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Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 5, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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It’s easier to find a good critique than a good solution, and to his credit, 0HP has at least one pointed in the vague direction of a real solution in the form of his Christo-Nietzchean synthesis. The Neo-Nietzchean fake-and-gay critiques I suspect are correct, though the crassness is not quite my cup of tea. My most substantial disagreement is with his hope in high-drama politics to guide reform; I think the next election cycle or three is doomed, and the more technocratic arguments of Hanania will have to win out.

I've seen plenty of claims that Hanania is a troll, but I unironically espouse most of the controversial things he says that might be dubbed inflammatory.

Technology solves our problems faster than it creates new ones, and barring the threat from an unaligned AGI (a big one, even if my p(doom) is only around 30% these days), I look forward to us dragging ourselves up to the stars by our bootstraps.

I’d quibble with the ‘we’ part, and add the risk of a secular demographic collapse before going interstellar but probably agree with you on most of the details.

The above passage is IMO a very clever way of framing Jews and Jewish racial traits as foundational to not only sexual liberalism and communist worldviews but to those of the trad-cons and the alt-right itself. It’s as pro-Semitic as a race-realist speaking to an audience of Hitlerite memers could probably get without getting cancelled.

The offensiveness arguably serves to stop the process of dilution and appropriation as depicted in Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths. You can’t take the homophobic slurs into the mainstream, so arguably you get to keep your ghetto free of grifters and maintain the spirit of contrarianism necessary for original thought.

Does Nietzsche have any specific policy platform? This is a distinct culture separate from neoliberal wonkery and it doesn’t express itself in that language, in the same way utils don’t make sense outside of a consequentialist framework. Their political goal is a new regime, with the specifics TBD, because their framework boils down to good leaders with real power -> good country. Again, naive IMO, but I appreciate that they are trying to build something.

There’s a subtle variant of racism 0HP advocates for that I’m coming to agree with but doubt I can communicate clearly. Too much of an inferential gap. I can give it a shot if you’re curious, but if you don’t agree with basic race-realist stuff it probably won’t get us anywhere.

There isn’t any evidence that any of what he says about ‘Jewish women’ is true. It’s esoteric word salad, it doesn’t even have a basis in HBD, it’s pure feels over reals, personally blaming Jewish women for the destruction of western civilization is even less evidence-based than blaming Jewish men for it. Psychoanalysis would presumably prove his point, but it’s hard not to see this as just a grudge. Of course, he doesn’t actually believe this, but then, that’s not really a point in his favor.

It’s not really a silver lining if you deeply dislike much of liberal modernity

I don’t know that I’m a libertarian at heart. I think ideologically I’m probably something like an old-school high tory, with variably some idiosyncratic influence from Milton Friedman neoliberalism, radical feminism and neoreaction. I don’t think the dissident right can really articulate a vision of the future, certainly not a coherent one. In as much as they hate me (us?) for being Jewish, I suppose I wouldn’t want to see them ‘win’, sure. And I have said many times that I think modernity and modern institutions are much more resilient than radicals of all kinds believe. But I don’t think that this is the best way to run a society.

To me, there are things that are more important than individual liberty. The maintenance of order (or maybe better the avoidance of anarcho-tyranny), the promotion of beauty, a respect for propriety, for manners, self respect, So much is ugly now, ugly people, ugly buildings, ugly clothes, ugly rules, the raising of the low over the high (in culture, in people, in everything). I want to live in a world where people get dressed for dinner, where they keep fit, where buildings are built according to traditional standards of symmetric beauty that have existed for millennia, where the streets are clean and well kept, where children are well-behaved (where possible), where antisocial people are dealt with, where people respect The Rules. I think we were headed in that direction for a long time, now I’m not sure.

There’s a subtle variant of racism 0HP advocates for that I’m coming to agree with but doubt I can communicate clearly.

I would be interested in reading this.

As would I. Ping me if you post it please