Yarvin was there for me to read and digest after I had been a part of gamergate and the early redpill/manosphere side of things. After the first imploded and the second became full of grifters that crowded out the actual men trying to share woman tips, i wanted something more intellectually nourishing and i was far enough along in my journey to be open to “forbidden” ideas.
I know that the dark enlightenment/nrx space went the way of gamergate but like the former its planted seeds which have taken root. Whatever you day about yarvin i don’t know if there would be a right wing blogosphere without him and the other early pioneers.
I discovered Yarvin's writing and fell in love with it... I think around 2020 maybe. I found it wildly entertaining and addictive. But I still felt I leaned more classical liberal/center right for a while. I'd say, well, I take his ideas with a grain of a salt. His criticisms are accurate and insightful, but his suggestions are maybe a bit outlandish...
But as the years went on and our descend into clown world became ever more apparent... More and more, he seems obviously right. Our institutions are the problem; they have to go. I can't imagine any version of "things get better" that doesn't involve at minimum the liquidation of say Harvard and the Times etc, or at least their obvious-to-everyone-even-supporters slide into irrelevance. The universities now preach crackpot pseudoscience and genocidal hatred while failing to prepare students for careers and saddling them with massive debt; the media acted as cheerleaders and apologists for the violent race riots their decades of agitation and misinformation inspired... If forcing them to shut down and close their doors is "too radical", don't even waste my time.
It annoys me when people say Yarvin is a black pill/doomer with no solutions... He has outlined potential solutions in great detail. Say you doubt they will be seriously tried or will work, but don't say he doesn't offer any solutions when your solution is "just vote harder; the tide will turn and the Reagan revolution will definitely work this time".
But speaking of solutions, since the Antiversity is the lynchpin, what is? Where is it? What prospect, if any, is there for its existence? I think I remember reading in UR where he said he was going to write a post in more detail about how it would work and/or how to make it happen, but then never did.
I read through his blog in 2020, and it was interesting to have it fresh in my mind at a time when others had digested it into yet more right-wing politics. The idea of the Antiversity has been practically forgotten, and though the call to 'become worthy' has not, it is rare to find someone who remembers that these words in their original context can only mean 'become smarter and more truthful than the Cathedral'. (Not 'lift weights, make money and get girls and kids', which would be right but also orthogonal.) Then again, Yarvin did not help matters by leaving out the post on the Antiversity (part 9c) from his Gentle Introduction, and then failing to mention it again after coming back and writing tens of thousands more words on BASED absolutist techno-tyranny.
I'm glad to see some of these concepts being discussed again, and I'll try to stimulate this by throwing a Moldbuggian heresy into the ring. I do not agree that the Antiversity has to be a single institution, nor that it has to be "always right and never wrong". Unification would only render it vulnerable to capture, and pursuit of a perfect track record would prevent it from learning from honestly admitted mistakes. The humanists and philosophists did not need a single unified organization to siphon off authority from the Catholic Church, and the liberal state and democratist regime under which we live today is a monument to the scale of their victory.
What your friend said of the Antiversity could one day come true, but only in the event that the dissident right 1) gives up the distraction of "fighting the enemy in the political arena" and 2) gets a lot more serious about "intellectual masturbation on the internet". As very few people in our circles are prepared to admit the primacy of the latter over the former, this is simply not going to get done at the scale of the entire movement. The best option would be to leave the activists to their political power fantasies, and hive off a smaller group of 'hard dissidents' to pursue intellectual authority.
The problem with the idea of a "guerilla Antiversity" is that it doesn't functionally discredit the regime among those who trust "experts" off of credentials alone, and that's who needs to be targeted. The smartest individuals already question the legitimacy of modern academia and journalism, it's everyone else that's needed. I can show someone the Bishop Hill blog on Climate Audit for example, but that's one subject and his credibility is only proven by reading through *everything* he's said/researched. Affiliation with a real institution provides credibility-by-affiliation, which is necessary.
That said, it doesn't have to be just one single institution, it just has to be formalized. For example, it could be a very well put-together website where researchers contribute as individuals, (with vetting by the owners). The key is that the entire organism is tied together efficiently and publicly to allow credibility to be built across the board.
As far as it "being right and never wrong", if a mistake were to be made, (which it really shouldn't be considering you have infinite time and no due date for all publishing), it can simply be admitted to and corrected. The key isn't to "never make a mistake", it's to never maintain a lie. However, it is imperative that this be avoided to the maximum extent possible, and I firmly believe that any and all mistakes could be caught before public release if everyone involved is serious and focused.
The three biggest risks are capture/infiltration, lawfare and corruption. As far as infiltration goes, I find this unlikely. In the very worst case perhaps someone sneaks by blatantly false information, but I think a half decent vetting effort would prevent this. Total capture would simply take far too long, and in the establishment period the concept would be deemed a total joke if it were even public knowledge, so I don't think the motivation would really be there. Corruption is possible, yes, but I think the worse actors won't have the incentive to join anyways, so the most risky individuals would be religious zealots, and a smart "CEO" can figure out who and and can't be trusted with the business of truth-telling. Lawfare is the biggest risk to a hypothetical Antiversity, as it could be labeled as misinformation under a slightly less permissive regime. However, this is risky business as if it's too big before it's banned that just further removes the mask of legitimacy.
I don’t like the idea of trump just rebooting Reagan’s platform. But I also have doubts about the kind of action moldbug proposes when he then proceeds to spend his time in dimes square promoting cringy, embarrassing art with the redscare girls.
The work suggests that peasants can become nobles if they just work hard enough. Johann kurtz, who is recommended here, has the audacity to suggest you can become noble by signing up for a $10 newsletter and reading self help articles. Real nobility wouldn’t define itself with lord of the rings quotes.
Kurtz on his Substack, “Subscribe to join the new elite.” The dissident right who believe that good government comes from a functioning aristocracy also often believe that a good aristocrat can be a Facebook executive or a tech bro who fat FIREd himself into an early retirement. The truth being revealed is that these guys only make good anonymous donors. When it comes to the task of displaying actual aristocratic qualities, they frequently reveal themselves to be embarrassing and annoying. Such qualities are partially genetic, unreachable for us who are sons of peasants and burghers. The other qualities come from circumstance, and being a CEO or a core monkey is far from the lifestyle that makes a real aristocrat. And real aristocrats never liked lord of the rings very much.
I just went on to UR for the first time last night, man he is fun to read, and in a lot of stuff he seems to be dead-on... where I struggle though is in the hope for the social engineering of society rather than the individual's own elevation in his spiritual life. Maybe I haven't read enough of him, but I feel there are two camps, those who hope that individuals can re order their lives, and those who hope to just reorder the whole damn world
Currently I find a limited-franchise democracy most appealing. We actually had this in America's history, for starters; it is what our nation was founded as. I feel that monarchy has quite a few really big and obvious flaws, whereas the big flaw with democracy is simply that everyone gets to vote. If the franchise could be constrained to a much smaller but more worthy electorate, I think the resulting government would be less evil and dysfunctional.
I think we have seen some steps towards an "Antiversity" in the sense that the old sense-making structures have lost huge amounts of credibility, but it is yet to be seen what the credible alternative might end up looking like. We aren't going to simply "build our own university," that much is clear. The concept of the university as a whole is outdated IMO and whatever ends up replacing it will have a fundamentally different structure.
There are obviously problems with monarchy, and he's proposed solutions, but first I think it's worth pointing out that, historically, monarchy has been the default. It's just normal human government. It's only because we live in an era born in revolution, and all of us, left wing or right wing, red state or blue state, Christian or atheist, grew up in a world saturated in a revolutionary ideology, according to which we discovered an amazing new technology of governance, that suggesting monarchy seems "extreme" or eccentric.
"The thing is: monarchism is not a belief. Monarchism is an absence of belief. Are you ready to throw away all the stupid sacred principles you believe in—accept that they are all just Western variants of “the workers and the peasants”—take a deep breadth and admit that, by historical standards, your government, your system of government, even your idea of government, is not just not necessarily excellent, let alone superlative or even exceptional, but perhaps—not even good?"
But yes, obviously monarchy has some problems, the main ones I think being the problem of succession... The rightful heir might suck at the job, and if there isn't an heir, there's a succession crisis which can lead to a struggle for power which can turn violent and even lead to civil war.
So Yarvin's solution is based on what has proven itself to be the most effective organizational structure for large organizations: the joint stock company. (If our government system is so good, why isn't used in the private sector? If it was more effective, companies should be able to be more profitable by using it! https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/08/rotary-management-next-big-thing/)
"""
Curtis Yarvin's theory of Neocameralism, which he developed under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug, proposes a modernized form of governance inspired by corporate management principles. Here’s a summary of his theory and its proposed solutions to issues related to monarchies:
### Neocameralism Overview
1. **Government as a Corporation**: Neocameralism treats the state as a profit-maximizing corporation, where the primary goal is efficiency and stability. The state is run by a CEO (or monarch) and owned by shareholders.
2. **Shareholder Model**: Instead of hereditary monarchy, Neocameralism suggests a shareholder model where the state’s owners (shareholders) elect the CEO. This aligns the interests of the rulers with the owners, aiming for efficient and profitable governance.
3. **Professional Management**: The CEO and management team are professionals hired for their expertise, much like corporate executives. Their performance is judged based on the state's prosperity and stability, encouraging competent and capable leadership.
### Solutions to Monarchical Issues
1. **Crisis of Succession**:
- **Elimination of Hereditary Succession**: Neocameralism removes the issue of hereditary succession, where the next ruler might be unfit simply by birthright. Instead, the CEO is chosen based on merit and performance.
- **Stable Transition of Power**: Shareholders can replace the CEO through a structured process, ensuring that the transition of power is stable and not prone to crises.
2. **Incompetent Heirs**:
- **Performance-Based Leadership**: Since the CEO is selected based on their ability to run the state efficiently, the risk of an unfit heir taking the throne is minimized. The selection process focuses on merit and proven capability.
- **Accountability and Incentives**: The CEO and management are accountable to the shareholders, providing strong incentives for good governance. Poor performance can lead to their replacement, maintaining a high standard of leadership.
### Benefits of Neocameralism
- **Efficiency**: By running the state like a corporation, decisions are made with efficiency and profitability in mind, potentially leading to better resource management and economic growth.
- **Stability**: The professional management and clear, structured processes for leadership change contribute to political stability.
- **Meritocracy**: Leadership is based on ability and performance, ensuring that those in power are qualified and capable.
In summary, Curtis Yarvin's Neocameralism aims to modernize governance by applying corporate principles to the state, addressing the problems of succession and leadership quality that traditional monarchies face by introducing a system based on merit, accountability, and efficiency.
"""
Lest anyone scoff at the idea a government should be profitable, heaven forbid, instead of like a charity who's purpose is to Do Good... Yarvin believes "Salus populi suprema lex esto" (The health of the people is the supreme law)...that is the purpose of government. The question is how to achieve it. Profit is easily measurable, and generally real estate is profitable if it's the sort of place people want to live. Generally, the kinds of places people want to live are, well, better. Duh. This is how we could tie incentives to actual effective governance as measured by reality rather to some particular ideological conception of The Good.
And that, BTW, is one of the reasons I think Yarvin is brilliant and needs to be taken seriously. To take America's Founding Father's seriously and give them their credit where it's due, we should take them not as divinely inspired prophets... They sought to engineer a system of governance out of the crooked timbers of humanity. They did an impressive job under the circumstances, but ultimately they failed by their own standards. (They were deeply worried about the problem of "faction" ie political parties, but thought they set up the system in such a way that it wouldn't be an issue. Oops.)
How are we measuring "profit" in the context as government-as-a-corporation? Tax revenues? I think the fundamental issue with comparing government and corporations is that the latter isn't allowed to just take your money at gunpoint. The former is. The historical norm of government was actually exactly this--the king as a "stationary bandit" who maximizes his profits by just taking as much of your shit as he can in exchange for not killing you. You could argue that it's workable in a sense but I'm not sure if I'm convinced that it's a model for good governance.
"Patchwork realms can be expected to enforce a fair and consistent code of laws not for moral or theological reasons, not because they are compelled to do so by a superior sovereign or some other force real or imaginary, but for the same economic reasons that compel them to provide excellent customer service in general. Real estate on which the rule of law prevails is much, much more valuable than real estate on which it doesn’t, and the value of a realm is the value of its real estate.
"(I suspect that in a well-run realm this is almost literally the case, because I suspect that a well-run realm makes its take via the world’s fairest, least-intrusive tax: property tax. In fact, while I don’t know that this has ever been tried, it is easy to design a perfectly fair and perfectly non-intrusive property tax regime. Require real estate owners to assess their own property, offering it for sale at the assessed price, and set the tax at a percentage of that price. No muss, no fuss, no IRS. Since no one can live or work without real estate, it should be straightforward to tune this self-assessed property tax (SAPT) to extract the Laffer maximum.)
"To live on a Patchwork patch, you have to sign a bilateral contract with the realm. You promise to be a good boy and behave yourself. The realm promises to treat you fairly. There is an inherent asymmetry in this agreement, because you have no enforcement mechanism against the realm (just as you have no enforcement mechanism against the United States). However, a realm’s compliance with its customer-service agreements is sure to be a matter of rather intense attention among residents and prospective residents. And thus among shareholders as well.
"For example, I suspect that every customer-service agreement will include the right to remove oneself and one’s assets from the realm, at any time, no questions asked, to any other realm that will accept the emigrant. Possibly with an exception for those involved in the criminal-justice process—but this may not even be needed. Who wants a criminal? Not another realm, surely."
Part of the key to this is that they would be small and multiple:
"The basic idea of Patchwork is that, as the crappy governments we inherited from history are smashed, they should be replaced by a global spiderweb of tens, even hundreds, of thousands of sovereign and independent mini-countries, each governed by its own joint-stock corporation without regard to the residents’ opinions. If residents don’t like their government, they can and should move. The design is all “exit,” no “voice.”"
My biggest question is what would stop them from buying up each other to form mega sov-corps...
I'm not necessarily 100% convinced all of this would definitely work perfectly as exactly as described, but I think it's thinking in the right direction. We need to figure out how to properly align incentives. They currently are not very well aligned.
>My biggest question is what would stop them from buying up each other to form mega sov-corps...<
Yes, this is the core issue I'd have as well. A patchwork of 100 mini-states cannot defend itself collectively against an aggressor possessing a similar amount of territory and resources all ruled under a single authority. I absolutely agree that the patchwork mini-states are better in theory and I am friendly to the idea of breaking up the United States for this exact reason. The biggest problem is that then Russia, China, and whoever else eats our lunch. History unfortunately suggests that nations and empires have tended to grow larger over time rather than smaller.
Limited franchise doesn't seem stable. It hasn't been anywhere as far as I know. And the fact that the "wrong" people can vote isn't the least of the problems with democracy. I'll turn to GPT for help. It's really good at summarizing things:
"""
Here are the main problems with democracy according to Yarvin:
### 1. **Inherent Inefficiency**
- **Bureaucratic Bloat**: Yarvin argues that democratic governments tend to become bloated with bureaucracy and inefficiency. The process of decision-making is slowed down by the need for consensus and political maneuvering.
- **Short-Term Focus**: Politicians in a democracy are often more concerned with winning the next election than with long-term planning. This focus on short-term gains can lead to poor decision-making and policies that are not in the best interest of the state in the long run.
### 2. **Voter Ignorance and Manipulation**
- **Ill-informed Electorate**: According to Yarvin, the average voter is not adequately informed to make complex policy decisions. This can lead to poor electoral choices and the election of leaders who are not competent.
- **Media Manipulation**: Yarvin believes that the media and other institutions can manipulate public opinion, leading to a situation where the electorate's decisions are based on propaganda rather than informed judgment.
### 3. **Power and Accountability Issues**
- **Diffuse Responsibility**: In a democracy, power is often spread across many individuals and institutions, making it difficult to hold anyone accountable for poor governance. This diffusion of responsibility can lead to a lack of accountability and poor performance.
- **Electoral Cycle Instability**: The constant change of leadership due to electoral cycles can lead to instability and inconsistency in governance. Policies and priorities can shift dramatically with each election, making it difficult to maintain a coherent long-term strategy.
### 4. **Populism and Demagoguery**
- **Appeal to Masses**: Democratic leaders often resort to populist tactics to gain votes, appealing to the masses with promises that may be unrealistic or harmful in the long term.
- **Demagogues**: Yarvin argues that democracy can give rise to demagogues who exploit the emotions and prejudices of the populace to gain power, often leading to divisive and harmful policies.
### 5. **Economic Inefficiency**
- **Resource Misallocation**: Democratic governments, driven by the need to please various constituencies, may allocate resources inefficiently, leading to waste and suboptimal economic outcomes.
- **Regulatory Overreach**: The desire to regulate and control various aspects of society and the economy can lead to overregulation, stifling innovation and economic growth.
### 6. **Moral and Cultural Decay**
- **Decline of Traditional Values**: Yarvin believes that democracy can lead to a decline in traditional moral and cultural values, as the pursuit of votes can lead politicians to pander to the lowest common denominator.
- **Cultural Fragmentation**: The emphasis on individual rights and freedoms in a democracy can lead to cultural fragmentation and the weakening of social cohesion.
### 7. **Elitism Disguised as Equality**
- **Hidden Elites**: Yarvin argues that democracy often hides the true power structures within society. While it presents itself as a system of equality, real power can be concentrated in the hands of a hidden elite (e.g., bureaucrats, media moguls, and intellectuals) who are not directly accountable to the public.
In summary, Curtis Yarvin's critique of democracy focuses on its inefficiency, susceptibility to manipulation, lack of accountability, and potential for fostering populism, economic mismanagement, and cultural decline. He believes that these flaws make democracy an ineffective and ultimately harmful system of governance.
"""
That's a good summary, but one point I think it missed (although it's related to 2 and 4) is that it is the source of the culture war. Since power is up for grabs, people split into factions and struggle for it. That creates the demand for ideas that justify the seizure and expansion of power. It forces everyone to choose a side in our eternal cold civil war. If Yarvin is right and his vision came to pass, it wouldn't be the victory of the right over the left... It would be the end of the left and the right as we know them. We'd just have stable, orderly and effective government and we could all just mind our own business; there would be no incentive to do otherwise. That's a beautiful dream I can get behind.
A lot of that stuff is explicitly why I would favor limiting the franchise, i.e. "appeal to the masses," yeah, let's cut out "the masses" such that only 10% or less of the population can vote. If we're that worried about it, we can keep cutting until the voterbase is as small as only about 10,000 people that are determined to actually matter, or maybe even less than that. This doesn't sound terribly dissimilar to the "corporate government" discussed above, aside from the glaring issue of how we determine exactly who is qualified to be the members of this new elect.
The biggest issue with limited franchise is keeping it limited. The U.S. started as limited franchise, but once you let in the idea of representation it usually expands. Even the Athenians had this problem. I'm not entirely opposed to the concept, but there needs to be a solution to the problem of expansion.
Yarvin was there for me to read and digest after I had been a part of gamergate and the early redpill/manosphere side of things. After the first imploded and the second became full of grifters that crowded out the actual men trying to share woman tips, i wanted something more intellectually nourishing and i was far enough along in my journey to be open to “forbidden” ideas.
I know that the dark enlightenment/nrx space went the way of gamergate but like the former its planted seeds which have taken root. Whatever you day about yarvin i don’t know if there would be a right wing blogosphere without him and the other early pioneers.
I discovered Yarvin's writing and fell in love with it... I think around 2020 maybe. I found it wildly entertaining and addictive. But I still felt I leaned more classical liberal/center right for a while. I'd say, well, I take his ideas with a grain of a salt. His criticisms are accurate and insightful, but his suggestions are maybe a bit outlandish...
But as the years went on and our descend into clown world became ever more apparent... More and more, he seems obviously right. Our institutions are the problem; they have to go. I can't imagine any version of "things get better" that doesn't involve at minimum the liquidation of say Harvard and the Times etc, or at least their obvious-to-everyone-even-supporters slide into irrelevance. The universities now preach crackpot pseudoscience and genocidal hatred while failing to prepare students for careers and saddling them with massive debt; the media acted as cheerleaders and apologists for the violent race riots their decades of agitation and misinformation inspired... If forcing them to shut down and close their doors is "too radical", don't even waste my time.
It annoys me when people say Yarvin is a black pill/doomer with no solutions... He has outlined potential solutions in great detail. Say you doubt they will be seriously tried or will work, but don't say he doesn't offer any solutions when your solution is "just vote harder; the tide will turn and the Reagan revolution will definitely work this time".
But speaking of solutions, since the Antiversity is the lynchpin, what is? Where is it? What prospect, if any, is there for its existence? I think I remember reading in UR where he said he was going to write a post in more detail about how it would work and/or how to make it happen, but then never did.
I read through his blog in 2020, and it was interesting to have it fresh in my mind at a time when others had digested it into yet more right-wing politics. The idea of the Antiversity has been practically forgotten, and though the call to 'become worthy' has not, it is rare to find someone who remembers that these words in their original context can only mean 'become smarter and more truthful than the Cathedral'. (Not 'lift weights, make money and get girls and kids', which would be right but also orthogonal.) Then again, Yarvin did not help matters by leaving out the post on the Antiversity (part 9c) from his Gentle Introduction, and then failing to mention it again after coming back and writing tens of thousands more words on BASED absolutist techno-tyranny.
I'm glad to see some of these concepts being discussed again, and I'll try to stimulate this by throwing a Moldbuggian heresy into the ring. I do not agree that the Antiversity has to be a single institution, nor that it has to be "always right and never wrong". Unification would only render it vulnerable to capture, and pursuit of a perfect track record would prevent it from learning from honestly admitted mistakes. The humanists and philosophists did not need a single unified organization to siphon off authority from the Catholic Church, and the liberal state and democratist regime under which we live today is a monument to the scale of their victory.
What your friend said of the Antiversity could one day come true, but only in the event that the dissident right 1) gives up the distraction of "fighting the enemy in the political arena" and 2) gets a lot more serious about "intellectual masturbation on the internet". As very few people in our circles are prepared to admit the primacy of the latter over the former, this is simply not going to get done at the scale of the entire movement. The best option would be to leave the activists to their political power fantasies, and hive off a smaller group of 'hard dissidents' to pursue intellectual authority.
The problem with the idea of a "guerilla Antiversity" is that it doesn't functionally discredit the regime among those who trust "experts" off of credentials alone, and that's who needs to be targeted. The smartest individuals already question the legitimacy of modern academia and journalism, it's everyone else that's needed. I can show someone the Bishop Hill blog on Climate Audit for example, but that's one subject and his credibility is only proven by reading through *everything* he's said/researched. Affiliation with a real institution provides credibility-by-affiliation, which is necessary.
That said, it doesn't have to be just one single institution, it just has to be formalized. For example, it could be a very well put-together website where researchers contribute as individuals, (with vetting by the owners). The key is that the entire organism is tied together efficiently and publicly to allow credibility to be built across the board.
As far as it "being right and never wrong", if a mistake were to be made, (which it really shouldn't be considering you have infinite time and no due date for all publishing), it can simply be admitted to and corrected. The key isn't to "never make a mistake", it's to never maintain a lie. However, it is imperative that this be avoided to the maximum extent possible, and I firmly believe that any and all mistakes could be caught before public release if everyone involved is serious and focused.
The three biggest risks are capture/infiltration, lawfare and corruption. As far as infiltration goes, I find this unlikely. In the very worst case perhaps someone sneaks by blatantly false information, but I think a half decent vetting effort would prevent this. Total capture would simply take far too long, and in the establishment period the concept would be deemed a total joke if it were even public knowledge, so I don't think the motivation would really be there. Corruption is possible, yes, but I think the worse actors won't have the incentive to join anyways, so the most risky individuals would be religious zealots, and a smart "CEO" can figure out who and and can't be trusted with the business of truth-telling. Lawfare is the biggest risk to a hypothetical Antiversity, as it could be labeled as misinformation under a slightly less permissive regime. However, this is risky business as if it's too big before it's banned that just further removes the mask of legitimacy.
I don’t like the idea of trump just rebooting Reagan’s platform. But I also have doubts about the kind of action moldbug proposes when he then proceeds to spend his time in dimes square promoting cringy, embarrassing art with the redscare girls.
You kinda have to separate the work from the individual, no one wants king Yarvin
The work suggests that peasants can become nobles if they just work hard enough. Johann kurtz, who is recommended here, has the audacity to suggest you can become noble by signing up for a $10 newsletter and reading self help articles. Real nobility wouldn’t define itself with lord of the rings quotes.
I don't know how you gathered literally any of that
Kurtz on his Substack, “Subscribe to join the new elite.” The dissident right who believe that good government comes from a functioning aristocracy also often believe that a good aristocrat can be a Facebook executive or a tech bro who fat FIREd himself into an early retirement. The truth being revealed is that these guys only make good anonymous donors. When it comes to the task of displaying actual aristocratic qualities, they frequently reveal themselves to be embarrassing and annoying. Such qualities are partially genetic, unreachable for us who are sons of peasants and burghers. The other qualities come from circumstance, and being a CEO or a core monkey is far from the lifestyle that makes a real aristocrat. And real aristocrats never liked lord of the rings very much.
I just went on to UR for the first time last night, man he is fun to read, and in a lot of stuff he seems to be dead-on... where I struggle though is in the hope for the social engineering of society rather than the individual's own elevation in his spiritual life. Maybe I haven't read enough of him, but I feel there are two camps, those who hope that individuals can re order their lives, and those who hope to just reorder the whole damn world
You have to do the first in order to properly do the second, but reordering the political sphere remains necessary nonetheless
Currently I find a limited-franchise democracy most appealing. We actually had this in America's history, for starters; it is what our nation was founded as. I feel that monarchy has quite a few really big and obvious flaws, whereas the big flaw with democracy is simply that everyone gets to vote. If the franchise could be constrained to a much smaller but more worthy electorate, I think the resulting government would be less evil and dysfunctional.
I think we have seen some steps towards an "Antiversity" in the sense that the old sense-making structures have lost huge amounts of credibility, but it is yet to be seen what the credible alternative might end up looking like. We aren't going to simply "build our own university," that much is clear. The concept of the university as a whole is outdated IMO and whatever ends up replacing it will have a fundamentally different structure.
There are obviously problems with monarchy, and he's proposed solutions, but first I think it's worth pointing out that, historically, monarchy has been the default. It's just normal human government. It's only because we live in an era born in revolution, and all of us, left wing or right wing, red state or blue state, Christian or atheist, grew up in a world saturated in a revolutionary ideology, according to which we discovered an amazing new technology of governance, that suggesting monarchy seems "extreme" or eccentric.
"The thing is: monarchism is not a belief. Monarchism is an absence of belief. Are you ready to throw away all the stupid sacred principles you believe in—accept that they are all just Western variants of “the workers and the peasants”—take a deep breadth and admit that, by historical standards, your government, your system of government, even your idea of government, is not just not necessarily excellent, let alone superlative or even exceptional, but perhaps—not even good?"
But yes, obviously monarchy has some problems, the main ones I think being the problem of succession... The rightful heir might suck at the job, and if there isn't an heir, there's a succession crisis which can lead to a struggle for power which can turn violent and even lead to civil war.
So Yarvin's solution is based on what has proven itself to be the most effective organizational structure for large organizations: the joint stock company. (If our government system is so good, why isn't used in the private sector? If it was more effective, companies should be able to be more profitable by using it! https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/08/rotary-management-next-big-thing/)
"""
Curtis Yarvin's theory of Neocameralism, which he developed under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug, proposes a modernized form of governance inspired by corporate management principles. Here’s a summary of his theory and its proposed solutions to issues related to monarchies:
### Neocameralism Overview
1. **Government as a Corporation**: Neocameralism treats the state as a profit-maximizing corporation, where the primary goal is efficiency and stability. The state is run by a CEO (or monarch) and owned by shareholders.
2. **Shareholder Model**: Instead of hereditary monarchy, Neocameralism suggests a shareholder model where the state’s owners (shareholders) elect the CEO. This aligns the interests of the rulers with the owners, aiming for efficient and profitable governance.
3. **Professional Management**: The CEO and management team are professionals hired for their expertise, much like corporate executives. Their performance is judged based on the state's prosperity and stability, encouraging competent and capable leadership.
### Solutions to Monarchical Issues
1. **Crisis of Succession**:
- **Elimination of Hereditary Succession**: Neocameralism removes the issue of hereditary succession, where the next ruler might be unfit simply by birthright. Instead, the CEO is chosen based on merit and performance.
- **Stable Transition of Power**: Shareholders can replace the CEO through a structured process, ensuring that the transition of power is stable and not prone to crises.
2. **Incompetent Heirs**:
- **Performance-Based Leadership**: Since the CEO is selected based on their ability to run the state efficiently, the risk of an unfit heir taking the throne is minimized. The selection process focuses on merit and proven capability.
- **Accountability and Incentives**: The CEO and management are accountable to the shareholders, providing strong incentives for good governance. Poor performance can lead to their replacement, maintaining a high standard of leadership.
### Benefits of Neocameralism
- **Efficiency**: By running the state like a corporation, decisions are made with efficiency and profitability in mind, potentially leading to better resource management and economic growth.
- **Stability**: The professional management and clear, structured processes for leadership change contribute to political stability.
- **Meritocracy**: Leadership is based on ability and performance, ensuring that those in power are qualified and capable.
In summary, Curtis Yarvin's Neocameralism aims to modernize governance by applying corporate principles to the state, addressing the problems of succession and leadership quality that traditional monarchies face by introducing a system based on merit, accountability, and efficiency.
"""
Lest anyone scoff at the idea a government should be profitable, heaven forbid, instead of like a charity who's purpose is to Do Good... Yarvin believes "Salus populi suprema lex esto" (The health of the people is the supreme law)...that is the purpose of government. The question is how to achieve it. Profit is easily measurable, and generally real estate is profitable if it's the sort of place people want to live. Generally, the kinds of places people want to live are, well, better. Duh. This is how we could tie incentives to actual effective governance as measured by reality rather to some particular ideological conception of The Good.
And that, BTW, is one of the reasons I think Yarvin is brilliant and needs to be taken seriously. To take America's Founding Father's seriously and give them their credit where it's due, we should take them not as divinely inspired prophets... They sought to engineer a system of governance out of the crooked timbers of humanity. They did an impressive job under the circumstances, but ultimately they failed by their own standards. (They were deeply worried about the problem of "faction" ie political parties, but thought they set up the system in such a way that it wouldn't be an issue. Oops.)
How are we measuring "profit" in the context as government-as-a-corporation? Tax revenues? I think the fundamental issue with comparing government and corporations is that the latter isn't allowed to just take your money at gunpoint. The former is. The historical norm of government was actually exactly this--the king as a "stationary bandit" who maximizes his profits by just taking as much of your shit as he can in exchange for not killing you. You could argue that it's workable in a sense but I'm not sure if I'm convinced that it's a model for good governance.
Yes, tax revenues.
"Patchwork realms can be expected to enforce a fair and consistent code of laws not for moral or theological reasons, not because they are compelled to do so by a superior sovereign or some other force real or imaginary, but for the same economic reasons that compel them to provide excellent customer service in general. Real estate on which the rule of law prevails is much, much more valuable than real estate on which it doesn’t, and the value of a realm is the value of its real estate.
"(I suspect that in a well-run realm this is almost literally the case, because I suspect that a well-run realm makes its take via the world’s fairest, least-intrusive tax: property tax. In fact, while I don’t know that this has ever been tried, it is easy to design a perfectly fair and perfectly non-intrusive property tax regime. Require real estate owners to assess their own property, offering it for sale at the assessed price, and set the tax at a percentage of that price. No muss, no fuss, no IRS. Since no one can live or work without real estate, it should be straightforward to tune this self-assessed property tax (SAPT) to extract the Laffer maximum.)
"To live on a Patchwork patch, you have to sign a bilateral contract with the realm. You promise to be a good boy and behave yourself. The realm promises to treat you fairly. There is an inherent asymmetry in this agreement, because you have no enforcement mechanism against the realm (just as you have no enforcement mechanism against the United States). However, a realm’s compliance with its customer-service agreements is sure to be a matter of rather intense attention among residents and prospective residents. And thus among shareholders as well.
"For example, I suspect that every customer-service agreement will include the right to remove oneself and one’s assets from the realm, at any time, no questions asked, to any other realm that will accept the emigrant. Possibly with an exception for those involved in the criminal-justice process—but this may not even be needed. Who wants a criminal? Not another realm, surely."
Part of the key to this is that they would be small and multiple:
"The basic idea of Patchwork is that, as the crappy governments we inherited from history are smashed, they should be replaced by a global spiderweb of tens, even hundreds, of thousands of sovereign and independent mini-countries, each governed by its own joint-stock corporation without regard to the residents’ opinions. If residents don’t like their government, they can and should move. The design is all “exit,” no “voice.”"
https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2008/11/patchwork-positive-vision-part-1/
My biggest question is what would stop them from buying up each other to form mega sov-corps...
I'm not necessarily 100% convinced all of this would definitely work perfectly as exactly as described, but I think it's thinking in the right direction. We need to figure out how to properly align incentives. They currently are not very well aligned.
>My biggest question is what would stop them from buying up each other to form mega sov-corps...<
Yes, this is the core issue I'd have as well. A patchwork of 100 mini-states cannot defend itself collectively against an aggressor possessing a similar amount of territory and resources all ruled under a single authority. I absolutely agree that the patchwork mini-states are better in theory and I am friendly to the idea of breaking up the United States for this exact reason. The biggest problem is that then Russia, China, and whoever else eats our lunch. History unfortunately suggests that nations and empires have tended to grow larger over time rather than smaller.
Limited franchise doesn't seem stable. It hasn't been anywhere as far as I know. And the fact that the "wrong" people can vote isn't the least of the problems with democracy. I'll turn to GPT for help. It's really good at summarizing things:
"""
Here are the main problems with democracy according to Yarvin:
### 1. **Inherent Inefficiency**
- **Bureaucratic Bloat**: Yarvin argues that democratic governments tend to become bloated with bureaucracy and inefficiency. The process of decision-making is slowed down by the need for consensus and political maneuvering.
- **Short-Term Focus**: Politicians in a democracy are often more concerned with winning the next election than with long-term planning. This focus on short-term gains can lead to poor decision-making and policies that are not in the best interest of the state in the long run.
### 2. **Voter Ignorance and Manipulation**
- **Ill-informed Electorate**: According to Yarvin, the average voter is not adequately informed to make complex policy decisions. This can lead to poor electoral choices and the election of leaders who are not competent.
- **Media Manipulation**: Yarvin believes that the media and other institutions can manipulate public opinion, leading to a situation where the electorate's decisions are based on propaganda rather than informed judgment.
### 3. **Power and Accountability Issues**
- **Diffuse Responsibility**: In a democracy, power is often spread across many individuals and institutions, making it difficult to hold anyone accountable for poor governance. This diffusion of responsibility can lead to a lack of accountability and poor performance.
- **Electoral Cycle Instability**: The constant change of leadership due to electoral cycles can lead to instability and inconsistency in governance. Policies and priorities can shift dramatically with each election, making it difficult to maintain a coherent long-term strategy.
### 4. **Populism and Demagoguery**
- **Appeal to Masses**: Democratic leaders often resort to populist tactics to gain votes, appealing to the masses with promises that may be unrealistic or harmful in the long term.
- **Demagogues**: Yarvin argues that democracy can give rise to demagogues who exploit the emotions and prejudices of the populace to gain power, often leading to divisive and harmful policies.
### 5. **Economic Inefficiency**
- **Resource Misallocation**: Democratic governments, driven by the need to please various constituencies, may allocate resources inefficiently, leading to waste and suboptimal economic outcomes.
- **Regulatory Overreach**: The desire to regulate and control various aspects of society and the economy can lead to overregulation, stifling innovation and economic growth.
### 6. **Moral and Cultural Decay**
- **Decline of Traditional Values**: Yarvin believes that democracy can lead to a decline in traditional moral and cultural values, as the pursuit of votes can lead politicians to pander to the lowest common denominator.
- **Cultural Fragmentation**: The emphasis on individual rights and freedoms in a democracy can lead to cultural fragmentation and the weakening of social cohesion.
### 7. **Elitism Disguised as Equality**
- **Hidden Elites**: Yarvin argues that democracy often hides the true power structures within society. While it presents itself as a system of equality, real power can be concentrated in the hands of a hidden elite (e.g., bureaucrats, media moguls, and intellectuals) who are not directly accountable to the public.
In summary, Curtis Yarvin's critique of democracy focuses on its inefficiency, susceptibility to manipulation, lack of accountability, and potential for fostering populism, economic mismanagement, and cultural decline. He believes that these flaws make democracy an ineffective and ultimately harmful system of governance.
"""
That's a good summary, but one point I think it missed (although it's related to 2 and 4) is that it is the source of the culture war. Since power is up for grabs, people split into factions and struggle for it. That creates the demand for ideas that justify the seizure and expansion of power. It forces everyone to choose a side in our eternal cold civil war. If Yarvin is right and his vision came to pass, it wouldn't be the victory of the right over the left... It would be the end of the left and the right as we know them. We'd just have stable, orderly and effective government and we could all just mind our own business; there would be no incentive to do otherwise. That's a beautiful dream I can get behind.
A lot of that stuff is explicitly why I would favor limiting the franchise, i.e. "appeal to the masses," yeah, let's cut out "the masses" such that only 10% or less of the population can vote. If we're that worried about it, we can keep cutting until the voterbase is as small as only about 10,000 people that are determined to actually matter, or maybe even less than that. This doesn't sound terribly dissimilar to the "corporate government" discussed above, aside from the glaring issue of how we determine exactly who is qualified to be the members of this new elect.
The biggest issue with limited franchise is keeping it limited. The U.S. started as limited franchise, but once you let in the idea of representation it usually expands. Even the Athenians had this problem. I'm not entirely opposed to the concept, but there needs to be a solution to the problem of expansion.
All it takes is one person who expands the franchise to 11% to take power…