Comment author: [deleted] 30 June 2012 07:28:08AM *  3 points [-]

Or merely that it was in some sense easier for them to do so, even if that wasn't actually demonstrated by their actions?

The latter. The former is an empirical claim I'm not yet sure how we could properly resolve. But there are reasons to think it may have been true.

After all the King is a Christian and so am I. It is merely that God has placed a greater burden of responsibility on him and one of toil on me. We all have our own cross to carry.

In response to comment by [deleted] on Open Thread, June 16-30, 2012
Comment author: Multiheaded 03 September 2012 12:06:56PM 2 points [-]

I'd say you're looking at the history of feudal hierarchy through rose-tinted glasses. People who are high in the instrumental hierarchy of decisions (like absolute rulers) also tend to gain a similarily high place in all other kinds of hierarchies ("moral", etc) due to halo effect and such. The fact that social or at least moral egalitarianism logically follows from Christian ideals doesn't mean that self-identified Christians will bother to apply it to their view of the tribe.

Remember, the English word 'villain' originally meant 'peasant'/'serf'. It sounds like a safe assumption to me that the peasants were treated as subhuman creatures by most people above them in station.

Comment author: sam0345 01 September 2012 01:20:15PM 3 points [-]

Under Mao, life expectancy literally doubled and the literacy rate went from 20-25% to 80%. And the increase in life expectancy is largely attributed to his vast state healthcare initiatives.

I have heard similarly glorious statistics for Cuba, and, until quite recently, for North Korea.

Visiting Cuba in 1992 it was obvious to me that living standards, literacy, and health, had collapsed since the revolution. People are living in the decayed remnants of what had been decently comfortable houses fifty years ago. People were hungry, frightened, and desperate.

It is clear that China suffered poverty and economic stagnation under Mao. You don't double living standards and life expectancy while having massive famines and operating an economy based on slave labor. Taiwan unambiguously and obviously experienced dramatic growth. Kuomintang rule was competent, efficient, and successful. Communist rule was a disaster propped up by foreign intervention.

Comment author: Multiheaded 01 September 2012 03:40:05PM *  0 points [-]

Sorry, but it's hardly possible to fake such a tremendous increase in such basic statistics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China_%281949%E2%80%931976%29#Mao.27s_legacy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_China#Post-1949_history

It is clear that China suffered poverty and economic stagnation under Mao.

It certainly did; I never claimed otherwise, and neither did Lindsay. Mao's leadership was a little unhinged to say the least. However, we're talking about the really existing alternatives to China's particular situation in 1949, not the Cuban revolution or anything else.

You don't double living standards and life expectancy while having massive famines and operating an economy based on slave labor.

Um, looks like that's exactly what happened.

Comment author: MileyCyrus 25 August 2012 03:29:41PM *  7 points [-]

Downvoted for sharing PM's without permission.

Edit: See Konkvistador's reply.

Comment author: Multiheaded 29 August 2012 01:03:50PM *  0 points [-]

[I already apologized, damnit, and he said it wasn't a problem!]

Comment author: [deleted] 25 August 2012 10:16:32AM *  6 points [-]

Right. It hits their sacrednss/profanity boxes in such minds but they can't articulate a rational argument against it based on harm or fairness. Remember they think they don't have the former box. The typical universalist mind faced with something that fits sacredness/profanity latches on to the nearest rationalization expressed in the allowed stated values to resolve the cognitive dissonance. Such rationalizations then live a dangerous life of their own sometimes resulting in disturbing policies.

To analyse the example you've provided, if I'm right we should be seeing in the moderately educated mind a search for a rationalization that fits this shape:

a company with quiet aid of government promoting this might cause harm or unfairness

I think the following does so nicely:

having babies is bad because it hurts the environment and the world is overpopulated anyway

This is ironically part of the environmentalist memeplex that is elsewhere propped up mostly by purity concerns. As evidence of this I submit the most liked youtube comment to the video.

Heh, clever and well-written song. Catchy too! :D

But, it's just the government and capitalism being on a flawed infinite-growth-based system at fault here. There's nothing wrong with some shrinking populations with how overpopulated the world is getting. If anything, there needs to be more adoptions. Everywhere. And way less baby-making.

Reading this can't you just hear the cogs turning in the person's head? Of the real reasons rooted in tabooed sentiments, only the bolded pro-nurture sentence remains, the charge has been successfully transferred to "babies bad for Gaia!". Inspect some of the other comments to this story on Youtube and other sites, you will see this particular rationalization consistently win out among the Brahmin and wannabe Brahmin.

In response to comment by [deleted] on Open Thread, August 16-31, 2012
Comment author: Multiheaded 25 August 2012 01:15:20PM *  -1 points [-]

Damn right. Hmm, looks like I should post your last PM and my reply in here for kar... I mean, for the public's benefit.

[Konkvistador messaged me:]

Orwell is dead

and soon Žižek and Chomsky will follow.

You put your hope in the decentness of Universalism as a replacement for Christianity.

I don't endorse that position because modern Universalism seems to be suffering more or less the same malaise that killed its predecessor.

I don't know what will happen next.

[I replied:]

You put your hope in the decentness of universalism as a replacement for Christianity.

No, I put my hope in the fact that it is Christianity, mostly intact or even refined under the surface. It was led astray not by immorality but by a philosophical and epistemic error - the folly of rationalization, the is-to-ought thing, "deriving" preferences from "pure reason", being ashamed of making a seemingly arbitrary stand on an issue, assuming the inevitability of their particular "progress"; you see what I mean.

The irony is that most branches of "Christianity" that remain openly theistic, like Catholicism, still retain many advantages such as better-maintained Chesterton's fences, but not because they're a better living fork - they merely remained a century or so behind the "core", Universalist Christianity, and see no other way to advance. Either they'll become fossils unable to handle new reality, or they will keep following in Universalism's footsteps without the vision or the imagination to adjust the course.

I hope that, should this single big error of Universalism be somehow mended - not necessarily or solely through a return to theism - then we can have the good things back and filter the really bad ones. This is why I'm looking into the relationship between the radical/totalizing/"core" current in Christianity and its Gnostic/less-worldly side. As I was beginning to say, I see this "1968 counterrevolution" as the former voluntarily surrendering to the latter in the face of the Left's Orwell-like fears. However, the resulting paralysis of the Left led to a vacuum of power, where the Right are kept away from institutions by the Left's massive aura of influence, yet the New Left is unwilling and afraid to approach any really important matters. It's not about some mysterious lack of "personal responsibility", "accountability", etc - there were plenty of unaccountable but good rulers. It's about the psychology of it, turning inwards instead of forging any sort of a path.

And, speaking of that last one:

(I can't resist mentioning Evangelion yet again. I'll do a full, detailed look at its place in historical and political context one day. Malaise is certainly its central theme.)

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 25 August 2012 09:25:28AM 4 points [-]

The lesson is probably that when you create a culture of violence, it tends to get out of the hand and go towards its own attractors.

Comment author: Multiheaded 25 August 2012 09:41:40AM 1 point [-]

Sounds reasonable.

Comment author: [deleted] 25 August 2012 08:48:12AM *  2 points [-]

Can't she see that old good Universalist morality is her only surviving ally against such horrors?

Mainstream Western Universalist morality has no objection to that video except that its tacky.

In response to comment by [deleted] on Open Thread, August 16-31, 2012
Comment author: Multiheaded 25 August 2012 09:37:57AM *  -1 points [-]

I don't believe this is so. Most any liberal professor type - hell, most lefties I know - would flip their shit around the phrase "manufacture life" or earlier. Maybe I'm too rosy-eyed, but I really can't see them remaining unperturbed. In theory, those lyrics manage to tick off just about every sacredness/profanity box of stereotypical liberal mentality. (I'll run a poll!)

They might not put much stock in family, but they sure as hell believe in parenting, upbringing, etc, and will at least see that an ad for breeding that doesn't even mention parenting or parental love is critically, fundamentally wrong. (Also, the gut reaction to social control of intimacy/sex. And other feelings along these lines.)

Comment author: mrglwrf 24 August 2012 08:13:23PM 2 points [-]

Assuming it is important to Norwegians' self-image that they are a state without a death penalty, it's not clear to me what compensatory benefits could be derived from executing Breivik. Appeasing foreign and domestic bubbas would definitely not be a plus for the typical Norwegian.

Comment author: Multiheaded 24 August 2012 08:22:43PM *  -1 points [-]

Norway might not have a death penalty, but Norwegians are probably OK with having a military, and a military's role does cover stopping violent insurgents with lethal force. What it does is defence, not judgment. Like I said, by accepting Breivik's narrative of his "insurgency", Norway can use an extraordinary circumstance to justify an extraordinary response, and then return to "normality".

(Jeez, I just realized this sounds a little like Carl Schmitt. Ah well, fascist times call for fascist measures.)

Comment author: Multiheaded 24 August 2012 07:41:12PM *  -1 points [-]

Apropos of nothing, opinion on the Breivik trial (sentenced to a mere 21 years with some possibility of extension, if you haven't heard):

Of course I think he ought to be killed. The thing is, Norway has no need to reinstate the death penalty just for him, then repeal it (like with Vidkun Quisling after the war; the Norwegian government in exile had reintroduced the death penalty in response to the occupation, then repealed it after executing him and several other collaborators).
Instead, Norway should've granted his request to be court-martialed, then the military authorities should've given him the status of an unlawful combatant and executed him for a war crime. Problem solved, and given the unusual nature of his request, it shouldn't create much of a precedent.

(Timothy McVeigh also wanted to be tried as an enemy combatant, and I think that the same should've been done in his case - grant the request, but change the status to 'unlawful combatant' as he didn't carry weapons openly, and then he could be executed without a civillian court.)

Comment author: [deleted] 24 August 2012 10:09:00AM *  3 points [-]

And I doubt that things could have turned out very differently, that the Chesterton's Fence of older values, notably mourned even by Orwell, would have protected against all possible disasters in the face of technological change.

I agree with this, the traditionalists where not equipped for the technological change that took place. Of the various offshoots that tried to grapple with it Soviet Communism wasn't really that disastrous. It didn't result in a break down into the bleak dystopia of North Korea or the barbarism of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.

I think it plausible that mild fascism (think Franco) in conjunction with monarchy would have worked better for Russia.

(Regarding modern history, I would further argue that the leftward radicalization effectively stopped in 1968, that the "60s' revolution" ended up a kind of counter-revolution in disguise - but that's a difficult subject for another day.)

I would be very interested in this take on recent history, please write up a email if you feel it wouldn't be productive to discuss it here.

In particular, it seems to me that Soviet imperialism and Mao's radical reforms, for all their unnecessary evils and wilful stupidity, led to far more net human welfare - never mind the gain in more nebulous things like "Human development"! - than their actual, really present alternatives at the time: America's pre-war relative non-interventionism; Chang Kai-Shek's conterfactual rule in China (read up on him!) and so on.

I'm not so sure. Right wing capitalist authoritarianism, the sort of outcome I think the Kuomintang could have provided has a good track record of development in East Asian states. I'm not suggesting China would have been a Tawian(!) or Singapore, it was too large and in the early years too chaotic for that. I do think they would have been far wealthier and I think it would probably be more democratic today than the PCR (not that I would necessarily approve of that). Though again a West allied China may have gone to war with the Soviet Union which would have been a disaster.

Also check out the strong socialist elements in the original ideology and practice of the party. Had it gone in that direction again, I can't see them doing worse than Mao.

It might be true that they could have lost grip of the country and see it descent into the hands of various warlords, which might have meant decades of trouble for China. The almost unified China under the PRC would obviously beat that out.

To be fair though Mao's revolution was basically a Chinese peasants revolt installing a new dynasty in some Marxist drag. Hardly exceptional in Chinese history, the more surprising part was that Mao was dethroned with relatively little bloodshed.

Frankly, the absolute worst disaster that resulted from "World Communism" was probably the premature and devastating so-called decolonization - and America even at its most right-wing always disapproved of European colonialism anyway.

Moldbug makes the case that was mostly America's doing. It is quite plausible Communism isn't to blame for it. Indeed by providing a opponent ready to spread to new states in Africa and Asia it may have made the Anglo elites more careful and measured in their decolonialization mania than they would have otherwise been.

But I disagree, I think the opportunity costs for Eastern Europe and East Asian in particular are pretty high.

In response to comment by [deleted] on Open Thread, August 16-31, 2012
Comment author: Multiheaded 24 August 2012 06:46:55PM *  0 points [-]

Concerning Singapore and why the "traditionalist" conservatives and the atheist alt-right really ought to split on their attitude to it (as of now, they all seem to think that it's a nice clean place free of all that liberal insanity):

You know how Lee Kwan Yew has occcasionally been complaining about the "crass materialism" around him in his latter interviews and such? The loss of nice, cozy traditional values? Well, I think that he hasn't fully comprehended what he has been ushering in, culturally speaking. Behold. BEHOLD AND WEEP! Right out of trashy dystopian sci-fi... hell, it totally reminds me of this classic music video (at 3:10).

And here some Catholic woman is trying to pin this shit on leftism. Can't she see that old good Universalist morality is her only surviving ally against such horrors? (Rhetorical question: I understand that the less insightful conservatives simply lump all formally irreligious societies together as The Other. But the brighter ones should see how this is much worse than leftist academia.)

May God have mercy on our dirty little hearts.

Comment author: TimS 03 August 2012 04:20:04PM 1 point [-]

Good customer service from government is such a strong concept. Yes, it would be nice if the teller at the DMV was nicer, but the underlying problem is that government's role in society is to provide things that don't have a willing seller (quasi-universal free education for children) or don't have a willing buyer (prisons, driver's licenses).

I'm not sure that competition for citizens is likely to improve the quality of either of those services. The issue is obvious for coercive government acts, but moral hazard issues would be a serious drain on social services if free migration worked the way Moldbug suggests - I suspect that is one reason why Moldbug explicitly expects some patches to have much lower social services than provided by current governments in the West.

Comment author: Multiheaded 24 August 2012 02:31:31PM *  -2 points [-]

You don't need to go around looking for flaws in Patchwork. It's Moldbug's one big utopian crackpot moment. IMO there's literally hundreds of reasons (chief among them being how easily humans can be misled by "free-market" manipulation) why most patches would devolve into really ugly, totalizing and rather stable corporate slavery (think singing the Wal-Mart anthem every morning and needing amphetamines just to get ahead), gradually resort to mind control technology, or just stay poor despite the law of comparative advantage because they started out as a collection of outcasts.

OR, in the extremely unlikely event that it all went fine and humanely, it could create so much wealth and peace that the elites would be drawn to Universalism simply as an attractive value/goal system (shaped like the forager mind, not like a ruthlessly efficient machine), and dismantle the borders and such. Or something else. It is really so poorly thought out that it's not worth criticizing, except as mediocre science fiction.

(of course, given any kind of singularity it's all rather irrelevant)

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