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naraburns  nihil supernum  3yr ago (text post)   32872 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022

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Glad to hear EA should be safe. My intuitions were broadly in the same place but outside confirmation is nice.

EA plugged into high value networks (sic)

Some people have been arguing that access to the high quality networks is a function of receiving billionaire money, and that once the money dries up the access will as well. I tend to believe that it’s the other way around, and EA ideas are what has directly led to that level of access.

Social technology and human networking keep trampling over nerdy bullshit.

What do you mean by social technology here? If anything crypto used memes extremely well to become so big in the first place.

Also assuming you are on the decentralized side, what has to happen for mass adoption of decentralized currencies?

What do you mean by social technology here?

I mean practices which are to «memes» as ASML engineering is to redneck engineering. Mature practices not to produce random flashy effects on the social tissue or have a few crude immediate-term uses, but to steadily and reliably expand your domain and degrees of freedom, and suffocate your competitors. Such as exacerbation of fear of unapproved non-state actors and normalization of anarcho-tyranny. Things behind campaigns like this one.

what has to happen for mass adoption of decentralized currencies?

Widespread fear of incumbent Western state-affiliated actors, which is strong enough to negate all of their propaganda about monster-of-the-week threats like islamchinarussianazis, but simultaneously not so strong as to be mind-numbing.

Their goal is to move us past that sweet spot as quickly as possible.

I mean practices which are to «memes» as ASML engineering is to redneck engineering. Mature practices not to produce random flashy effects on the social tissue or have a few crude immediate-term uses, but to steadily and reliably expand your domain and degrees of freedom, and suffocate your competitors. Such as exacerbation of fear of unapproved non-state actors and normalization of anarcho-tyranny. Things behind campaigns like this one.

I find this fascinating! Any blogs/books you'd recommend to learn more about how these types of practices operate? I've read Manufacturing Consent and a bunch of anti-PR work, but anything more in depth and modern?

Widespread fear of incumbent Western state-affiliated actors, which is strong enough to negate all of their propaganda about monster-of-the-week threats like islamchinarussianazis, but simultaneously not so strong as to be mind-numbing.

Their goal is to move us past that sweet spot as quickly as possible.

What does moving past this sweet spot look like in practice? Are you saying the goal is to make us terrified of the incumbent Western state actors, so much so we lose the will to resist?

I have not read "credible" literature on this subject but there's plenty of literature on it. Pinging @eetan. I spoke more of the above-ground long-term social engineering, even detailed by Scott, like the success of the Fabian Society.

Are you saying the goal is to make us terrified of the incumbent Western state actors, so much so we lose the will to resist?

Perhaps not «us» in the broadest possible sense, but yes, the goal is to make e.g. unsurveilled communications on badthink topics, and crypto business that's not entirely fetishistic (like "waow I'm paying for Mossad VPN in Bitcoin from my Coinbase to discuss Elon Musk's racism on Mastodon! this is the future of freedom!") as mentally taxing as building FGC9's in your garage in Europe.

I have not read "credible" literature on this subject but there's plenty of literature on it. Pinging @eetan. I spoke more of the above-ground long-term social engineering, even detailed by Scott, like the success of the Fabian Society.

Thanks for ping ;-)

It depends what you count as "credible".

Open source publication in the realms of marketing, advertising, PR?

Lots of material showing how to do "memetic engineering" for profit.

Everyone heard about Bernay and his torches of freedom (lung cancer so liberating, light up!), fewer know , for example, how diamond rings became necessary part of every traditional marriage.

https://edwardjayepstein.com/diamond/prologue.htm

Official declassified documents?

Lots of material here too, starting with CIA efforts in arts and literature (while various neanderthals were braying that abstract art is bolshevik conspiracy, CIA was busy supporting it as the perfect capitalist art form).

https://www.theawl.com/2015/08/literary-magazines-for-socialists-funded-by-the-cia-ranked/

https://twitter.com/marina0swald/status/1579138604911439872

Moving to more clandestine things, we have COINTELPRO.

Many of their methods look rather childish to modern eye, but they worked at the time.

https://twitter.com/RobertSkvarla/status/1448816158807838720

https://twitter.com/RobertSkvarla/status/1567226620687122435

https://twitter.com/TrueAnonPod/status/1588173962768285697

What happened since the sixties, since three letter agencies promised to be good guys and do not do bad things any more?

Few "credible" sources, but we saw hard to explain rise of causes that could appeal only to extreme minority to worldwide acceptance

https://archive.ph/XH5v5

and even clearly mentally unstable individuals with no achievements and no distinction at all thrust to worldwide "stardom" overnight

https://www.theartofannihilation.com/the-manufacturing-of-greta-thunberg-for-consent-the-political-economy-of-the-non-profit-industrial-complex/

When we burrow into these rabbit holes we find nothing spontaneous. Do they end at big business both profit and "nonprofit", or do they lead further?

and the billionaire -> access direction does seem more intuitive to me

They still have moskovitz. But - how did they get those billionares in the first place? And how did they get so many 'earning to give' people working at big 4 accounting firms before / at the same time? And why do those 'ideas' stop getting new people / billionares in the same way?

Have to start work in a second, but to give a quick overview:

  • Strong focus on expected value of specific actions, and a staunchly utilitarian belief on the ground level.

  • Individuals should work to gain high amounts of status/wealth, then actively coordinate to leverage that status or wealth into benefitting the movement as a whole or pushing 'effective' policies

  • Personal fit is extremely important. If you are a politician or in that sphere and get into EA, you should use your existing networks to further the goals of EA.

  • Generally, the idea that most things are broken and we need a class of super intelligent elites to come in and fix everything for the masses. Not only that, but these elites need to be able to coordinate and work together in a high trust environment.

These are a bit all over the place but that's the gist of why I think EA has been so successful. Political leaders seem to be floundering in recent years and having a tightly knit cohort of successful, intelligent, and driven folks providing answers to serious moral and political conundrums on a silver platter is probably quite attractive I'd imagine.

I'm not necessarily endorsing any of these, just calling it like I see it.

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