“what if my CEO god-king decides not to follow my plan” is a thesis even the worst startup founders have muddled through and I find it repeatedly funny as fuck that this mediocre monster of a man is hitting it
maybe it’s indicative of other things? maybe he believed so hard in the plan that he misjudged felon’s ability? maybe felon just conned him easily? extremely possible on multiple fronts, and still just as funny
imagine how fucking frustrated the little shitgoblin must be. it makes my angry heart flutter!
It’s weird how you can always find autocracy supporters in every era despite the overwhelmingly strong and incredibly obvious counterargument “what if the autocrat wants to do something you don’t like”
I’m reminded of an old essay from Siskind that tried to break down the different approaches to disagreement as either “conflict theory” - different people want different, mutually incompatible things - and “mistake theory” where we all want the same basic thing but disagree about how to get it. Given the general silicon valley milieu’s (and YudRat’s specifically) affinity for “mistake theory” I think the susceptibility to authoritarianism and fascism fits remarkably well. After all, if we all want the same basic thing the only way the autocrat could do something we don’t like is if they were wrong, so we just have to get a reasonable enough autocrat and give them absolute power, at which point they can magically solve all problems. See also the singularity God AI nonsense.
If I had my wish, it would be that this doesn’t just remind people of how authoritarians can be/are evil or incompetent, but also that the general structure isn’t actually more “efficient” because whatever delays the democratic process introduces are dwarfed by the inevitable difficulties of just trying to do anything at the scale of any modern state, much less the sheer scale of the USA.
I actually think it’s part-and-parcel of Yarvin’s personality. As much as he rails against “the Cathedral,” PMCs, whatever, he himself is a perfect example of a pathological middle manager. Somebody who wants power without having to shoulder ultimate responsibility. He craves the childishly simplified social environment of a medieval-fantasy king’s court, but he doesn’t want to be the king himself. He wants to be (and has been, up until now) the scheming vizier who can run his manipulation games in the background, deciding who gets in front of the king but not having to take the heat if the king makes a bad decision. (And the “kings” he works for have made plenty of bad decisions, but consequences have only just begun to catch up.)
I suspect this newfound mainstream attention is far more uncomfortable than it is validating for him. Perhaps the NYT profile was a burst of exhilaration, but the shine has worn off quickly. This correlates with the story last year about him coming back to Urbit as a “wartime CEO.” If Urbit is so damn important for building his ridiculous vision, why wasn’t he running it the whole time? He doesn’t actually want to be CEO of anything. Power without responsibility.
“what if my CEO god-king decides not to follow my plan” is a thesis even the worst startup founders have muddled through and I find it repeatedly funny as fuck that this mediocre monster of a man is hitting it
maybe it’s indicative of other things? maybe he believed so hard in the plan that he misjudged felon’s ability? maybe felon just conned him easily? extremely possible on multiple fronts, and still just as funny
imagine how fucking frustrated the little shitgoblin must be. it makes my angry heart flutter!
It’s weird how you can always find autocracy supporters in every era despite the overwhelmingly strong and incredibly obvious counterargument “what if the autocrat wants to do something you don’t like”
I’m reminded of an old essay from Siskind that tried to break down the different approaches to disagreement as either “conflict theory” - different people want different, mutually incompatible things - and “mistake theory” where we all want the same basic thing but disagree about how to get it. Given the general silicon valley milieu’s (and YudRat’s specifically) affinity for “mistake theory” I think the susceptibility to authoritarianism and fascism fits remarkably well. After all, if we all want the same basic thing the only way the autocrat could do something we don’t like is if they were wrong, so we just have to get a reasonable enough autocrat and give them absolute power, at which point they can magically solve all problems. See also the singularity God AI nonsense.
If I had my wish, it would be that this doesn’t just remind people of how authoritarians can be/are evil or incompetent, but also that the general structure isn’t actually more “efficient” because whatever delays the democratic process introduces are dwarfed by the inevitable difficulties of just trying to do anything at the scale of any modern state, much less the sheer scale of the USA.
I actually think it’s part-and-parcel of Yarvin’s personality. As much as he rails against “the Cathedral,” PMCs, whatever, he himself is a perfect example of a pathological middle manager. Somebody who wants power without having to shoulder ultimate responsibility. He craves the childishly simplified social environment of a medieval-fantasy king’s court, but he doesn’t want to be the king himself. He wants to be (and has been, up until now) the scheming vizier who can run his manipulation games in the background, deciding who gets in front of the king but not having to take the heat if the king makes a bad decision. (And the “kings” he works for have made plenty of bad decisions, but consequences have only just begun to catch up.)
I suspect this newfound mainstream attention is far more uncomfortable than it is validating for him. Perhaps the NYT profile was a burst of exhilaration, but the shine has worn off quickly. This correlates with the story last year about him coming back to Urbit as a “wartime CEO.” If Urbit is so damn important for building his ridiculous vision, why wasn’t he running it the whole time? He doesn’t actually want to be CEO of anything. Power without responsibility.