New Woo Review
May 17, 2023 11:10 AM Subscribe
If the metatribe reflects anything about our wider cultural moment, it is our shared disillusionment with the broader liberal optimism the rationalists have come to embody. The promise proffered by so much of Silicon Valley — that we can hack our way to Enlightenment, transcending our humanity along the way — no longer seems plausible amid the broad ennui and general pessimism that has settled into our culture over the last decade. from Rational Magic by Tara Isabella Burton
I have been on or "adjacent to" "that part of twitter" and I recognize all the usernames; when I was on Twitter, I had at least two of them blocked. I know another guy in the story from both Twitter and summer camp, somehow.
Anyway the friendliness to Nazism on that scene is very off-putting (if you know who "Zero H. P. Lovecraft (98k [followers])" is, you know what I mean). But, at the same time, it's not really a cohesive group, it's like a vibe on Twitter and a kind of convergent tendency in thought. So it feels like it would be a little unfair to hold the non-Nazis who are "in" "it" responsible for the Nazi-sympathizers who are "in" "it." Like I don't think getting something out of Nietzsche makes you a Nazi-sympathizer, for example. If you do, it's like not your fault that Nazis also get something out of Nietzsche.
My own version of this same kind of journey has been learning more about Kant.
posted by grobstein at 12:24 PM on May 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
Anyway the friendliness to Nazism on that scene is very off-putting (if you know who "Zero H. P. Lovecraft (98k [followers])" is, you know what I mean). But, at the same time, it's not really a cohesive group, it's like a vibe on Twitter and a kind of convergent tendency in thought. So it feels like it would be a little unfair to hold the non-Nazis who are "in" "it" responsible for the Nazi-sympathizers who are "in" "it." Like I don't think getting something out of Nietzsche makes you a Nazi-sympathizer, for example. If you do, it's like not your fault that Nazis also get something out of Nietzsche.
My own version of this same kind of journey has been learning more about Kant.
posted by grobstein at 12:24 PM on May 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
"Do you even Kant?"
"Yes, I Kant even."
I'm so sorry.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:16 PM on May 17, 2023 [27 favorites]
"Yes, I Kant even."
I'm so sorry.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:16 PM on May 17, 2023 [27 favorites]
I think crystals and aromatherapy and stuff is kind of fun, as are horoscopes, tarot cards, and betting on horses. Something being fun doesn't make it real.
I also don't believe it's possible to be hyper-rationalist (ala Spock from Star Trek I guess), but since I don't, there is nothing to square. Most of the people profiled were frauds to begin with, who of course don't believe in a God that is not them, so that they glomed onto rationality as a group to con makes total sense.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:41 PM on May 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
I also don't believe it's possible to be hyper-rationalist (ala Spock from Star Trek I guess), but since I don't, there is nothing to square. Most of the people profiled were frauds to begin with, who of course don't believe in a God that is not them, so that they glomed onto rationality as a group to con makes total sense.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:41 PM on May 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
The alignment chart for this needs to include a humility-arrogance axis cutting across the rationalism-intuitionism axis. A number of folks seem to have maintained firm conviction of their possession of rare truths while swapping out the epistemic engine under the hood.
posted by away for regrooving at 1:46 PM on May 17, 2023 [25 favorites]
posted by away for regrooving at 1:46 PM on May 17, 2023 [25 favorites]
Like I don't think getting something out of Nietzsche makes you a Nazi-sympathizer, for example. If you do, it's like not your fault that Nazis also get something out of Nietzsche.
For sure. Being into this stuff doesn't make anybody a Nazi. Everybody is into this stuff. Nietzsche, Tarot, "mourning the loss of enchantment" -- that sort of eclectic alternative spirituality has been part of the Counter-Enlightenment tradition since at least the mid-nineteenth century. It's no surprise that disillusioned rationalists looking for meaning would grab onto it; it's right there waiting for them.
It is striking, though, that the people who are described as "taking their practices and theories from across the ideological spectrum" seem to be uncomfortably open to Nazis, yet the entire tradition of radical left discussion of this stuff appears to be systematically excluded. Like, why Julius Evola and Rene Girard and Nick Land, but not the Situationists or the Frankfurt School or the Economic & Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844? If you want to talk about the alienation of modern life, Karl Marx is your guy.
Incidentally, I see that the author is a self-described Weird Christian, i.e. a Catholic convert who presents traditionalism as cool and countercultural. (Compare Julia Yost.)
posted by Gerald Bostock at 1:50 PM on May 17, 2023 [27 favorites]
For sure. Being into this stuff doesn't make anybody a Nazi. Everybody is into this stuff. Nietzsche, Tarot, "mourning the loss of enchantment" -- that sort of eclectic alternative spirituality has been part of the Counter-Enlightenment tradition since at least the mid-nineteenth century. It's no surprise that disillusioned rationalists looking for meaning would grab onto it; it's right there waiting for them.
It is striking, though, that the people who are described as "taking their practices and theories from across the ideological spectrum" seem to be uncomfortably open to Nazis, yet the entire tradition of radical left discussion of this stuff appears to be systematically excluded. Like, why Julius Evola and Rene Girard and Nick Land, but not the Situationists or the Frankfurt School or the Economic & Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844? If you want to talk about the alienation of modern life, Karl Marx is your guy.
Incidentally, I see that the author is a self-described Weird Christian, i.e. a Catholic convert who presents traditionalism as cool and countercultural. (Compare Julia Yost.)
posted by Gerald Bostock at 1:50 PM on May 17, 2023 [27 favorites]
In this sense, the metatribe project is as much about recovery as it is about progression: reviving a vision of communal life, communal responsibility, and communal reverence for the sacred that the atomized modern world has rendered increasingly rare — while still embracing the freedom and technological comfort modernity has made possible.
In other words...how can I extract all the personal benefits of being part of something greater than myself while still retaining all the individual privilege that comes from being a libertarian loner who owes nobody nothing?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 2:22 PM on May 17, 2023 [24 favorites]
In other words...how can I extract all the personal benefits of being part of something greater than myself while still retaining all the individual privilege that comes from being a libertarian loner who owes nobody nothing?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 2:22 PM on May 17, 2023 [24 favorites]
It is striking, though, that the people who are described as "taking their practices and theories from across the ideological spectrum" seem to be uncomfortably open to Nazis, yet the entire tradition of radical left discussion of this stuff appears to be systematically excluded. Like, why Julius Evola and Rene Girard and Nick Land, but not the Situationists or the Frankfurt School or the Economic & Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844? If you want to talk about the alienation of modern life, Karl Marx is your guy.
There are certainly people who I would put in the "tpot" box who are into the Frankfurt School theorists and Marx on alienation, as well as Deleuze and Lacan (who I don't know how to characterize politically but at least they're not Nick Land).
But idk I feel like the core rationalist scene is much more thoroughly inoculated against radical left traditions than anything on the right, for reasons I am unclear on. (Background cultural anti-communism part of the picture presumably.)
posted by grobstein at 2:23 PM on May 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
There are certainly people who I would put in the "tpot" box who are into the Frankfurt School theorists and Marx on alienation, as well as Deleuze and Lacan (who I don't know how to characterize politically but at least they're not Nick Land).
But idk I feel like the core rationalist scene is much more thoroughly inoculated against radical left traditions than anything on the right, for reasons I am unclear on. (Background cultural anti-communism part of the picture presumably.)
posted by grobstein at 2:23 PM on May 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
Incidentally, I see that the author is a self-described Weird Christian, i.e. a Catholic convert who presents traditionalism as cool and countercultural. (Compare Julia Yost.)
Oh boy do I hate that garbage.
Here is a report from a related scene.
posted by grobstein at 2:25 PM on May 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
Oh boy do I hate that garbage.
Here is a report from a related scene.
posted by grobstein at 2:25 PM on May 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
Know your source:
The New Atlantis is a journal founded by the social conservative advocacy group the Ethics and Public Policy Center. [...] Writing for National Review, editor Adam Keiper described The New Atlantis as being written from a "particularly American and conservative way of thinking about both the blessings and the burdens of modern science and technology."[7] New Atlantis authors and bioethicists publishing in other journals have also similarly referred to The New Atlantis as being written from a social conservative stance which utilizes religion.[8][9][10][11]
posted by heatherlogan at 2:25 PM on May 17, 2023 [24 favorites]
The New Atlantis is a journal founded by the social conservative advocacy group the Ethics and Public Policy Center. [...] Writing for National Review, editor Adam Keiper described The New Atlantis as being written from a "particularly American and conservative way of thinking about both the blessings and the burdens of modern science and technology."[7] New Atlantis authors and bioethicists publishing in other journals have also similarly referred to The New Atlantis as being written from a social conservative stance which utilizes religion.[8][9][10][11]
posted by heatherlogan at 2:25 PM on May 17, 2023 [24 favorites]
“I think religion is very powerful and it’s interesting that religious people have greater life satisfaction. So should I try doing religion like it’s recreational drugs to see where that takes me?”
... “There’s no One True Ritual Order that’s going to survive forever. The best hope is maybe there are [ritual] micronutrients or vitamins that we can discover, and then figure out how to supply them under different technological regimes.” Spirituality exists not in itself, but for us.
... The rationalists dreamed of overcoming bias and annihilating death; the postrats are more likely to dream of integrating our shadow-selves or experiencing oneness. But both camps evince a profound faith in what we might call human godliness: the idea that we are not only the recipients of the world around us but also its creators.
... The metatribe may have different, well, methods. But their goal, too, is self-transcendence. As Vogel told me: “Both Nietzscheanism and the occult discourse of — the hermeticism — and even modern rationality: a thread through all of these things is the implicit desire to become a god.”
These folks are trying to min-max their spiritual awakenings and optimize their spiritual development as if they were picking out exactly the right selection of toppings at a frozen yogurt bar.
There's a fundamental self-contradiction in all this because for all of that striving, the practitioner has not actually sacrificed a shred of control. Human godliness, indeed. If there's a spiritual awakening waiting to happen in that particular concept, I can't see it. After a certain point, you're either trying to turn yourself into a god, or you are letting something else finally run the show. I see very little common ground between those two goals.
posted by cubeb at 2:26 PM on May 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
... “There’s no One True Ritual Order that’s going to survive forever. The best hope is maybe there are [ritual] micronutrients or vitamins that we can discover, and then figure out how to supply them under different technological regimes.” Spirituality exists not in itself, but for us.
... The rationalists dreamed of overcoming bias and annihilating death; the postrats are more likely to dream of integrating our shadow-selves or experiencing oneness. But both camps evince a profound faith in what we might call human godliness: the idea that we are not only the recipients of the world around us but also its creators.
... The metatribe may have different, well, methods. But their goal, too, is self-transcendence. As Vogel told me: “Both Nietzscheanism and the occult discourse of — the hermeticism — and even modern rationality: a thread through all of these things is the implicit desire to become a god.”
These folks are trying to min-max their spiritual awakenings and optimize their spiritual development as if they were picking out exactly the right selection of toppings at a frozen yogurt bar.
There's a fundamental self-contradiction in all this because for all of that striving, the practitioner has not actually sacrificed a shred of control. Human godliness, indeed. If there's a spiritual awakening waiting to happen in that particular concept, I can't see it. After a certain point, you're either trying to turn yourself into a god, or you are letting something else finally run the show. I see very little common ground between those two goals.
posted by cubeb at 2:26 PM on May 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
Know your source:
The New Atlantis is a journal founded by the social conservative advocacy group the Ethics and Public Policy Center. [...]
Thanks for this. I am now reevaluating the piece's apparently neutral presentations of stuff I think is odious.
posted by grobstein at 2:27 PM on May 17, 2023 [10 favorites]
The New Atlantis is a journal founded by the social conservative advocacy group the Ethics and Public Policy Center. [...]
Thanks for this. I am now reevaluating the piece's apparently neutral presentations of stuff I think is odious.
posted by grobstein at 2:27 PM on May 17, 2023 [10 favorites]
I think there's a good article to be written about this, but it would be much less sympathetic, not in the New Atlantis, and would be much more clear that these people are either a) already alt-right/Dark Enlightenment weirdos or b) people who are predisposed to becoming a) and working on opening their minds wide enough that their brains fall out.
Like, this is just people priming themselves to become fascists, basically.
posted by sagc at 2:30 PM on May 17, 2023 [15 favorites]
Like, this is just people priming themselves to become fascists, basically.
posted by sagc at 2:30 PM on May 17, 2023 [15 favorites]
But idk I feel like the core rationalist scene is much more thoroughly inoculated against radical left traditions than anything on the right, for reasons I am unclear on. (Background cultural anti-communism part of the picture presumably.)
The vast majority of the scene are white Silicon Valley tech industry people. I propose that these "rationalists" are being driven by their material interests much more than the pseudointellectual Yudkowskian moon logic they swear fealty to.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:32 PM on May 17, 2023 [14 favorites]
The vast majority of the scene are white Silicon Valley tech industry people. I propose that these "rationalists" are being driven by their material interests much more than the pseudointellectual Yudkowskian moon logic they swear fealty to.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:32 PM on May 17, 2023 [14 favorites]
I think there's a good article to be written about this, but it would be much less sympathetic, not in the New Atlantis, and would be much more clear that these people are either a) already alt-right/Dark Enlightenment weirdos or b) people who are predisposed to becoming a) and working on opening their minds wide enough that their brains fall out.
I think the way the scene is getting defined in this piece is as you describe, but I have to say I've known some thoughtful people on "the" "same" "scene" who I would not put into either of those buckets.
posted by grobstein at 2:32 PM on May 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
I think the way the scene is getting defined in this piece is as you describe, but I have to say I've known some thoughtful people on "the" "same" "scene" who I would not put into either of those buckets.
posted by grobstein at 2:32 PM on May 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
I swear this isn't the first time a New Atlantis link has been posted as if it were mainstream journalism, either - although I may be remembering a discussion of the project itself, rather than previous articles being posted?
posted by sagc at 2:35 PM on May 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by sagc at 2:35 PM on May 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
These folks are trying to min-max their spiritual awakenings and optimize their spiritual development as if they were picking out exactly the right selection of toppings at a frozen yogurt bar
Microdosing Jesus
I think there was an article or Twitter thread a while back about some rationalist-adjacent group living situation that had spiraled into a full cult, convinced that they could neuro-linguistically curse each other.
Also, it's kind of funny that this article makes them sound pretty off-putting and vaguely Nazi-curious despite it being a sympathetic piece...
posted by BungaDunga at 2:45 PM on May 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
Microdosing Jesus
I think there was an article or Twitter thread a while back about some rationalist-adjacent group living situation that had spiraled into a full cult, convinced that they could neuro-linguistically curse each other.
Also, it's kind of funny that this article makes them sound pretty off-putting and vaguely Nazi-curious despite it being a sympathetic piece...
posted by BungaDunga at 2:45 PM on May 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
Spirituality tends to establish spiritual authority, no doubt some of those mentioned are looking for loyal followers. Staying away from excess is the point. If not, there are recovery options that start with ditching the cultural idealism. Friends bond over humor, art, nature and good times. Cult members feud over the love of their leader.
posted by Brian B. at 2:50 PM on May 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Brian B. at 2:50 PM on May 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
(if you know who "Zero H. P. Lovecraft (98k [followers])
I have to say I've known some thoughtful people on "the" "same" "scene" who I would not put into either of those buckets.
I think the fairest description would probably be that the 0 HP guy (who is quite openly racist if it’s not obvious what people are hinting at) fits more into the current iteration of New Right/reactionary Twitter, but that there’s a significant intersection between that scene and “rationalists” both post- and regular, just as there’s a significant (probably larger) intersection with more classical techno-libertarian types.
posted by atoxyl at 2:50 PM on May 17, 2023 [7 favorites]
I have to say I've known some thoughtful people on "the" "same" "scene" who I would not put into either of those buckets.
I think the fairest description would probably be that the 0 HP guy (who is quite openly racist if it’s not obvious what people are hinting at) fits more into the current iteration of New Right/reactionary Twitter, but that there’s a significant intersection between that scene and “rationalists” both post- and regular, just as there’s a significant (probably larger) intersection with more classical techno-libertarian types.
posted by atoxyl at 2:50 PM on May 17, 2023 [7 favorites]
These folks are trying to min-max their spiritual awakenings and Microdosing Jesus
Ha! These are such a salient way of describing it, thank you!
posted by aramaic at 3:03 PM on May 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
Ha! These are such a salient way of describing it, thank you!
posted by aramaic at 3:03 PM on May 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
A. That's a great post title.
B. Wow. Can't we just have an internet social movement called don't think or do freaking stupid things?
I'm still in favor of atheism, and am an atheist, sure, but so many things have latched onto it that "atheism" seems to be code now for this whole sphere of techno-libertarian bullshit, including outright racism and eugenicist ideas. I'm thinking, there is no idea so good that people can't willfully make it bad.
posted by JHarris at 3:04 PM on May 17, 2023 [13 favorites]
B. Wow. Can't we just have an internet social movement called don't think or do freaking stupid things?
I'm still in favor of atheism, and am an atheist, sure, but so many things have latched onto it that "atheism" seems to be code now for this whole sphere of techno-libertarian bullshit, including outright racism and eugenicist ideas. I'm thinking, there is no idea so good that people can't willfully make it bad.
posted by JHarris at 3:04 PM on May 17, 2023 [13 favorites]
Yeah these are Nazis.
posted by Artw at 4:09 PM on May 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Artw at 4:09 PM on May 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
"The best hope is maybe there are [ritual] micronutrients or vitamins that we can discover, and then figure out how to supply them under different technological regimes."
Just like the corporate commodification of mindfulness meditation, and (perhaps less obviously) yoga, and pretty much everything that goes by the name "New Age".
posted by heatherlogan at 5:28 PM on May 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
Just like the corporate commodification of mindfulness meditation, and (perhaps less obviously) yoga, and pretty much everything that goes by the name "New Age".
posted by heatherlogan at 5:28 PM on May 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
Like, why Julius Evola and Rene Girard and Nick Land, but not the Situationists or the Frankfurt School....If you want to talk about the alienation of modern life, Karl Marx is your guy.
In this day and age, if there's One Essay to read, it's Althusser's Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus.
But really, you need more than one theorist—at least for the purposes of convenient theoretical shorthand; to get at current forms of alientation I feel like you need at least some Durkheim and Baudrillard.
And, in the age of social media, probably a dose of Goffman too. Maybe some Butler, and some Harroway.
I'm told (or was back when I was in college) that the Francophone theoretical world sees the Anglophone side as weirdly fixated on the same increasingly dusty postmodernists and structuralists/poststructuralists that they have moved on from (Derrida, Lyotard, Foucault, Baudrillard, Barthes, Latour etc), but I'm not sure who they read instead.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:49 PM on May 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
In this day and age, if there's One Essay to read, it's Althusser's Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus.
But really, you need more than one theorist—at least for the purposes of convenient theoretical shorthand; to get at current forms of alientation I feel like you need at least some Durkheim and Baudrillard.
And, in the age of social media, probably a dose of Goffman too. Maybe some Butler, and some Harroway.
I'm told (or was back when I was in college) that the Francophone theoretical world sees the Anglophone side as weirdly fixated on the same increasingly dusty postmodernists and structuralists/poststructuralists that they have moved on from (Derrida, Lyotard, Foucault, Baudrillard, Barthes, Latour etc), but I'm not sure who they read instead.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:49 PM on May 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
"The strangest and most fantastic fact about negative emotions is that people actually worship them."
-P.D. Ouspensky
posted by clavdivs at 5:50 PM on May 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
-P.D. Ouspensky
posted by clavdivs at 5:50 PM on May 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
Why are so many people becoming fascists?
posted by pelvicsorcery at 6:58 PM on May 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by pelvicsorcery at 6:58 PM on May 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
It's a Nazi bar.
More of a Nazi lecture hall.
posted by Artw at 7:42 PM on May 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
More of a Nazi lecture hall.
posted by Artw at 7:42 PM on May 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
Ayahuasca and Jung era.
posted by betweenthebars at 7:52 PM on May 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by betweenthebars at 7:52 PM on May 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
If there is a doctrine underpinning both rationalist and postrationalist thought, it is this quintessential liberal faith in human potential, combined with an awareness of the way in which human imaginal power does not merely respond to, but actively shapes, the world around usWALTER SOBCHAK: No, Donny, these men are Whigs, there's nothing to be afraid of.
Well, except for the Weird Catholics, who boring suburban ex-Catholics like me, while aware of Jesus' very famous teachings about treating recently converted people, still roll their eyes at, ugh, these fucking people; they think they're the first people in two thousand and a bit years of Christianity to discover the numinous and the sacred, but you can hardly imagine them as the ones sweeping the sacristy or making tea in the urn after Mass. Weird Catholics, the most annoying of all the Catholics, who want their religion worldly and philosophical, esoteric and magical, but always in English or Latin without the gauche folksiness of non-Anglo (read: Spanish) Catholicism, and certainly without the urgent character of Jesus in the Gospels, seeming to shout 'look don't over-think this, just be good to one another, it's not hard'.
And not by any means always Nazis, by extension, indeed they're heirs to a much older and less modern anti-Semitism; watch closely for mentions of Chesterton and Belloc.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 8:12 PM on May 17, 2023 [13 favorites]
On reading this, I was really struck by something I remember from reading Persuasions of the Witch's Craft by T.M. Luhrmann back in the day: how the mindset of modern British magic (Wiccan, Gardnerian, etc.) corresponds in many ways to the mindset of computer programming, and how that draws in people in what we would now call the tech world to the magickal world, or what we might now call woo.
It's not a perfect correspondence with this article by any means, but it's not unrelated either.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 8:14 PM on May 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
It's not a perfect correspondence with this article by any means, but it's not unrelated either.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 8:14 PM on May 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
It bugs the shit out of me that these bro-dudes (and it seems like a real sausage party) have managed to co-opt the term "rationalist" and through it the concept of rational inquiry itself, when all they're doing most of the time seems to be validating their own biases.
How lacking in self-awareness do you have to be, to just not notice that your "rationalism" seems to be on a constantly-converging trajectory with revanchist social conservatism? An ideology that has been consistently wrong about almost everything since, uhhhh... I dunno, the Galileo Affair? (Probably a lot longer.)
There's a time and place for rational, secular conservatism in sane politics: the conservative faction should be advocating for prudence, caution, incrementalism; pointing out downside risks and generally red-teaming the wooly progressives' harebrained schemes. But that's distinct from (and has been almost entirely absent of late in the US in favor of) an ugly atavism that is primarily concerned with zero-sum games and staying on top of the social heap.
And that particular philosophy, such as it is, has probably been around since before humans came out of the trees. (Or was likely manifested as soon as one human came down out of the trees, stubbed his toe, and caused a bunch of other proto-humans to point and laugh and write think-pieces about how humans aren't meant to walk upright, and mutter that it's just wrong at dinner parties to knowing nods.) But it has been consistently and demonstrably on the wrong side of basically every major social issue… ever, at least that I can come up with.
(Caveat: Save one, which was that Communism doesn't seem to work well and has some really ugly failure modes, including Genocidal Autocrat which is a doozy. But it looks suspiciously like they weren't right for any especially good reason. It's like the one guy you can always find after any disaster who predicted it correctly in advance, but was never right before that and probably won't be again.)
So, yeah, I can't really take anyone seriously who calls themselves a "rationalist" but then manages to talk themselves onto much the same political heading as some of the least-rational, most objectively wrong (not morally so much as literally incorrect) people in the modern world. Here's a goddamn heuristic, my dudes: if you're standing around with people who would have executed Galileo if they'd had the choice, you are probably not making any great strides "reason" or "rationality".
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:09 PM on May 17, 2023 [16 favorites]
How lacking in self-awareness do you have to be, to just not notice that your "rationalism" seems to be on a constantly-converging trajectory with revanchist social conservatism? An ideology that has been consistently wrong about almost everything since, uhhhh... I dunno, the Galileo Affair? (Probably a lot longer.)
There's a time and place for rational, secular conservatism in sane politics: the conservative faction should be advocating for prudence, caution, incrementalism; pointing out downside risks and generally red-teaming the wooly progressives' harebrained schemes. But that's distinct from (and has been almost entirely absent of late in the US in favor of) an ugly atavism that is primarily concerned with zero-sum games and staying on top of the social heap.
And that particular philosophy, such as it is, has probably been around since before humans came out of the trees. (Or was likely manifested as soon as one human came down out of the trees, stubbed his toe, and caused a bunch of other proto-humans to point and laugh and write think-pieces about how humans aren't meant to walk upright, and mutter that it's just wrong at dinner parties to knowing nods.) But it has been consistently and demonstrably on the wrong side of basically every major social issue… ever, at least that I can come up with.
(Caveat: Save one, which was that Communism doesn't seem to work well and has some really ugly failure modes, including Genocidal Autocrat which is a doozy. But it looks suspiciously like they weren't right for any especially good reason. It's like the one guy you can always find after any disaster who predicted it correctly in advance, but was never right before that and probably won't be again.)
So, yeah, I can't really take anyone seriously who calls themselves a "rationalist" but then manages to talk themselves onto much the same political heading as some of the least-rational, most objectively wrong (not morally so much as literally incorrect) people in the modern world. Here's a goddamn heuristic, my dudes: if you're standing around with people who would have executed Galileo if they'd had the choice, you are probably not making any great strides "reason" or "rationality".
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:09 PM on May 17, 2023 [16 favorites]
Why are so many people becoming fascists?
Every social con job is an emotional manipulation, and our emotions are distorted by traumatic events at all ages, filled with anger and regret (even many positive feelings we acquire to cope). So the con jobs appear to be personal solutions to all that self-loathing. It's either that or drugs.
I can't really take anyone seriously who calls themselves a "rationalist"
Agreed, and it can't avoid the hint of self-help marketing: "Become a rationalist if you want to be rational." The implications are manifold, especially as a shortcut.
posted by Brian B. at 10:02 PM on May 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
Every social con job is an emotional manipulation, and our emotions are distorted by traumatic events at all ages, filled with anger and regret (even many positive feelings we acquire to cope). So the con jobs appear to be personal solutions to all that self-loathing. It's either that or drugs.
I can't really take anyone seriously who calls themselves a "rationalist"
Agreed, and it can't avoid the hint of self-help marketing: "Become a rationalist if you want to be rational." The implications are manifold, especially as a shortcut.
posted by Brian B. at 10:02 PM on May 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
To the extent that there's any consistent doctrine underpinning the discourse of everybody I've ever seen self-describe as rationalist, it's that an overwhelming aversion to human death is axiomatically the underpinning of any sound set of values.
Which, from the viewpoint of those of us who are comfortable with the idea that our personal tenure as conscious participants in reality is as inherently time-limited as that of any other animal, makes rationalism essentially interchangeable with any other religion. All of them amount to elaborate, overblown, over-hyped, hubristic and not particularly self-aware attempts to ignore or deny or work around ("transcend" is the marketing-friendly term) that limitation.
Any conceptual framework based on an untruth as blatant as the avoidability of death is bound to turn oppressive sooner or later. How could it not?
posted by flabdablet at 3:02 AM on May 18, 2023 [6 favorites]
Which, from the viewpoint of those of us who are comfortable with the idea that our personal tenure as conscious participants in reality is as inherently time-limited as that of any other animal, makes rationalism essentially interchangeable with any other religion. All of them amount to elaborate, overblown, over-hyped, hubristic and not particularly self-aware attempts to ignore or deny or work around ("transcend" is the marketing-friendly term) that limitation.
Any conceptual framework based on an untruth as blatant as the avoidability of death is bound to turn oppressive sooner or later. How could it not?
posted by flabdablet at 3:02 AM on May 18, 2023 [6 favorites]
Why are so many people becoming fascists?
socially, it's what the american school system trains them to be
posted by pyramid termite at 3:18 AM on May 18, 2023 [6 favorites]
socially, it's what the american school system trains them to be
posted by pyramid termite at 3:18 AM on May 18, 2023 [6 favorites]
Emotions...for Men®
posted by MetaFilter World Peace at 7:03 AM on May 18, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by MetaFilter World Peace at 7:03 AM on May 18, 2023 [10 favorites]
the same increasingly dusty postmodernists and structuralists/poststructuralists that they have moved on from [...] but I'm not sure who they read instead
Yeah, me neither, but I feel like The Coming Insurrection, Capitalist Realism, and Xenofeminism are probably good starting points? There's also a whole strain of nihilist-tinged writing - Desert, Baedan, Nihilist Communism - that could maybe provide a non-fascist alternative to Nick Land's edgelord shtick. Dunno if this stuff would satisfy the spiritual curiosity of disillusioned rationalists specifically, but folks who are reading Nietszche in response to a loss of meaning in the face of climate apocalypse (or whatever) might find something there that interests them. Which is why it annoys me that for some reason the fashy shit is what keeps showing up in people's feeds instead.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 5:08 PM on May 18, 2023 [4 favorites]
Yeah, me neither, but I feel like The Coming Insurrection, Capitalist Realism, and Xenofeminism are probably good starting points? There's also a whole strain of nihilist-tinged writing - Desert, Baedan, Nihilist Communism - that could maybe provide a non-fascist alternative to Nick Land's edgelord shtick. Dunno if this stuff would satisfy the spiritual curiosity of disillusioned rationalists specifically, but folks who are reading Nietszche in response to a loss of meaning in the face of climate apocalypse (or whatever) might find something there that interests them. Which is why it annoys me that for some reason the fashy shit is what keeps showing up in people's feeds instead.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 5:08 PM on May 18, 2023 [4 favorites]
Incidentally, I don’t want to clown on LessWrongers too much, but the guy who came up with the basilisk has decided the basilisk is, on balance, a force for good. It’s honestly like these folks are just receding backwards in time along the historical path of Christianity. After starting out by reviving Purgatory, which even the Catholics had let go of, and they’re now at the “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” stage. The way things are going, they’re gonna crucify themselves.
posted by Kattullus at 10:54 PM on May 18, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by Kattullus at 10:54 PM on May 18, 2023 [6 favorites]
I don’t want to clown on LessWrongers too much
Not when they're doing such a pitch-perfect job on their own.
Yudkowsky:
Not when they're doing such a pitch-perfect job on their own.
Yudkowsky:
I've increasingly noticed people asking Bard or ChatGPT questions to which it cannot possibly know the answer, and taking the results way too seriously.posted by flabdablet at 1:33 AM on May 19, 2023 [4 favorites]
I'm worried the spirits we've conjured are slotting into the role of divinatory spirits for a large group who lean that way.
Maybe it’s the AI at the end of the universe reaching backwards through time to fuck with him?
posted by Artw at 9:26 AM on May 19, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Artw at 9:26 AM on May 19, 2023 [3 favorites]
Incidentally, I don’t want to clown on LessWrongers too much, but the guy who came up with the basilisk has decided the basilisk is, on balance, a force for good.
Holy shit they really took Twitter to 4,000 characters or whatever
posted by grobstein at 11:18 AM on May 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
Holy shit they really took Twitter to 4,000 characters or whatever
posted by grobstein at 11:18 AM on May 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
Yeah, there will always be persons searching for deeper spiritual meaning in life who are disillusioned with organized religions & conventional political parties, understandably I'd say.
And throughout history they often fall prey to cults, esoteric weirdness, and/or quasi-fascism. Or merely reading books by moronic best-selling authors like Jordan-P. That's obvious too.
(I have gradually come to understand that higher values in life are often expressed through religious metaphors, but that the universe manifested in nature is the um one of the nicest spiritual things imaginable. Don't care much about congregations, so I might be a hermit/mystic. But my life isn't perfect, because there's always flaws, which are part of nature;)
posted by ovvl at 5:33 PM on May 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
And throughout history they often fall prey to cults, esoteric weirdness, and/or quasi-fascism. Or merely reading books by moronic best-selling authors like Jordan-P. That's obvious too.
(I have gradually come to understand that higher values in life are often expressed through religious metaphors, but that the universe manifested in nature is the um one of the nicest spiritual things imaginable. Don't care much about congregations, so I might be a hermit/mystic. But my life isn't perfect, because there's always flaws, which are part of nature;)
posted by ovvl at 5:33 PM on May 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
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posted by Kattullus at 11:41 AM on May 17, 2023 [24 favorites]