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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32429 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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I disagree with Moldbug on that. There's a lot of flock-like coordination, but there's also centralized structures (like Jornolist). And if you try to look into the web of funding of the various NGOs, you find a snarl. They're all connected to each other -- often through foundations that are also connected to the media.

Power laws and competition don't disappear just because they're affecting your enemy. It can still be a decentralised process whilst appearing to be focused around a few key groups—this is a measure of success, the wheat winnowed from the chaff. There are very few moments where it's actually more efficient to create a thing/movement/site entirely from scratch rather than finding an already moving thing, no matter how fast, and boosting it.

Power laws and competition don't disappear just because they're affecting your enemy.

You can do a lot if you have solved the coordination problem.

And how have they accomplished that? And if so, why in heavens name would you seek to displace the first group ever to manage it? Such an innovation would instantly enable a utopia, and even if of an aesthetically malign sort, that must be better than our present straits? Surely on any remotely conservative principle such a breakthrough should be regarded as extraordinarily unique and not to be tampered with at all?

I personally very much doubt they have.

Utopia is impossible. Every attempt at Utopia invariably results in dystopia.

And how have they accomplished that?

I'll be damned if I know.

And if so, why in heavens name would you seek to displace the first group ever to manage it? Such an innovation would instantly enable a utopia

No, solving the co-ordination problem does not lead to utopia. It leads to great power for those who solved it.

And how have they accomplished that?

I'll be damned if I know.

I think the answer is that they haven't. These people spend as much time fighting each other as they do anyone else, but they band together against outsiders.

This seems like an important distinction between the concepts of "Left, Inc" and "The Cathedral", right? I'm inclined to think both have explanatory power.

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