FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
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User ID: 675
So, who is identical with who? And who's the odd man out here?
If #2 actually is as you seem to be intending him, then #1 is the odd man out, because #2 does not actually believe the axiom that "we know how to solve all our problems is shorthand for. Free market democratic capitalism observably doesn't solve all our problems, ASIs don't exist in the present tense, and wouldn't be "we" even if they did. As you seem to intend him, #2 doesn't claim that we have the tools at hand to solve, say, racism and poverty, or indeed any other problem, doesn't claim authority to use those tools, and doesn't blame people for getting in the way of the fixes he doesn't have. All of these contradict the description I laid out.
On the other hand, if #2 is a "Libertarian" who believes nothing matters as much as solving the alignment problem, or is scheming about "pivotal acts", or believes that we should export "free market democratic capitalism" to the rest of the world at gunpoint so as to make the ASI arrive sooner and thus shorten and minimize the death-agonies of our non-utopian existence, then there's a fair argument he actually does believe that "we know how to solve all our problems", and #3 is the odd man out.
If someone actually believes the axiom I'm summarizing as "we know how to solve all our problems", they can be a lot of different things, but whatever they are is flatly incompatible with both Libertarianism and Christianity, at least as far as I understand the two concepts. The axiom is a claim that one has the right to wield absolute power over all other humans without accountability or restraint. It is not a subtle thing.
I don't actually care whether the plan is Marxist revolution or Pivotal Acts purportedly aimed at preventing unaligned AGI; either is inimical to my values, and for the same reasons.
Forceful arguments tend to generate forceful responses.
What profits a man if he gain the whole world, but lose his soul?
If you are already willing to embrace annihilation, I can't see why you should fear the future. Either things are going to be generally okay, or opportunities for abrupt death will only grow more plentiful.
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Yes, I am.
I consider White Identitarians are a subset of the Authoritarian Right. I'm pretty sure @BurdensomeCount isn't white, but I'm opposed to their ideological project for the same reasons I'm opposed to @WaltBismarck's ideological projects, past and present. While they are likely opposed to each other, the things that are similar between them are the things I find unacceptable. To me, they fit a single classification, because a single set of objections, a single set of values-incompatibilities, and a single set of necessary responses covers both of them. I've previously used the example of Luciano and Gambino soldiers, or Stalinists and Trotskyites, both of which are groups who obviously are "different" in many ways, but who from my perspective are classified identically as, respectively, "mafioso" and "communist".
I readily concede that other people with other values and other interests might care deeply about the distinctions I see as irrelevant, and might consider the similarities I consider paramount to be inconsequential. I can't speak for people who don't share my values, but my values are my values, and I think they are good ones, and generally more useful than the alternatives.
In any case, this is not a new thesis. It's exactly the same thesis I've argued in many previous discussions, though it's entirely possible I've communicated it poorly. Language is difficult, especially where others have not broken up the ground for you in advance, and I have a lot less time for in-depth conversation than I used to.
I found your citations unpersuasive, but didn't have time to get into it further and so figured it was best to let you have the last word until the next time the topic came around. I've still got both that thread and several of the linked articles up in my
tab graveyardreading list.I believe that "We know how to solve all our problems" is a brief, common-language encapsulation of the core thesis of a specific ideological movement, and that this ideological movement is best understood as the central example of the Enlightenment. Prior to the Enlightenment this movement did not exist, and post-Enlightenment this movement has been overwhelmingly dominant throughout subsequent history. I think this movement's axioms are both very wrong and very dangerous, and further believe that its dominance is rapidly approaching an end, for reasons directly related to how this movement was formed and how its ideology predetermines its tactics.
From that thread:
Christianity's equivalent formulation would be "He will solve all our problems," with the understanding that the solution comes at the end of time and from an agency beyond ourselves. Compare the phrase "the poor you will always have with you" to the conceptual bundle represented by the declaration of a "war on poverty". One flatly states that the problem of Poverty is unsolvable under mortal conditions. The other assumes that the problem of Poverty can be defeated through coordinated human action, right now and under present conditions.
We, as in present humans and present human agency, no divine agency required or admitted, no delay to the unforeseeable future required or admitted.
Know How To, as in the knowledge we already have or can immediately gain is sufficient to our objectives. The Enlightenment does not claim that problems might be solvable with a few thousand years more of study, it always claims that the Revolution can begin immediately. If circumstances force an admission that solutions cannot be achieved immediately, then they are the fabled Ten Years Away, or at most a generation. This frequently resulted in solutions being Ten Years Away for a century or more, without apparent concern on the part of the Enlightened.
Solve, the objective. Not ameliorate, not reduce somewhat, but render to the past-tense in their entirety. Again, unfortunate realities can soften this rhetoric by introducing intermediate steps, but these steps are never presented or accepted as sufficient in themselves; the total, one might say final solution remains paramount.
All, as in not some, not most, but a fully universal claim.
Our Problems, again a universal claim. Everything humans consider a capital-P Problem. War, disease, poverty, hunger, crime, hatred, inequalilty, envy, fear, pain, even in some cases death. No problem is admitted to be insurmountable. Note that this does not preclude selective redefinition as "good, actually" (mass murder, mass torture and enslavement, assorted horrors committed against the outgroup), or simply ignoring something as not actually being a problem (human mortality), as is convinient.
This is the Enlightenment axiom. Progressives are called that because they believe that we are Progressing from a state of unsolved problems to a state of solved problems, and they believe this because they have adopted the axiom I have just described. The point of the Orwell passage in our previous discussion was to show how that perspective projects out into thought and language: the bedrock belief in our fundamental control over the world we find ourselves in. Prior to the conversation with Hlynka, I was thinking in terms of plans and payout matrices, looking for a solution to the problem. Hlynka reminded me that there is no solution, that there is no plan, that we are not in control of the world; all we control is ourselves; we make our choices and live with the consequences.
And the corollary to this axiom is likewise quite simple: "If a problem isn't getting solved, then it's because someone is in the way." and from that corollary, Progressivism's danger unfolds.
Did you? From the thread:
I am not familiar with either Zizek or McGowen, but the description you provide explains why they don't buy into Marxian Utopianism, not why they aren't adhering to "We know how to solve all our problems." Advocating for "Permanent Revolution" certainly doesn't sound incompatible with the core axiom described above. Do they believe that our present society could be vastly improved through a proper re-ordering of society? Do they believe that poverty, mental illness, crime and so on are essentially ills that our society has chosen to inflict on the less fortunate? Do they believe we might choose otherwise?
But if they have in fact abandoned the core axiom, if in fact they don't believe in Progress toward a Brighter Future, then I'd say they've left the Enlightenment and are doing their own thing. I would also argue that they're no longer a central example of a Marxist, whatever they choose to call themselves. For a similar example, consider Scientology: to me, the most salient feature of Scientology is its hierarchical nature, designed explicitly to crush and control individual members. Scientology splinter groups that have broken from that hierarchy but continue to believe the lore and perform the basic rituals together still call themselves Scientologists, but I can continue to object to "Scientology" as a group while considering them irrelevant to the discussion. In the same way, I don't actually care if someone wants to call themselves a "Marxist"; it's a perennially-fashionable label, as appalling as that is. What I care about is whether they believe, as Marx and all the central examples of Marxists very evidently did, that "we know how to solve all our problems."
They don't have to be a traditional Red to no longer be an Adherent to the Enlightenment; there are other things in the world. These two are especially relevant to me because I am a Red and believe Redness is correct about most questions, and because the Enlightenment is dominant. Absent an adherence to the Enlightenment axiom, though, why should I be concerned about a pair of bespoke academic theorists? What impact have they had on the actual world?
It certainly seems so to me.
No one who thinks this way can ever be my ally, and I can never be on theirs. Distance great enough to ensure mutual ignorance is the best that can be hoped for.
True enough. In one sense, it's obvious that there is no objective measure of similarity and difference; Hitler was composed of different cells at any given minute of his life, after all, and both Hitler and Lincoln were adult human males. By "the same", as regards to ideologies, I mean that the features relevant to me are isomorphic, that identical analysis, objections, predictions and responses are generally applicable across the proposed set. That seems like a reasonable definition to me. I don't think my definition of the Enlightenment axiom is esoteric, and I think it has strong explanatory and predictive power, and is thus generally useful even for people who do not share my worldview. It's possible that I'm wrong, but I don't think so.
That's all I have time for. Considerably more than I had time for, actually. I'll have to leave it here.
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