the alt-right

better than pets amirite

more like the alt-shite

The heck is that messageboard

It's the Thomas Ligotti forum. Ligotti is one of the biggest figures in modern weird/horror fiction and he got a book in penguin classics recently. He's probably the most famous anti-natalist and he's big on pessimism too. We discuss all that and lots of related stuff. The Persian guy (or a moderator) deleted most of his posts in the thread, so it makes no sense now.

Nick Land is also into all that stuff I think. I think those guys are few and far between but nihilist posturing often goes together with fascistic ideas.

Is N1ck L4nd famous for something other than being NRx/fascist?

I think he takes some stuff from Lovecraft and Ligotti.

Phil Sandifer written a thing tying a lot of this stuff together
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2027287602/neoreaction-a-basilisk

whenever I read something written by/about Land, I think of this comment left by an old collegue of his on Simon Reynolds' blog (under an profile of Land and the ccru that Reynolds wrote in 1999):

One of the last times I saw Nick was in the Coop on Earlsdon high street; in his basket were about six Pot Noodles, and a cabbage ("because I don't want to get scurvy").

http://energyflashbysimonreynolds.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/renegade-academia-cybernetic-culture.html

I bought that Ligotti Penguin book and couldn't make it through half the stories. I'm a big Lovecraft fan, but Ligotti lives deep up his own ass, as far as prose style goes.

I never cared for him, either, but he seemed to be big with the Current 93/DiJ/neofolk people, who've never had any weird or unsavory political connections.

That's true but Ligotti doesn't have anything approaching fascist views himself.

maybe not but the failure of contemporary "pessimist" philosophical voices to address the fascist implications of their conclusions makes their work markedly inferior to that of cioran.

The only remaining anti-humanist ideology is fascism. Of all existing political movements, only a fascist would dare to express the belief that "no lives matter".

Anti-natalism is about reducing suffering til there is none left. But these people carry no expectation that it's likely to happen. No reason pessimism can't be compassionate.

oh, it's certainly possible to be antinatalist and _not_ be fascist. much antinatalism is apolitical, as politics is inherently a human enterprise. at the same time, antinatalism is a form of nihilism, and nihilism is more closely allied with fascism than it is with any other political form. there's a reason there's so much more nsbm than there is rabm.

Unlike anarchy, communism just isn't considered that cool unless you turn it into the ridiculous fascist supervillain thing. And anarchy is only considered cool when it's about chaos and irresponsibility.

It's not easy linking exciting metal imagery with responsible politics.

I think you're selling metalheads short to say that their ideology is based, first and foremost, around "coolness". I would argue that there is a genuine disconnect of values between the essentially pessimist philosophy adopted by metal at large and an economic/political belief system based around the worth and dignity of the working class, and that disconnect can be very clearly heard by attempting to listen to RABM bands.

If someone holds a belief system that assigns human life negative value, as many antinatalists do, they are going to face a strong temptation to implement those beliefs in a political sense. And prescriptive antinatalism is genocide.

always surprising that more antinatalists and misanthropes don't do something about the one part of the accounts sheet they do have a moral right over

Rushomancy- Fair enough about the first part, who are the best RABM bands?

Don't know about the second part. The anti-natalists I'm familiar with probably wouldn't find that attractive and don't have the energy to get that involved in politics.

I'd want to separate anti-natalism from nihilism. While anti-natalism does assign a negative value to human life, that's compatible with assigning a positive value to human beings. Anti-natalism can proceed from a demand for human wellbeing which the world isn't equipped to satisfy. It values human beings enough not to want to inflict a painful and compromised life on them.

Anyway, it seems to me that the big fascist movements have historically been highly optimistic, not pessimistic - but optimistic towards a perverse set of goals.

Rushomancy- Fair enough about the first part, who are the best RABM bands?

― Robert Adam Gilmour

i honestly don't think terms like "best" apply to rabm. here's the list of rabm bands i went through:

https://rateyourmusic.com/list/WeirdoYYY/the_essential_rabm__red_and_anarchist_black_metal_/

"always surprising that more antinatalists and misanthropes don't do something about the one part of the accounts sheet they do have a moral right over

― Rock Wokeman (Noodle Vague)"

i suppose it is surprising if you haven't actually read any antinatalist thought. cioran for instance spends a great deal of his writing talking about the deferral of suicide. it wouldn't be correct to say he was "anti-suicide", as he fully intended to kill himself after the alzheimer's diagnosis hit, but the illness progressed too fast.

"I'd want to separate anti-natalism from nihilism. While anti-natalism does assign a negative value to human life, that's compatible with assigning a positive value to human beings. Anti-natalism can proceed from a demand for human wellbeing which the world isn't equipped to satisfy. It values human beings enough not to want to inflict a painful and compromised life on them.

Anyway, it seems to me that the big fascist movements have historically been highly optimistic, not pessimistic - but optimistic towards a perverse set of goals.

― jmm"

i would agree about differentiating antinatalism from nihilism, but an essential part, i would argue, of philosophical antinatalism (as opposed to practical antinatalism, which is far more widespread and less overtly acknowledged) is that human beings fundamentally lack the capacity to create a world which can give human life positive value - that the negative value to human life is not a temporary, but an intrinsic condition. this philosophy is difficult to differentiate from nihilism.

fascism absolutely presents as an optimistic movement, but fascism, ideologically, is built on lies as well as on perversity. for the true believers, fascism is built on annihilation.

Why would antinatalism have anything to do with fascism?

Fascists view lives instrumentally -- that is the nature of their antihumanism. Antinatalists are the opposite of that. They look at the individual's quality of life as an indicator of its worthiness. Their position also usually doesn't involve imposing their views on others iirc. They dont tend to advocate forced sterilization

I am weakly antinatalist in that I think it's bad to be alive and I don't want to bring anyone into existence but I don't have like a political program attached to that

Had a look at that RABM list and although I'm sure most of them are nice guys I get the feeling some are probably Stalin worshippers and racist too.

can it be mere coincidence that antinatalist is an anagram of attain stalin?

Reading thru Jon Robson's _So You've Been Publicly Shamed_, and came upon a bit in the middle about 4chan and pre-gamergate stuff. You can see where all the seeds lie that would Bloom a couple years later.

a friend told me about that book, gotta check it out, thx for the reminder!

Probably worthwhile to also track down his followup interview with Monica Lewinsky

Also, this:

http://nerdist.com/nerdist-podcast-jon-ronson/

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/milo-yiannopouloss-cynical-book-deal?mbid=social_facebook

http://www.avclub.com/article/walking-turd-martin-shkreli-smacked-face-actual-tu-248505

http://www.salon.com/2017/01/16/cat-fight-on-the-alt-right-neo-nazi-podcaster-mike-enoch-quits-after-doxxers-reveal-his-wife-is-jewish/

omg the alt-right reddit thread on that is eye opening. one guy explains that the problem w/ nazis is that they didn't hate jews enough.

That Salon article is amazing. I mean that's exactly the kind of shit I expect from these people tbh, just like the Tea Party stalwarts who were living on Social Security and disability checks.

That initial report had an air of credibility, since the identities of Peinovich’s fellow “death panelists” on the podcast had been revealed earlier in the week. That doxxing was done by members of a rival website called 8chan, who attacked TRS for supporting the principle that non-Jewish white nationalists had common interests with extreme right-wing Israelis, which is anathema to hardcore neo-Nazis and anti-Semites.

that enoch thing is amazing, what the hell is the motive for that guy and his wife?

it makes u wonder how much his wife knows

lol @ all this. wow

they were making money off donations and merch sales? but yeah to be a fly in that home

https://www.buzzfeed.com/katienotopoulos/the-alt-rights-meltdown-is-just-like-any-other-message-board?utm_term=.yol1ZeNqKx#.vbbBPMVxmo

At first, this disarray might seem surprising. After all, the alt-right claims to be an unprecedented political phenomenon that memed a president into office. But if you want to understand what’s happening there, it’s helpful to think about it as an internet-first creature. While it’s possible — and necessary — to view it through the lens of political or social thought that it echoes, the other way of making sense of it is to look at it as a digital community, regardless of its politics. And if you view it as an online community rather than a political movement, its trajectory starts to look very, very familiar.

What we have here is a classic case of “mod drama.”

As someone who has spent a lot of time taxonimizing online communities, from places like Fark to SomethingAwful, 4chan to Facebook groups for moms, I can assure you that one need only look at how other internet groups rise and fall to see what’s happening in the alt-right.

is altright on reddit always as antisemitic as it is right now or is this special bc of the enoch situation - every other post is just straight-up jew hate

also not that it needs to be said but these are some v confused ppl, even within the context of their own ideology. there's about a dozen posts on the theme of "force israel to be multicultural and open borders like the jews want to do to us." on one of the threads a poster asks the obv question uh don't leftists hate israel? the answer: leftists believe whatever the jews tell them to believe. then the guy was like well why then do the jews tell them to hate israel. someone gave him an apparently satisfying answer about how the jew inevitably subverts himself, idk, this seems like a major lacuna if you're an anti-semitic white nationalist.

just stupid idle stoner thoughts but i feel like i could cobble together a more coherent WS ideology than all of these morons. it reminds me of the alexander roda-roda quote "Anti-Semitism could really amount to something if the Jews would just take charge of it." maybe that's what enoch and his 'diversity officer' wife were up to.

Mordy otm.

From the looks of it, the "alt right" may create a lot of memes and pollute social media, but the bulk of Trump fanatics are from the other wing of the far right - the so-called "Patriot" movement, which is a lot bigger and which the media doesn't really cover. Those people can be every bit as racist.

Don't know how these guys keep it up, seems like a lot of work being such an asshole and making up crazy theories.

Everybody's gotta have a hobby.

The irony of Buzzfeed highlighting this will not have been missed but:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/the-media-is-falling-all-over-itself-to-cover-the-deplorabal?utm_term=.kgDLG9epN#.luODodLwm

https://mobile.twitter.com/joeyayoub/status/822597804430426113

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