Curtis Yarvin is writing again

[bodefuceta]

Curtis Yarvin, the technologist best known for blogging under the name Mencius Moldbug, established a reputation this decade as one of the most influential and controversial figures on the online Right, far out of step with established mainstream conservatism. In recent years, as the political scene across the internet has fragmented with explosive growth, some factions have taken concepts Yarvin introduced—such as the “red pill” metaphor associated with The Matrix—and popularized them, sometimes in unhealthy and extremist ways. Now, in a new series of essays, Yarvin sets the record straight on his thinking, his critics, and his radical challenge to all political frameworks competing for dominance in American life. Partisans of every stripe would do well to prepare themselves to respond to this line of attack—one building strength and authority in tech circles. The question of whether American politics can deliver the good life today is one we continue to answer in the affirmative. But without the healthy jolt to the system Yarvin provokes, and the resulting tension and debate that is the essence of political democracy, all such affirmative answers, we strongly suspect, will be weakened, no matter how feverish they become.

https://americanmind.org/essays/the-clear-pill-part-1-of-5-the-four-stroke-regime/

Some people love to just assume a moral high ground and associate this person to every kind of wrongthink. They're mostly baseless accusations and I suggest you just ignore them and use this thread to discuss one of the most important modern political thinkers of our era, who certainly influenced a broad group, including a lot of austrian school libertarians.

I'm glad to see a lot of users here are escaping the plantation mindset. But it's not nice to just see petty attacks on this forum's resident liberals while you could actually spend time discussing important ideas.

 

[FAST6191]

Can't say I have ever heard of the guy (or his pen name), and I do usually consume a lot of content that would reference such a character in discussion if they were as notable as you or the byline imply. That said the relative fame of a person holds little bearing on the content of their words so I read on anyway.

That is some very flowery language there, even by my standards, which I imagine is going to narrow appeal somewhat (and that is before the curious mix of engine metaphors and classical history allusions and references). That said an interesting introduction, which is somewhat amusing given how dubious I found the introduction to that essay (or part of it linked).

"[the author is seen as] far out of step with established mainstream conservatism"
I did not see much in the essay linked which would showcase that. I might imagine he does not get along so very well with the US God squad conservatives* but nothing he said there, or thought processes he appears to show, would be out of place at any table I have sat at discussing high level politics of any stripe in the US or UK (indeed UK wise I could probably point you at a bunch of popular TV documentaries and fictional TV shows that cover this sort of thing). That said I do wish more people would ask what happened as opposed to which of the (possibly binary) narratives presented are true, and I do like to see people analysing systems.

*in that he has a line that deems activism a tool of the democrats, which rather ignores the whining that many a religious type has done in the US over the years, and occasionally continue to try their hand at (they have fantastic taste by the way -- the vast majority of things they go up against have turned out pretty sweet). I will give though that their power is an overt activist force has waned drastically over recent decades (and it was not especially healthy before). Not to mention the lobbyists mentioned in the same bit also all go in for a bit of activism as it can be cheap (for reasons skimmed over in that).

 

[Taleweaver]

Can't say I ever heard of him. And by reading his text, I can't say I missed something.

Controversial? Provoking? Yeah, sure... Whatever he describes himself, I guess. If I'm honest : I don't have a clue what he's talking about. He seems to write off the wall paragraphs that are raw ideas, but rather than explaining something beyond the bare minimum, he starts a new paragraph on something seemingly different.

Perhaps it's interesting lecture for people that like cryptographs?

(note : I always thought the 'red pill' idea from the matrix got its current symbolic from Cassie Jaye's documentary. Does this guy predates this?)

 

[bodefuceta]

I should've mentioned he's the creator of Urbit. I'm still skeptical about it but it was an immensely interesting concept to me some years ago. He was a decently popular writer who IIRC stopped writing to develop his idea of changing the world using computers. The fact he's writing again means he believes Urbit can now develop without him, which he stated as a goal many years ago.