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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 4, 2023

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completely incomprehensible

I assume it's some sort of Straussian/obscurantist thing; intentionally hiding your points to prevent normies from being able to read it.

Much less charitably it's because his points are weak & often vibes-based, and any reasoning he makes would evaporate if stated explicitly and with any sort of rigour beyond Darkly Hinting to what you mean and letting the reader fill in the blanks. The few times he has written about things I am familiar with, the content really has been rather poor – take this article, for example, where he argues that a software that is only able to perform HTTP GET requests is safe, as such requests don't affect the server content. Anyone that has worked in web security know this is blatantly wrong, as there is probably hundreds of easily performed exploits and escapes for that weak of a sandbox.

Yes, Moldbug is a vibes-based writer who has been saying the same thing (moderated or exaggerated as necessary) since 2008. That said, there are some all-time classics on UR and his focus on the 'long arc of history' (whatever one calls it) is important. Also, his impact on Thiel is single handedly responsible for a lot of the modern weird right in the US and for subsequently 'converting' a lot of high-status and wealthy people to reactionary ideas about democracy and the state.