the alt-right

If there's anything you should feel bad about it's your non-stop character assassination of other posters and poor reading comprehension.

Everyone otm

fred, conflating finding someone interesting to read w/ agreeing with what they wrote is imho a sign of a very immature mind - one that can only get value from what reciprocates their own opinions and thoughts. u may get some value in general from disentangling the two - for one it may give you the freedom to have civil conversations on topics w/out assuming yr interlocutors are engaging in bad faith (a sure sign that you yourself are engaging in bad faith). treesh gives the most pragmatic perspective for reading things w/ which you disagree - to know what the enemy is thinking (and to refine your own arguments) - but there can even be a kind of pleasure in reading something coming from a dramatically different perspective from your own; even from a perspective that you find heinous. i've read antisemitic thinkers extensively - to know what and how they think and just for the raw experience of encountering a perspective that is so different from my own that it's alien; i've even in some ways had some pleasure in a horror movie kind of way in reading something that sent chills of discomfort and fear down my spine. i'm maybe unusual in that regard but i don't think it's a totally valueless way to approach life. what i notice about how you argue on ilx is that you present as someone who a) believes they know more than everyone they are talking to and b) makes little effort to understand the ppl they're speaking to. beginning to separate your moral perspectives from your intellectual perspectives (something you (jokingly?) disavowed on a different thread) might be a good way to start that. learn the difference between a logical argument and a moral argument and know when you're arguing one or the other. you mention 9/11. i was living in NYC on 9/11 - experiencing that trauma made me more interested in reading the works of radical islamist thinkers. i wanted to know what kind of ideology could convince ppl to murder thousands of people. and i wanted to really understand it - such that i knew it well enough that i could give over their argument myself in a convincing manner.

anyway, on a personal note i think it's pretty obvious i'm not defending moldbug on any other ground than that i think he is an interesting writer. in this very thread when discussing him w/ sund4r i stopped to insert reasons why i have objections to his philosophy, as if such a thing is necessary on ilx (but there's value in that too - explicitly spelling out where the points of contention are, why you can't follow him into the ideological abyss). moreover, i don't think you think i'm defending him either. none of our arguments above - about whether authoritarianism was ubiquitous throughout history, or whether there was meaningful objection to the idea of a sole ruler sovereign, or however you want to construe it - had anything to do w/ defending moldbug or moldbug's ideology. it was just a tedious nitpicking detour that exposed a lack of reading comprehension. if you really thought i was defending moldbug on ideological grounds presumably we could've spent all this time discussing that - instead of you inserting it in some last minute attempt to tar yr interlocutor after all other arguments were dismantled. it's a pretty embarrassing thing coming from someone w/ such high self-regard. for yr v own sake you should bring yr A-game and not this bullshit.

say this for moldbug - he's a much more innovative and interesting thinker than you are (despite his championing an ideology that has been out of fashion for centuries). your "everyone i knew was safe but i was worried about them so therefore no quarter" perspective is some weak shit that should really be below you bc it's essentially an "i would've been passing the twin towers on 9/11 if i had visited New York a week earlier" type story w/ the minor added exoticism of having to do w/ Breivik and not 9/11. "i almost knew someone who was thinking about visiting the site where a tragedy occurred and therefore i must accuse ppl who disagree w/ me of arguing in bad faith." curious whether you've ever actually had a conversation w/ someone that wasn't just a thinly veiled attempt to either a) prove your own intellectual superiority or b) prove your own moral superiority. the ironic thing is that in trying to do so you end up proving the precise opposite - that you're a sloppy enough thinker to make basic reading comprehension errors, assume the meanings of words, and construct strawmen to argue with, all while demeaning the ppl you're talking to for no reason but to bolster your own moral authority. a shitty stupid person. basically the worst kind of person you can be. i don't think that's really you, but it's far too often the discourse you prefer on ilx.

iow i'm not mad, fred, i'm just disappointed.

"fred, conflating finding someone interesting to read w/ agreeing with what they wrote is imho a sign of a very immature mind"

Aaaand I didn't do this. Talk about bad reading comprehension skills.

you literally just did that when you said that i was defending moldbug

you literally said "Nah, it's pretty clear Mordy is defending Moldbug? I mean, of course not the parts about how it's sorta okay to machinegun people like me and my high school friends, it's the other parts that are 'interesting + frames things in provocative ways'."

how is that not a conflation between those two things? you excuse yourself doing it while you're doing it.

I literally quote that you find him interesting, and say nothing about whether or not you agree with him?

dude wtf. what does the word "defending" mean to you? and if you just meant "defending" on grounds that he's interesting then wtf does his support of breivik (& his vile moral transgressions) have to do with it? what you're saying makes no sense unless you are conflating interesting w/ correct.

i know that in 2017 it's verboten to ever admit that you were wrong or back off a position but i'd have so much more respect for you if you stopped digging holes and were just like "you're right that was out of line i don't think you're pro-breivik," or "i didn't understand what you were saying about authoritarianism" or whatever but every new attempt to reframe it just makes you look more and more intellectually dishonest.

I tried reading part 1 of the Moldbug open letter again. I'm suspecting fairly strongly that he is just not a very intelligent person.

― My Body's Made of Crushed Little Evening Stars (Sund4r), 11. februar 2017 14:45 (eight hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i disagree. he says things that i know are wrong but he also says things that are interesting + frames things in provocative ways. tbh i'm surprised when someone reads open letter and comes away thinking it's just the ramblings of some dumb dude.

― Mordy, 11. februar 2017 14:50 (eight hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's defending him. I read that and I see red again. And it's because I hate Moldbug so fucking much.

And I've never said you were pro-breivik, wtf?

Ban Fred b

fred, this is why i said you conflate "interesting" w/ "correct." because you do.

Ban Mordy too tbh

But you know what Mordy? Just go fuck yourself. I'm not going to explain again how traumatic Breivik is, so you can shit on it some more.

i've called kevin mcdonald the most interesting contemporary antisemite. i would be very offended if you quoted that and said i was defending him and then justified your anger by recourse to his moral failings as a jew hater. someone can be evil and be interesting. someone can be good and be boring. learn to distinguish between the two.

yeah fred idgaf about your breivik trauma. it's just a way to short circuit how fucking dumb you're being by trying to cop some sympathy. own up to your shittiness please.

Fuck you too.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/42/Carlb-sockpuppet-02.jpg/220px-Carlb-sockpuppet-02.jpg

what do u feel about the fact that [one of?] the most famous frederiks in history was the most famous proponent of enlightened authoritarianism?

Mordy, I'm not sure you're well. Weren't you going to take a break until you got over you're own Trump-related trauma?

The name means King of Peace, btw. It's one of two names given to Danish kings as well, so I'm pretty well aware of the connection. Am I supposed to think anything about it?

i feel pretty well, actually, thank you. but impugning someone's mental health to score a point in an argument is another screaming recommendation for your moral superiority. tell me more about yr seven degrees of breivik.

oh sweet a flamewar! could y'all hold on for a sec tho? i have to feed my tamogotchi and update my aim away message and i don't want to miss this

Fuck your tamogatchi sleepingbag we had a famine once

lololol <3

1845: An Gorta Mór 2

tbph i want to know who cast the second vote

guys this is what happens when we have a thread that doesn't talk about steely dan

Fuck steely Dan an all after what the Brits done on us in 1603

Mordy, I did not say you were pro-breivik, I did not say you agree with him. I admitted that I misread what you said about authoritarianism - though for the record, it then turned out you meant what I thought you meant. You've admitted you were defending Moldbug, but keeps on shitting on me for having said that you do so. To quote a major asshole who proves you can actually be both evil and boring: "you're a sloppy enough thinker to make basic reading comprehension errors, assume the meanings of words, and construct strawmen to argue with, all while demeaning the ppl you're talking to for no reason but to bolster your own moral authority. a shitty stupid person. basically the worst kind of person you can be. i don't think that's really you, but it's far too often the discourse you prefer on ilx."

boring enough to quote eh? it'd be higher praise if it wasn't coming from such an oaf. tbph i still like you - you're feisty even if you're not half as clever as you think you are, and this forum can use a little fire now and again. i hope you learn to put your feistiness to good use.

And I fear you're a hopeless piece of shit. tbph I mostly pity you. You're boring, stupid, and quite honestly seem scared and scarred.

i think you've continued to misread the tone and conversation. i feel neither scared nor scarred. i'm mostly amused by sparring w/ you; i think you're pretty transparently full of shit here and have progressively degraded the level of conversation over and over again to cover for each preceding revelation of stupidity. i suspect this is your MO in general - you try to distract ppl from embarrassing arguments that go poorly for you by riling up as much of a clusterfuck as possible. i've been willing to accommodate you bc it's the weekend and it really didn't take much time. but just bc your blood pressure is rising and yr heartbeat rapid does not mean that everyone is feeling the same terror of exposure.

I don't think you'd ever be brave enough to do anything but feign amusement, so whatever.

Not enough total toilet protection ITT

Also Fred definitely lost

tbph I mostly pity you.

Jesus Christ dude could you be any more of an obnoxious concern troll?

hard to find a cluster where everybody's on Mordy's side but

And I fear you're a hopeless piece of shit. tbph I mostly pity you. You're boring, stupid, and quite honestly seem scared and scarred.

― Frederik B, Saturday, February 11, 2017 3:38 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Fred has never been mad, he thinks it's funny, actually

Mordys being a self infatuated pedantic dick btw.

Harsh. In that case I can't even imagine what you think of Frederik.

guys we all need to relax and listen to some Kenny Loggins

You're boring, stupid, and quite honestly seem scared and scarred.

LOL. There may be many ways to criticize Mordy but these are none of them.

Also Fred definitely lost

― El Tomboto

yeah mordy did a great job proving what all of us already knew about fred, good job

even Glass Joe fights a few tomato cans now and then

(So far, part 2 of the Moldbug open letter is a lot better than part 1.)

What would it take to get you guys to stop saying 'Mencius Moldbug'?

Or to stop reading jk Rowling entirely

Mind of Mencius

I'm partway through part 9. Guy has really let me down. Despite all the horseshit, I had a certain respect and admiration for an American tech bro who was willing to take conservatism not just to the point of wanting to undo the New Deal or Civil War but the American Revolution itself, not just liberal democracy but the Protestant Reformation. And his connection of progressivism to Protestantism is interesting. But what does he want to replace all of this decadent liberalism/Americanism with? Restoring the political power of the papacy or the old European aristocracies? No, he just wants to turn everything over to the even more pervasive Americanism of corporate capitalism and make tech CEOs dictators, based on the largely American belief that the private sector handles everything better than the public sector, which he holds to be so self-evident that he never argues it aside from creating a strawman fictional state-owned burger chain and claiming that it would be a disaster compared to the brilliance of McDonald's or Burger King, overlooking the large number of successful publicly owned institutions (Statoil, the BBC, the University of California system, any number of publicly owned health care or health insurance systems). My fiancee (a contract instructor who is not sure yet if she is getting paid to create an online course this semester) and I did have a good laugh about the idea that, as university professors, we're actually running the world though.

From the comments:

As one of the very few people who read this blog on occason and could conceivably be called an open-minded progressive, let me just say that this series is not accomplishing its stated goal. I find the material you dredge up fascinating but entirely unconvincing.

I confess that I've given up on reading the postings all the way through, since they exceed my attention span. My random dips into them reveal propositions like:

- Noam Chomsky is the power elite (I suppose that explains why he is such a so pervasive presence on the talk shows and op-ed pages).

- Some obscure humanities prof is the living embodiment of evil.

- Busby Berkely == Leni Riefenstahl.

- Present-day governments are omniously oppressive, yet they can be rebooted painlessly in a single operation. The result will be control by a single individual whose powers extend to being able to disable all extant weaponry from a button on his desk.

Exactly who this person is, or why the current holders of power are going to sit still while he accumulates such power, I'm not sure. Maybe I missed that part. But whoever he is, he will avoid both being the object of a cult of personality and being a faceless bureaucrat, because those are both bad.

The above propositions are entertainingly ludicrous. No progressive is going to take them seriously. That's too bad, because progressivism (like any belief system) could stand to gain from having its suppositions questioned.

JUNE 6, 2008 AT 8:21 PM