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Re:Urbit by mellosouls on Sunday December 01, 2019 @05:02AM (#21674765)
Wikipedia has an unfortunate habit of labelling anything as "far right" that is described as such by left wing or gullible journalists in left of centre mainstream publications.

Mencius Moldbug may be far right, but he may alternatively just be a thinker not afraid to challenge liberal received wisdom.

It's ok to disagree and fervently oppose but it's unfortunate when we descend into soundbite mud-slinging in service of that opposition.

Re:Urbit by jevgeni on Sunday December 01, 2019 @06:21AM (#21674951)
Yarvin claimed himself that he is “not allergic to white nationalism”.
Re:Urbit by NaggingGranpa on Sunday December 01, 2019 @09:48AM (#21675678)
Patrilineally, Yarvin is Jewish.
Re:Urbit by jevgeni on Sunday December 01, 2019 @12:58PM (#21676762)
OK. Umm? Does it matter?
Re:Urbit by NaggingGranpa on Sunday December 01, 2019 @03:15PM (#21677543)
I blame Oedipus.
Re:Urbit by tawm on Sunday December 01, 2019 @05:21AM (#21674807)
>It's ok to disagree and fervently oppose but it's unfortunate when we descend into soundbite mud-slinging in service of that opposition.

And where does anyone do that? As far as I'm concerned your post is just concern trolling.

Re:Urbit by mellosouls on Sunday December 01, 2019 @07:03AM (#21675078)
In the Wikipedia quote where he is described as far right, as I clearly indicated.
Re:Urbit by sterlind on Sunday December 01, 2019 @05:42AM (#21674863)
I'm on the left. I think Urbit is quite neat as a technology. Yarvin has very unusual political views, so I'm not sure where to put them, or if you'd consider this "sound-bite mudslinging" (if you do, please suggest a more palatable way of providing evidence:)

He seems pro-monarchy:

Was royalism a perfect system? It was not. But if we imagine a world in which the revolutions and civil wars of the last four centuries had never happened, it is hard not to imagine that world as happier, wealthier, freer, more civilized, and more pleasant.[29]

but anti-democracy:

When we look at the astounding violence of the democratic era, it strikes me as quite defensible to simply write off the whole idea as a disaster, and focus on correcting the many faults of monarchism:

He seems to regard political power as property, which makes a sort of sense with his monarchism: Political power is a property right, however you slice it. It is owned, not deserved. It is not a natural or "human" right. And it has no more to do with freedom than brake fluid with fondue.[40]

Here is yet another (idea for good government): restrict voting to homeowners. Note that this was widely practiced in Anglo-American history, and for very good reason.[41]*

(He also favors property ownership as a requirement for voting, which aligns with Urbit's governance but seems... dated, politically.)

And he seems to view slavery as a potentially healthy relationship:

Modern Americans have enormous difficulty in grasping hierarchical social structures. We grew up steeped in "applied Christianity" pretty much the way the Hitler Youth grew up steeped in Hitler. The suggesting that slavery could ever be or have been, as Aristotle suggests, natural and healthy, is like suggesting to the Hitler Youth that it might be cool to make some Jewish friends… We think of the master-slave relationship as usually sick and twisted, and invariably adversarial. Parent-child relationships can be all three. But they are not normally so. If history (not to mention evolutionary biology) proves anything, it proves that humans fit into dominance-submission structures almost as easily as they fit into the nuclear family

It's hard to classify Yarvin anywhere politically, but given some very extreme views on slavery, democracy and dictatorship, I think "far right" is as accurate a label as any. His views are expounded upon in the Dark Enlightenment article in the summary.

(Sources are all from Wikiquotes)

Re:Urbit by jevgeni on Sunday December 01, 2019 @06:26AM (#21674965)
His views are all just hand wavey fascism. At no point does he make a tractable argument.

As a counterpoint: take all countries today that have functioning (i.e. non-figurehead) monarchies and compare them with democratic, capitalist countries. You can use prosperity, GDP per capita, average literacy - whatever as a metric and monarchies will fail.

Re:Urbit by mellosouls on Sunday December 01, 2019 @07:26AM (#21675154)
Untrue, or at least questionable claim. Monarchies are economically better-performing.

Eg. https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/monarchies-good-...

Re:Urbit by jevgeni on Sunday December 01, 2019 @07:44AM (#21675216)
They demonstrably do not. Look at any competitiveness index, or standard of living index, or anything measurable.

The article you’ve linked is banal. It talks about how monarchies are good at protecting established property rights. Duuuuuh. That’s their entire purpose.

Thinking that stability of property rights is equal to economic performance is moronic. So either you think that I am one or you are one.

Here’s a quick test you can do: look around you and count how many items around you are produced in the Kingdom of Lesotho? Or Kuwait? Or Madagascar? Or Bhutan?

Such post-industrial powerhouses of economy those must be.

Re:Urbit by mellosouls on Sunday December 01, 2019 @08:10AM (#21675306)
I don't need to look around, a quick Google on monarchies and GDP before your initial post would have given you the information you needed to not post it.

Eg the first link:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/07/23/shut-...

Btw your jeering tone and determination to classify either of us as morons is unhelpful.

Re:Urbit by jevgeni on Sunday December 01, 2019 @08:24AM (#21675358)
You peddling horsesh*t is unhelpful. Your fluid goal posts don’t help either.

Obviously any U.K. style “monarchies” and republics with a figurehead. Your best bet therefore would be Middle East monarchies, which are obviously a product of the extraction industry. So even that is not an argument.

Remember how China realized that the communist system isn’t sustainable and introduced elements of monarchy? No? Me neither, because they went with (very light) democratization.

If you want to talk facts, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

But my favorite part is when I suggest you to look for immediate evidence in the real world and you’re like: “No, here’s a cherry picked article”. This disregard for facts is just plain offensive.

Re:Urbit by mellosouls on Sunday December 01, 2019 @09:53AM (#21675704)
How on earth is the first link in a Google search "cherry picked"?

At least half of those states in your own link are monarchies!

Placing quotes around the archetypal monarchy seems like an act of last resort tbh - as do the repeated insults; so I'll consider this particular micro-debate conceded to me.

Re:Urbit by jevgeni on Sunday December 01, 2019 @12:57PM (#21676756)
Mate, what good is a monarchy if the monarch doesn't have any power? It's just a monarchy in name. Following your logic, North Korea is a democracy, because it has the word "democratic" in its official name. This is a crap level of discourse and hence you are getting all the smacktalk. Don't think that you are entitled to people letting your stupid arguments slide. This is not the USSR.

This is why you are cherry picking. The original comment that you are replying to specified "actual monarchies, not figurehead states": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21674965

What's so difficult to understand? Does UK fall under that category? No. Material power is with the parliament and PM. You are disproving your own point, when you bring them in as an argument!

I even gave you a hint. Saudi Arabia might be a stronger argument. Monarchy has power and they have economical clout. I mean, their GDP is only slightly higher than Walmart's annual revenue, but hey - at least you would've had a fighting chance.

Re:Urbit by bjoli on Sunday December 01, 2019 @08:15AM (#21675338)
The monarchies the articlementions are all liberal, more or less capitalist democracies.
Re:Urbit by jevgeni on Sunday December 01, 2019 @12:57PM (#21676759)
Thank you.
Re:Urbit by mellosouls on Sunday December 01, 2019 @07:16AM (#21675124)
I'm also on the left and found your comment very useful and informative. Again tho, my reference to mud-slinging is in the Wikipedia quote I replied to; I've no idea why you would think I might categorise your comment equally.

As for his categorisation as far right; I've already acknowledged he might be (I haven't read much by him), but being prepared to discuss right wing ideas and challenge mainstream thinking should not mean either him or his technological projects are classed as not to be dealt with.