Subcultures

  • Culture,  Speculation,  Subcultures

    Steelmaning Yarvin

    The need to steelman Yarvin came to my while I was running a few days ago.

    The best I can come up with is a modification of Kling’s civilization/barbarism axis, to wit, his contribution can be described as:

    Assume the world slides back and forth on a spectrum of civilization and barbarism. Each increase in civilization comes with a decrease in barbarism, and vice versa (both have benefits, structure, dynamism, equilibrium, etc). Yarvin can be thought of as contributing the thought that civilization can decay in place. The benefits of civilization can decrease with no increase in barbarism. Basically a decrease in structure without an increase in dynamism.

    Now that I’ve written that out (in less than 45,000 words) I will go back to disliking Yarvin.

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  • Adages,  Subcultures

    Insight and adage from Joe Rogan

    From this interview – in a discussion about an astronaut who went full bore conspiracy theorist about UFOs

    You go where the love is

    The point being that here was this lonely old man, and a bunch of conspiracy theorist more or less “adopted” him, and showed him friendship, companionship and affection. In turn, he probably told them the most interesting stories, then emphasized other parts of others, and slowly went off the deep end as he lent this his authority.

    Actually that makes you want to question famous members of all subcultures…

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