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Notes -
This interviewer is intolerable. He keeps trying to make these sortof "dunks" or sarcastic remarks, but he just comes across as annoying.
Even if you're not interested in Moldbug, or listening to him, just seeing how bad this interview is is impressive.
The interviewer sounds too dumb for this but I wonder if it's performative, in an attempt to identify with the more typical NYT reader/listener who (e.g.) can't believe sacred cows are being questioned.
But I also realize Yarvin doesn't make his points too well, and this is also actually my normal experience with his writing? He mostly throws out controversial claims and only weakly justifies them. That makes him a fairly normal intellectual in that sense, though not what you expect from rat thinkers who argue against themselves to elucidate their points more.
Still, I had this sense he's doing a Motte and Bailey. He throws out a sensational claim like democracy sucks and dictatorships are effective but waters it down considerably when pushed a bit? Sure FDR asked for a ton of power but he still asked and he presumably got it within the framework of the democracy. Like, fine, but not exactly where I thought he was going with this.
This again may be the interviewers fault, though I think I am not alone in being frustrated by his writing in a way that I don't feel frustrated by the median rat writer.
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