An intro to Yarvin’s political philosophy as he laid it out writing under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug, as well as a critique of a conceptual vibe shift in his recent works written under his own name
A timely and informative read Vincent. Still amazed though that few people realise Yarvin's model of patchwork seems to overlap neatly with the political economy of the "phyles" depicted in Neal Stephenson's THE DIAMOND AGE.
My vague impression is that Ancient Greece had a system similar to Patchwork, with lots of small city-states. This lead to interesting political philosophy, since you could easily walk from one city to another and observe changes in governance. The city-states came to realize they could become more powerful by banding together into coalitions, which ended up going to war with each other. Eventually they were defeated by Philip II of Macedon and became part of a growing empire.
I definitely think the Greek agon is an example of a competitive patchwork. Nietzsche's portrait of the ancients comes to mind: "It is probably the case that never have so many different individuals gathered in such a small space and allowed themselves to perfect their peculiarities through competition."
We can't even get people to leave Gippsland where the SEC shut down most employment in the 1990s, to move to Melbourne. Instead they hang out there enjoying some of the lowest socio-economic conditions in Australia, because the bonds of land ownership, land value, family and friendship keep people stuck to *places*.
Free exit is not as appealling as it might seem. And that's with totally free entry to a place like Melbourne, just 3 hours drive away.
I lived in nauru for a while, they're welcome in Australia but 10,000 people still live there.
I guess Yarvin would suggest deportation.
Imagine a sovstate does a round of redundancies then flattens the homes of the redundant and deports them to limbo. The remaining workers will need to be incredibly tightly oppressed not to go on strike for their brothers, sisters, neighbours. how much of the sovstate's resources end up devoted to the apparatus of oppression?
i'm almost ashamed to have bothered thinking about rebuttals, his ideas are childish and ahistorical.
> If this is not a problem for Moldbug, it is because he sees a good, prosperous society as one which is able to maintain order and security rather than freedom—at least for its residents.
It's not a problem because he sees himself as the one doing the benefiting from this - not as the one suffering the homelessness, state violence, or even (as he mentions in passing) bombing.
For which (opinion) there's a simple cure: to have him suffer what he non-chalantly condemns others to suffer in his vision.
It’s frightening that Yarvin looked around at the monopolistic titans of industry actively working to make their products worse and concluded that his technocities would not try to buy and/or conquer each other for resources.
Ah, someone else said basically this with regard to Greece. Interesting.
Other takes on Curtis Yarvin and his ideas.
https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/clear-thinking-v-curtis-yarvin
https://thucydidesii.substack.com/p/influence-of-curtis-yarvin-peter
https://nickcarmody.substack.com/p/the-neo-totalitarian-american-monarchy
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/how-silicon-valleys-corrupted-libertarianism
https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/am-i-supposed-to-take-curtis-yarvin
A timely and informative read Vincent. Still amazed though that few people realise Yarvin's model of patchwork seems to overlap neatly with the political economy of the "phyles" depicted in Neal Stephenson's THE DIAMOND AGE.
Thanks - and good connection!
Thanks for this, really helpful summary and analysis, definitely added toy understanding of Yarvin's beliefs and aims
Thanks! Glad you found it helpful.
*to my
Curtis is great for diagnosis but not fot medicine.
Good article!
Thanks!
Totally agree
My vague impression is that Ancient Greece had a system similar to Patchwork, with lots of small city-states. This lead to interesting political philosophy, since you could easily walk from one city to another and observe changes in governance. The city-states came to realize they could become more powerful by banding together into coalitions, which ended up going to war with each other. Eventually they were defeated by Philip II of Macedon and became part of a growing empire.
I definitely think the Greek agon is an example of a competitive patchwork. Nietzsche's portrait of the ancients comes to mind: "It is probably the case that never have so many different individuals gathered in such a small space and allowed themselves to perfect their peculiarities through competition."
Nice one, looking forward to where you're going with this.
Thanks 🙏
We can't even get people to leave Gippsland where the SEC shut down most employment in the 1990s, to move to Melbourne. Instead they hang out there enjoying some of the lowest socio-economic conditions in Australia, because the bonds of land ownership, land value, family and friendship keep people stuck to *places*.
Free exit is not as appealling as it might seem. And that's with totally free entry to a place like Melbourne, just 3 hours drive away.
I lived in nauru for a while, they're welcome in Australia but 10,000 people still live there.
I guess Yarvin would suggest deportation.
Imagine a sovstate does a round of redundancies then flattens the homes of the redundant and deports them to limbo. The remaining workers will need to be incredibly tightly oppressed not to go on strike for their brothers, sisters, neighbours. how much of the sovstate's resources end up devoted to the apparatus of oppression?
i'm almost ashamed to have bothered thinking about rebuttals, his ideas are childish and ahistorical.
> If this is not a problem for Moldbug, it is because he sees a good, prosperous society as one which is able to maintain order and security rather than freedom—at least for its residents.
It's not a problem because he sees himself as the one doing the benefiting from this - not as the one suffering the homelessness, state violence, or even (as he mentions in passing) bombing.
For which (opinion) there's a simple cure: to have him suffer what he non-chalantly condemns others to suffer in his vision.
It’s frightening that Yarvin looked around at the monopolistic titans of industry actively working to make their products worse and concluded that his technocities would not try to buy and/or conquer each other for resources.
Ah, someone else said basically this with regard to Greece. Interesting.