mad emperor.) In so doing, I will introduce arabic numerals and double-entry book-keeping. This will enable me to engage in fractional-reserve banking and begin moneylending to foreign persons, thereby expanding my own wealth and influence. I will further develop a telegraph system to permit communication amongst disparate parties (and distract from the existence/use of radios, whose crafting will also be another 'secret of the gods', similar to the making of the rifles. Unlike the rifles, the radios will be far easier to be stolen. Need to plan ahead for encrypted communications.) Abaci, too, will be introduced for accountants.

At this point it is four to five years into "the plan". I now own a massive swath of plantations, each of which are producing yields at unheard of rates. I will have introduced greenhouse farming for things like strawberries or rice for sustained harvests as well. My fleets of motorized wagons and steam-boats will be making an expanding circuit of influence. The peasants under my care will be practically immune to disease (vaccination and antibiotics.) -- an intentional campaign of propaganda (this will require introduction of the printing press and advances in grammar such as punctuation and word spacing [ !! ], as well as use of radios w/ loudspeakers for 'town-square addresses'. ) will ensure that the people are suitably convinced that this is because I am the favored son of Vulcan, god of the forge. My troops will be invincible, and terrifying. (Ultralights could also be used to deliver non-inconsequential quantities of 'greek fire' (gelatinized biodiesel in this case) to ensure that enemy fortifications are essentially indefensible. This will spread fear and further reinforce the Vulcan-myth; I harness fire to move vehicles through the very air itself, and rain fire down from above.)

Years six through ten depend on unforseen variables for whether there will be protracted suppression of luddites and conservatives, or if my reputation precedes me sufficiently that Rome begs me to induct her into my Constitutional Republic of Aligned City-States.

Years 6+ will also involve the introduction of schools for training the children of regions in my control in basic rationality arts; skepticism, falsificationism, logic, mathematics, etc., etc.. They will also introduce further socioeconomic and technical advances that require a more advanced base than 0-year Rome possessed. These include factories, vacuum tubes (and through them early-tech varieties of computers), birth control and other forms of concerns for quality-of-life, and various forms of chemistry and so on.

Here's why nowhere above did I mention gunpowder: it's too easily stolen a technological advantage, and explosives in combat are too effective at reducing the advantage of disparity in technological gaps. One guy on horseback w/ a tube-launched gunpowder rocket could maul a Conastoga wagon; one hundred men with such weapons would eliminate the combat-efficacy of my above mobilized infantry. Mortars would be even worse. The same goes for the ultralights; they are defenseless against massed gunfire, AA weapons like rockets, and the like.

However -- knowing this myself, I can keep that in reserve for the second-generation of technological-advantage combat revolution. Motorized bicycles or bronze-plated half-tread conastogas require more technical prowess initially but make for just as effective a force, especially if they too are using light cannon, rockets/mortars, and the like. Ultralights equipped with unguided mass-fire rockets are less valuable but after 6-10 years would be more expendable. And their value can be expanded through use of dirigibles as carriers. (Extended range plus heavier craft w/ more-powerful motors.)

Through a careful management of new agricultural, medical, economic, industrial, and military technologies as above, conquering Rome would be easily achievable within 5-10 years at the absolute most.

If one wishes to gamble more, one year would be the minimum necessary to assemble an elite corps of four hundred Girardoni air-rifle troops (coil-spring-driven boltguns would make clumsy but effective pistols for close-range combat in a pinch) riding motorized Conastogas equipped w/ flamethrowers, assuming we acted piratically, canniballizing a few small towns in the countryside to sustain ourselves through the build-up period. These would then be used to launch a Hannibal-esque strike upon Rome itself, designed to assassinate the Emperor and place myself upon the throne.

EDIT: I just realized that it's possible to hand-solder transistors from raw materials (As well as capacitors and other similar parts). This means that it is possible to create electronic components using Roman-era tools to build the tools necessary to assemble said electronics. While they wouldn't be up to snuff for modern designs, they would certainly be sufficient for crude robotics. Including 'rapid' prototypers. I was already failing to fully utilize my time during the aggri-business expansion (year 1) -- this would adjust for that. I could build machines to handle much of the industrial bootstrap up. (Gun manufacture in particular.) I wouldn't even need blacksmiths for the guns or turbine-engines. Sintering, casting, and assembler-bots would be capable of producing the equipment as needed. (As was also noted to me by another person; clockwork automata can achieve complex if stereotyped patterns of behavior up to and including fine manual dexterity actions like uncorking and pouring bottles of wine. The industrial applications of this are immense. I wouldn't even need gunsmiths or engine-smiths; I could instead automate the nearly entire process.)

I don't think everyone here would agree that democracy is a good thing.

The same is true of people who call for a dictatorship or any non-democratic form of government. They also always imagine it will be governed by "the right people", and imagine all the things "the right people" could accomplish if freed from the need to listen to the "ignorant mob".

When people talk about the importance of democracy, it is never democracy as it has ever actually functioned, with the politicians that have actually been elected, and the policies that have actually been implemented. It is always democracy as people imagine it will operate once they succeed in electing "the right people" — by which they mean, people who agree almost completely with their own views, and who are consistent and incorruptible in their implementation of the resulting policies.

--Ben O'Neill, here

Considering the above quote can be used to criticize nearly any popular political position I don't think it is inherently mind-killing. Also since we all agree democracy is a good thing this isn't even very political. The original article and context obviously does make it somewhat political.

Goodness - I'm sorry, I completely missed this reply to my post! My sincerest apologies for not responding more quickly; I am a goober.

As to the specific incident: it was during a very interesting discussion, which was moving rapidly toward becoming a very uninteresting argument, and then possibly into a REALLY interesting fist-fight. You know the drill - young men, all in the process of earning their various Master's Degrees in unrelated fields, encamped around alcohol, talking politics, getting heated, voices rising.

It had to do with racism. And the original intent of the framers of the Constitution, and how laws are changed. So this may not be the very best possible place for me to post all of this; please ignore or skip this note if it please you.

To set the stage: the question was put forth as to who, present at the time, had voted for Obama in 2008 - which was, in the majority opinion, a useless tangent away from the much more stimulating, ongoing discussion as to what Obama had and had not accomplished during his first term, what he might have accomplished given different political circumstances, whether those specific political circumstances (read as: rise of the Tea Party) were a foregone result of his election, what the President might or might not hope to accomplish if re-elected, the likelihood of such a reelection, and if we could reasonably expect the aforementioned political circumstances to change significantly during a theoretical Obama second-term.

We were moving toward analysis of voter apathy, I think, and the idea of an "energized block," and some talk about the odds of various scenarios. Things were getting heated. Body language was getting authoritative - fingers pointed, heads cocked, stare-downs, chests puffed out. Alpha-male posturing among intellectuals with political-science, law and philosophy backgrounds.

So the general consensus at the raising of this question (that is, who present had voted for him the last time) was a groan - this was in Illinois, in a college town, among young academics, educators & professional writers. OF COURSE, we all assumed, everyone present had voted for Obama. Whether we might choose to vote for him again, and why, and how excited we were to cast our particular vote in 2012, and what we might hope to gain from it, was a much more valuable topic of conversation. And clearly, the gentleman who raised the question meant to use this as a sort of unifier: "Okay, we obviously all voted for him last time," he meant to suggest, "so what's changed?"

But then one dude, a guy named ... uh, we'll call him "Mike" ... well, he went and said that he had voted for McCain.

After a moment to recalibrate ourselves, everyone present stopped to reassure everyone else of their total respect for Senator John McCain - no one there personally disliked or distrusted the man. No one here condemned McCain, no one hated him, no one thought he was a monster or a fraud or The Devil or anything like that. War hero, public servant, frequent guest on 'The Daily Show' - we hadn't voted for him, certainly, but that didn't mean we didn't LIKE him.

We just liked Obama better. Wanted him in office more than McCain. Wanted to vote for the first black president. Really got into the whole "Hope" thing. Didn't really dig on his choice of running mate, Governor Palin ... not that ANYONE there didn't respect her as a strong, capable, independent, 21st-century woman. We just didn't care for her specific policies.

But hell ... look, half the people in the room had met Obama - gone to a speech, shaken his hand, even worked for his campaign, going all the way back in 2004 when he was running for Senate. We wore the t-shirts, got out the vote, and threw a party during the inauguration. Some of us literally danced in the streets.

So it was a little unfathomable that someone in our peer-group had voted for McCain, of all people.

Finally, someone finally asked Mike the million-dollar question: "Why?"

There were a million answers that everyone present would have accepted, if not agreed with. A good example would be: "I'm from Arizona, I've met McCain; he's a good man. And, well, since Illinois was going to swing for Obama anyway, no matter what I did, I voted my heart."

His answer was ... different than that.

Mike said, and I quote as best I'm able: "The founding fathers never intended a black man to be president. It's in the constitution that it's illegal."

That seemed strange, coming from a man with a master's degree. Which I would like to note, Mike HAS.

When it was noted that the Constitution does not specifically prevent a black man from being president, Mike rebutted that it didn't really NEED to be spelled out - the founding fathers pretty obviously never intended a black man to be president. When asked to clarify, Mike explained that he could not vote for a black because it was morally wrong.

There was very nearly a scuffle.

But rather than see if anyone was able to knock Mike out, which at least one person there was willing to try, a friend attempted a different tactic.

He said, very simply, "You're right, but ..." - and the rest was history.

Rather than lecture Mike on why he was wrong - and I tend to believe that he was - my buddy was able to get Mike to explain his own cognitive error to HIM. By the end, not only was Mike able to explain to others why the original intent of a group of slave-owners was not infallible, but he was able to see how his view might have been construed as racist. He was even able to make a point about how interpreting both language AND intent are important, and that cultural mores change - often for the better.

And we also cleared up Mike's misconception that Lincoln had several illegitimate black children.

It was miraculous.

NOTE: yes, Mike has a Master's Degree.