amcastillo

> neo-reactionaryism is growing especially in tech circles

This will be great news to the neoreactionaries. How do you figure?

> because it communicates a lack of concern with the threat "neo-reactionaryism" or fascism represents.

And what is the threat, if not that they will seize power?

No, the school of social philosophy associated with Carl Grünberg, Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse.

Check out Eclipse of Reason, Escape from Freedom, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, and The Theory of Communicative Action when you get a chance. Primary sources and all.

Moldbug explicitly disavows fascism, yet here we are. If we're going to split hairs we need to be consistent.

Most neoreactionaries I know don't care much for the Enlightenment at all. Some pine for monarchy, others for Skynet, still more for the farm. A difficult bunch to generalize, united only by their shared (but uneven) disdain for democracy, (post-)modernism, and egalitarianism.

De gustibus non est disputandum :)

Life is too short to do a lot of silly things like veg on junk TV or fart around on Twitter or read the entire Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality all day yet I admit that I sometimes persist.

Moldbug is a strange and fascinating bird that is not immediately meant to be understood, but experienced. There really is no one else like him. For those with a taste for the antiquated charm of letters filtered for the post-post-modern generation, he writes entertaining and challenging essays that lets us peek behind the lacquered veneer of modern society to get a feel for what it is that we don't realize we have forgotten. He is certainly not for everyone, but a "fascist racist sexist anti-Christ" he is decidedly not.

> Anti-racist and anti-fascist organizing happens under the mantle of a thousand different groups all over the world.

And yet we are asked to believe that an obscure blogger flirting with monarchist political thought would introduce a dangerous authoritarian element if allowed to present on a technical topic. Thanks for putting this into context.

A lot of people who blog on these ideas maintain pseudonyms to prevent Strangeloop-like witch hunts ruining their professional lives.

Neoreactionary ideas have been picked up and directly cited by cultural influencers like Ross Douthat, Ed West, and William Gibson, however. They see themselves as a right wing Frankfurt School - not noteworthy for their identities, but for their subtle cultural impact.

>Do you notice the contradiction?

No. Distributivism comes to mind.

Some important context to recognize in this incident is that it was a handful of explicitly (leftist) political personalities that rose any stink to begin with. Clark more or less names them all in his piece. Most of the ones who pushed to censor Urbit from Strange Loop even admitted that they personally were not attending the conference. Most conference attendants would not have had the first clue that a member of the Urbit team maintained a conservative political blog from 2007 to 2013 or so under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug. The ones that did probably would not care too much about it as most of them are not preoccupied with aggressive radical politics. They'd attend the talk, or not, and go on with their lives.

It's a heckler's vote. Now, the conversation is about Yarvin and his politics. But if these 3-4 radical and deeply political agitators had not made this an issue to begin with, everyone attending the conference would have just known they were attending a presentation on Urbit (if they even chose to check out that session).

In other words, if this is established as a precedent, then a passionate enough fringe group can create the "destruction" they claim to be against to justify covert ideological policing. That this is occurring at a strictly technology event with a reputation for openness to innovative, experimental ideas is particularly chilling.

"Nice conference you got there, shame if this speaker I don't like created a controversy for you"-type manipulation does not seem as bad or obvious when the targeted beliefs are foreign to your own. Stepping back and anticipating the implications reveals a troubling future, and one that is occurring in many industries at once.

Looks like this person edited their comment. Anyway, you're right, Noah Smith is one of the less objective filters you could seek to fairly summarize a right-of-left-of-center viewpoint.

Read Moldbug, people.

And I'll tack on a mention of an explanation of Moldbug and his movement from the perspective of an economish blogger Andrea Castillo. AKA me.

https://theumlaut.com/2014/07/29/a-gentle-introduction-to-ne...

The manner that SK evoked CY's politics has not only been rude but literally dismissive - resulting in the cancellation of an interesting technical talk.

This boils down to personal politics - I only see one camp forcibly silencing another.

If CY's writing on Carlyle is relevant, why is noting that SK lobbies for more programmers to integrate Marx and other left-radical writers beyond reproach? http://blog.steveklabnik.com/posts/2011-12-15-marx-anarchism...