Timothy Snyder's excellent book “On freedom” explains how we need to focus on freedom **TO** live a fulfilling life, which is different from the absurd libertarian notion of freedom *from* rules. Feudalism means rules for thee, not for me.
Feudalism is really what they're after. They see themselves as the Lords of the Manor, and the rest of us as serfs, vagabonds, or simply not worth worrying about.
And despite the presence and support of a lot of "law and economics" types, they have no recognition of the problem of the commons. In their world, anyone rich and powerful enough to simply take and monopolize common resources, or to pollute or extinguish them, is free to do so.
Indeed. If I can buy an army or access to the US Treasury why should anything as inconvenient as the rule of law be allowed to dictate what I do with it?
I recommend Timothy Snyder's book. He explains these concepts far better than I can.
I’ll try a few points:
A person doesn’t simply spring to life as a fully formed sovereign (free) being. Reaching that state requires people to take care of children, educated them, keep them healthy. Those things are positive actions on the part of a community that allow a person to become free. Freedom from rules is not sufficient for a person to grow up to be free, they need enabling conditions.
I certainly do not in any way mean people should be constrained from doing things I don’t like. (and I’m certain Snyder never says that, either). Indeed, one of my favorite aspects of his book is the idea that freedom includes to freedom to be unpredictable. I am delighted to see people do things that have never occurred to me and things I’d never want to do. Unpredictability is part of a dynamic world. People choose their own paths, to the degree that the structure of our society gives them the space, agency, and tools *to* grow.
(Snyder points out that social media wants to make people predictable.)
I do think that free people can together agree to constrain certain things, especially things that make them less free. Pollution is an obvious case. Is it coercion to pass and enforce a law preventing a company from polluting a lake?
This is an apt and succinct description of what is happening and why it’s a problem. A lot of education is needed among the people right now. Well done. This needs to be distributed everywhere, to everyone.
If I've understood the murmurs in the background correctly, many of these people think the world needs a massive reduction in human population. I assume they're going to make it happen, in the mistaken belief that they can live forever, served by AI cyborgs on a planet where natural ecosystems are 'an aesthetic option' which can be discarded at will.
Because truly - the don't need us. The boot-face thing works when you need serfs to do the work, but we're all about to become redundant. I am hoping to be wrong...
First, Yarvin merely wants to accelerate the capture of political power by moneyed interests.
Second, it is manifestly true that American politics has been responsive to popular votes and has even recalibrated itself with regard to who votes. Yarvin is simply playing cynic to the disaffected and offering a them a lighted match.
Third, careful about negating feelings. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're wrong, just as sometimes facts capture a situation entirely, sometimes they don't. If we are to be democrats, and if we are to engage others using a democratic ethos, we should seek first to understand the conditions that give rise to certain feelings among our other citizens and apply a form of critical empathy to the question of why they feel the way they do, not simply dismiss it out of hand as mere feeling. Yet in Curtis's case, all he has is feelings dressed up in dime-store Nietzschean clatter
Is there much room for democratic repair? Absolutely, and Danielle Allen has some very good thoughts on the matter. But Yarvin would no doubt think that's cure worse than the disease.
Even an intellectual wannabe like Curtis Yarvin occasionally has good points. One is the futility of continuing the illusions of American democracy. He has often successfully pointed out the supremacy of feelings over facts when it comes to individual and group participation in a representative democracy.
“Democracy is to power as a lottery is to money. It is a social mechanism that allows a large number of hominids to feel as if their individual views affect the world, even when the chance of such an effect is negligible.”
Is this true? I believe if we are frank with our own biases it might be more so than many of us publicly admit. And, if this sentiment is at least partially true, would those that rightfully fear the path we seem to be barreling down at breakneck speeds be better served by offering a new alternative path rather than a “save what was never there in reality” strategy?
America provides great data documenting our political experiment to internal and external constituencies. Each additional year of experience seems to add weight to “democracy” as a pejorative term. If we wish to see a different direction than the one we are on, new models (emphasis on new) must be brought forth. “Saving” democracy is not going to cut it.
“They offer us the chains of digital surveillance and call it freedom, the yoke of private tyranny and label it efficiency.”
Businesses monitoring my buying habits does not put me in chains.
And what private tyranny? Freedom is only reduced by taking away choices. Private enterprise and free markets don’t strip away choice; they multiply it.
Of course, government collaboration with big business is bad. That’s why the Constitution should have prevented state interference in the economy, just as it prohibited state interference with religion. It was a tragedy when Roosevelt’s apparatchiks said that the government would stop you from growing wheat on your own property for your own use, and the Supreme Court upheld that idea, effectively neutering the Commerce Clause.
Your ideas sound like warmed-over Marxism to me and would be no more successful.
Matt Ridley has it right in The Rational Optimist.
“They offer us the chains of digital surveillance and call it freedom, the yoke of private tyranny and label it efficiency.”
Businesses monitoring my buying habits does not put me in chains.
And what private tyranny? Freedom is only reduced by taking away choices. Private enterprise and free markets don’t strip away choice; they multiply it.
Of course, government collaboration with big business is bad. That’s why the Constitution should have prevented state interference in the economy, just as it prohibited state interference with religion. It was a tragedy when Roosevelt’s apparatchiks said that the government would stop you from growing wheat on your own property for your own use, and the Supreme Court upheld that idea, effectively neutering the Commerce Clause.
Your ideas sound like warmed-over Marxism to me and would be no more successful.
Matt Ridley has it right in The Rational Optimist.
Madison had it right. The oligarchs like musk are attempting to dismantle our democracy for profit. Along with Trump as Putin's puppet, they are a danger in need of arrest for sedition as traitors.
Mike, I neglected to say thank you for the effort you are making. The perspective you bring to the conversation is unique and much needed. Thanks again.
In response to “The Comfort of Sleepwalkers” which you posted a few days ago I raised the possibility that with time the varying factions which swarm around Trump like parasitic insects would eventually rip each other apart and with it the government. While that remains a possibility telling the story from the perspective of a “what divides us, unites us”; that is that despite their differences, their strength lies in their coalescing around opposition to the government as structured by Madison and Hamilton. Each faction, of course, expects to derive a benefit that nourishes their particular ideology and it may be a fight over the effort to turn the expectation into a reality that does them in. Still, as I also commented, Thiel (and I suppose Musk) have put too much time and, in particular, money into transitioning from expectation to reality to let a little thing like an opposing view from a MAGA acolyte to keep them away from the pot at the end of the rainbow.
"What binds together Catholic integralists, Silicon Valley oligarchs, and MAGA populists?"
I can buy your argument that religious conservatives and tech oligarchs agree on authoritarianism. The unwashed MAGA masses not so much. They believe that they are the democratic voice. They sincerely buy the deep state robs them of democracy
The meaningful distinction is not between "state/private" but between "closed protocols / open protocols".
TCP/IP is an open protocol and is effectively impossible for a centralized entity to wield in coercion (on its own). Starlink is a closed protocol and is trivial for a centralized entity to wield in coercion.
With all due respect, I feel the strawman your piece is arguing with is "libertarians advocate for privatization as the solution to the state". Some might, sure, but a principled freedom-maximalist will advocate for **open protocols**, no matter whether they are found in the private or public sector.
The trouble is that governance structures/public sectors/States tend towards stifling open protocols (because if you can exit the governance structure, it can't do the job it has decided you need it to do for you - whether you asked for it or not). That's not to say that private structures always endorse open protocols - they demonstrably don't. And that's why "everything private all the time" is a distracting tangent.
Well done. Again. I would quibble with one point. The current regime is not interested in governance, but in rulership. The public living in this former democracy might find it useful to think of themselves as subjects rather than citizens. It will put in clear perspective what is being done to them and the institutions around them.
Exactly, I’m going to start using Technological Feudalism when I speak out to my local elected officials about the attacks on democracy. I’m trying to alert them that the collapse of the rule of law at the top is going to hurt them too. https://open.substack.com/pub/sarahagreen1/p/local-action-for-democracy?r=7jhrp&utm_medium=ios
Timothy Snyder's excellent book “On freedom” explains how we need to focus on freedom **TO** live a fulfilling life, which is different from the absurd libertarian notion of freedom *from* rules. Feudalism means rules for thee, not for me.
Feudalism is really what they're after. They see themselves as the Lords of the Manor, and the rest of us as serfs, vagabonds, or simply not worth worrying about.
And despite the presence and support of a lot of "law and economics" types, they have no recognition of the problem of the commons. In their world, anyone rich and powerful enough to simply take and monopolize common resources, or to pollute or extinguish them, is free to do so.
Indeed. If I can buy an army or access to the US Treasury why should anything as inconvenient as the rule of law be allowed to dictate what I do with it?
Hi Bert,
I recommend Timothy Snyder's book. He explains these concepts far better than I can.
I’ll try a few points:
A person doesn’t simply spring to life as a fully formed sovereign (free) being. Reaching that state requires people to take care of children, educated them, keep them healthy. Those things are positive actions on the part of a community that allow a person to become free. Freedom from rules is not sufficient for a person to grow up to be free, they need enabling conditions.
I certainly do not in any way mean people should be constrained from doing things I don’t like. (and I’m certain Snyder never says that, either). Indeed, one of my favorite aspects of his book is the idea that freedom includes to freedom to be unpredictable. I am delighted to see people do things that have never occurred to me and things I’d never want to do. Unpredictability is part of a dynamic world. People choose their own paths, to the degree that the structure of our society gives them the space, agency, and tools *to* grow.
(Snyder points out that social media wants to make people predictable.)
I do think that free people can together agree to constrain certain things, especially things that make them less free. Pollution is an obvious case. Is it coercion to pass and enforce a law preventing a company from polluting a lake?
What exactly do you mean by your distinction between “freedom from” and “freedom to”?
Freedom to me means freedom from coercion. How could it mean anything else?
It seems to me that you are saying you should be able to keep others from doing things you don’t like.
Please clarify.
This is an apt and succinct description of what is happening and why it’s a problem. A lot of education is needed among the people right now. Well done. This needs to be distributed everywhere, to everyone.
Brilliant work, what I’ve long thought is that we’re entering a phase of colonization by technological powers.
If I've understood the murmurs in the background correctly, many of these people think the world needs a massive reduction in human population. I assume they're going to make it happen, in the mistaken belief that they can live forever, served by AI cyborgs on a planet where natural ecosystems are 'an aesthetic option' which can be discarded at will.
Because truly - the don't need us. The boot-face thing works when you need serfs to do the work, but we're all about to become redundant. I am hoping to be wrong...
The problem with this argument are manifold.
First, Yarvin merely wants to accelerate the capture of political power by moneyed interests.
Second, it is manifestly true that American politics has been responsive to popular votes and has even recalibrated itself with regard to who votes. Yarvin is simply playing cynic to the disaffected and offering a them a lighted match.
Third, careful about negating feelings. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're wrong, just as sometimes facts capture a situation entirely, sometimes they don't. If we are to be democrats, and if we are to engage others using a democratic ethos, we should seek first to understand the conditions that give rise to certain feelings among our other citizens and apply a form of critical empathy to the question of why they feel the way they do, not simply dismiss it out of hand as mere feeling. Yet in Curtis's case, all he has is feelings dressed up in dime-store Nietzschean clatter
Is there much room for democratic repair? Absolutely, and Danielle Allen has some very good thoughts on the matter. But Yarvin would no doubt think that's cure worse than the disease.
Even an intellectual wannabe like Curtis Yarvin occasionally has good points. One is the futility of continuing the illusions of American democracy. He has often successfully pointed out the supremacy of feelings over facts when it comes to individual and group participation in a representative democracy.
“Democracy is to power as a lottery is to money. It is a social mechanism that allows a large number of hominids to feel as if their individual views affect the world, even when the chance of such an effect is negligible.”
Is this true? I believe if we are frank with our own biases it might be more so than many of us publicly admit. And, if this sentiment is at least partially true, would those that rightfully fear the path we seem to be barreling down at breakneck speeds be better served by offering a new alternative path rather than a “save what was never there in reality” strategy?
America provides great data documenting our political experiment to internal and external constituencies. Each additional year of experience seems to add weight to “democracy” as a pejorative term. If we wish to see a different direction than the one we are on, new models (emphasis on new) must be brought forth. “Saving” democracy is not going to cut it.
Thank you. You are providing excellent foundational understanding of what is going on. Excellent work. Greatly appreciated.
“They offer us the chains of digital surveillance and call it freedom, the yoke of private tyranny and label it efficiency.”
Businesses monitoring my buying habits does not put me in chains.
And what private tyranny? Freedom is only reduced by taking away choices. Private enterprise and free markets don’t strip away choice; they multiply it.
Of course, government collaboration with big business is bad. That’s why the Constitution should have prevented state interference in the economy, just as it prohibited state interference with religion. It was a tragedy when Roosevelt’s apparatchiks said that the government would stop you from growing wheat on your own property for your own use, and the Supreme Court upheld that idea, effectively neutering the Commerce Clause.
Your ideas sound like warmed-over Marxism to me and would be no more successful.
Matt Ridley has it right in The Rational Optimist.
Follow him at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rational_Optimist?wprov=sfti1
Or Janes Pethokoukis at https://jamespethokoukis.substack.com?r=8p0vc&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=profile.
Or read The Future and its Enemies by Virginia Postrell. https://www.vpostrel.com/future-and-its-enemies
“They offer us the chains of digital surveillance and call it freedom, the yoke of private tyranny and label it efficiency.”
Businesses monitoring my buying habits does not put me in chains.
And what private tyranny? Freedom is only reduced by taking away choices. Private enterprise and free markets don’t strip away choice; they multiply it.
Of course, government collaboration with big business is bad. That’s why the Constitution should have prevented state interference in the economy, just as it prohibited state interference with religion. It was a tragedy when Roosevelt’s apparatchiks said that the government would stop you from growing wheat on your own property for your own use, and the Supreme Court upheld that idea, effectively neutering the Commerce Clause.
Your ideas sound like warmed-over Marxism to me and would be no more successful.
Matt Ridley has it right in The Rational Optimist.
Follow him at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rational_Optimist?wprov=sfti1
Or Janes Pethokoukis at https://jamespethokoukis.substack.com?r=8p0vc&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=profile.
Or read The Future and its Enemies by Virginia Postrell. https://www.vpostrel.com/future-and-its-enemies
https://www.facebook.com/share/1BEeirUzNz/ race awareness of a February 28th consumer strike?
Madison had it right. The oligarchs like musk are attempting to dismantle our democracy for profit. Along with Trump as Putin's puppet, they are a danger in need of arrest for sedition as traitors.
Mike, I neglected to say thank you for the effort you are making. The perspective you bring to the conversation is unique and much needed. Thanks again.
In response to “The Comfort of Sleepwalkers” which you posted a few days ago I raised the possibility that with time the varying factions which swarm around Trump like parasitic insects would eventually rip each other apart and with it the government. While that remains a possibility telling the story from the perspective of a “what divides us, unites us”; that is that despite their differences, their strength lies in their coalescing around opposition to the government as structured by Madison and Hamilton. Each faction, of course, expects to derive a benefit that nourishes their particular ideology and it may be a fight over the effort to turn the expectation into a reality that does them in. Still, as I also commented, Thiel (and I suppose Musk) have put too much time and, in particular, money into transitioning from expectation to reality to let a little thing like an opposing view from a MAGA acolyte to keep them away from the pot at the end of the rainbow.
"What binds together Catholic integralists, Silicon Valley oligarchs, and MAGA populists?"
I can buy your argument that religious conservatives and tech oligarchs agree on authoritarianism. The unwashed MAGA masses not so much. They believe that they are the democratic voice. They sincerely buy the deep state robs them of democracy
The meaningful distinction is not between "state/private" but between "closed protocols / open protocols".
TCP/IP is an open protocol and is effectively impossible for a centralized entity to wield in coercion (on its own). Starlink is a closed protocol and is trivial for a centralized entity to wield in coercion.
With all due respect, I feel the strawman your piece is arguing with is "libertarians advocate for privatization as the solution to the state". Some might, sure, but a principled freedom-maximalist will advocate for **open protocols**, no matter whether they are found in the private or public sector.
The trouble is that governance structures/public sectors/States tend towards stifling open protocols (because if you can exit the governance structure, it can't do the job it has decided you need it to do for you - whether you asked for it or not). That's not to say that private structures always endorse open protocols - they demonstrably don't. And that's why "everything private all the time" is a distracting tangent.
Well done. Again. I would quibble with one point. The current regime is not interested in governance, but in rulership. The public living in this former democracy might find it useful to think of themselves as subjects rather than citizens. It will put in clear perspective what is being done to them and the institutions around them.