6 ms·

Ask HN: Thoughts on Curtis Yarvin?

3 points by Hansappreciator 1y ago

Curious what your opinions are on Curtis Yarvin.

rossdavidh 1y ago
Never heard of him until now, if that tells you anything.
its-summertime 1y ago
https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Curtis+Yarvin https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Curtis+Yarvin
- Hansappreciator 1y ago
  I know the clickbait / rage articles about him. I want to know what actual HN users think.
  - its-summertime 1y ago
    There are comments along with each article submitted to Hacker News
  - UncleMeat 1y ago
    He's a fascist monster that would be happy putting a bullet in my brain. There's been a huge amount written about him. He has also published a lot of his own writing. I assure you that not everything critical about the man is clickbait or ragebait.
bigyabai 1y ago
He's like a neoconservative Žižek. His party uses him to confuse and anger opponents, as a method to deflect criticism away from matters concerning policy or influence. His original bibliography is largely ignored in polsci circles, found most often next to a print copy of Protocols of the Elders or somesuch conspiracy.
- PestoDiRucola 1y ago
  There's nothing neoconservative about his ideology. He's some sort of monarchist paleoconservative.
  - bigyabai 1y ago
    There's nothing liberal about Slavoj, for most eastern Europeans. Nevertheless, European conservatives treat him like some sort of intelligentsia final boss when in reality he's just a kinda pissed-off dad with a Marxism fetish. I think Yarvin has become a similarly pointless flashpoint discussion topic, a sort of liberal boogeyman to wheel out when people demand more democracy or social benefits. I don't really take issue with people who write this sort of literature, but I also don't take it very seriously myself.
- ai_critic 1y ago
  Perhaps, but Zizek is at least funny and so on and so on.
mindcrime 1y ago
Never heard of him.
ai_critic 1y ago
He's a windbag and perhaps the best example of how some people really just need a wedgie. That said, he does raise some interesting points--in extremely roundabout ways--and it's incredibly telling how different people react to him. The amazing amount of butthurt und sturm und drang that comes up whenever urbit is mentioned, for example, is almost always due to political/tribal stuff and not due to technical deficiencies or the deliberate obfuscation of whatever ideas actually might be there. I think he's basically riding coats of the populist MAGA movement at this point in an almost ESR "I helped make this" sort of way, and while an interesting footnote in the evolution of NRx he's basically just an edgelord with some extra money.
- wmf 1y ago
  I keep seeing people credit Yarvin with the rise of the alt-right or MAGA but I don't see any elements of NRx in MAGA other than the edgy attitude. None of his ideas have been implemented or if they have it's by accident. Of course his writing is so obfuscated I guess he could use hindsight to twist his own words into something like a correct prediction.
  - ai_critic 1y ago
    > Of course his writing is so obfuscated I guess he could use hindsight to twist his own words into something like a correct prediction. I think that's exactly what he's doing.
f33d5173 1y ago
When it seems like someone is using verbosity to obfuscate their lack of substance, they probably are.
aaron695 1y ago
[dead]
PaulHoule 1y ago
Here's what I think about Curtis Yarvin. I don't think Curtis Yarvin ever says the word "degrowth" and the people who think "degrowth" is inevitable, necessary or desirable would not endorse him, but his vision of the future is a vision of degrowth. I think he sees the peak of civilization as around 1777 in France or 1852 in Japan when there was a relatively high technology level and material stock but we were still basically on a solar economy where wealth derived from holding agricultural land and food supplies were limited so we weren't quite ready for Marx's labor theory of value. If you thought the greatest thing in life was the exploitation of personal services, whether that is having a house full of servants or the debauchery of Valmont from Dangerous Liasons, you'd probably think that was the pinnacle of development. If you like pharmaceuticals or good food or things made out of metal, not so much. (Even if he didn't die in a duel or under the guillotine or from syphilis he would have been lucky to make it past 40) So far as I know the story was the same in feudal agrarian Europe, Japan and China and likely elsewhere. There was an ideology that the King or Emperor or whatever had a divine right or was a god or was descended from the gods but actually he ruled with the consent of a class of warlords and landowners and if they wanted him overthrown he was overthrown though it often ushered in a century of chaos as those warlords struggled to figure out who'd come out on top finally falling back on the old ideology out of exhaustion. The strength of modern society is not formal democracy but the very large numbers of institutions of many kinds large and small that through their many degrees of freedom are able to face the complexity of the problems that face civilization. (See Ashby's Law) You have the many branches of government, not one church, but many churches, many businesses, labor unions, professional associations, the academy, and civil society organizations of every stripe from Greenpeace to the Freemasons. The case for degrowth is that civilization faces many threats not least pollution, resource depletion, war, pandemics as well as continuously changing technology, culture and economy. Critically, as Ezra Klein points out lately, the institutional complexity that it takes to manage these threats itself gets in the way of the responsiveness of the system and that's a tough problem. I'll grant it to Yarvin that there has been an "ahistorical turn" and a lot of people, particularly the identitarian left, aren't interested in thinking about 2005 or 1974, never mind 1843 or the Ancien Regime. Yarvin's answer though is either going to be the cause of collapse or the consequence of collapse. Even if you're Peter Thiel your wealth can only protect you so much in that scenario, it's like playing Russian Roulette with a 10 chamber revolver and 9 bullets loaded. For the median person, it's worse. If you are looking for answers that will work in that kind of world you are better looking into matters of religion and the spirit because those are things that don't change along with economy and technology. The way out is the way through.
tastyface 1y ago
“The problem is: our billionaires are n—ers. They may be rich. But they're n—er rich. The nature and function of their wealth is profoundly negrous.” --Curtis Yarvin, https://bsky.app/profile/esqueer.net/post/3lv7lipobrs2a https://bsky.app/profile/esqueer.net/post/3lv7lipobrs2a That should give you a good sense of what kind of man he is, and what it says about those who support him.

Curious what your opinions are on Curtis Yarvin.

rossdavidh 1y ago

Never heard of him until now, if that tells you anything.

its-summertime 1y ago

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Curtis+Yarvin https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Curtis+Yarvin

Hansappreciator 1y ago
I know the clickbait / rage articles about him. I want to know what actual HN users think.
- its-summertime 1y ago
  There are comments along with each article submitted to Hacker News
- UncleMeat 1y ago
  He's a fascist monster that would be happy putting a bullet in my brain. There's been a huge amount written about him. He has also published a lot of his own writing. I assure you that not everything critical about the man is clickbait or ragebait.

bigyabai 1y ago

He's like a neoconservative Žižek. His party uses him to confuse and anger opponents, as a method to deflect criticism away from matters concerning policy or influence. His original bibliography is largely ignored in polsci circles, found most often next to a print copy of Protocols of the Elders or somesuch conspiracy.

PestoDiRucola 1y ago
There's nothing neoconservative about his ideology. He's some sort of monarchist paleoconservative.
- bigyabai 1y ago
  There's nothing liberal about Slavoj, for most eastern Europeans. Nevertheless, European conservatives treat him like some sort of intelligentsia final boss when in reality he's just a kinda pissed-off dad with a Marxism fetish. I think Yarvin has become a similarly pointless flashpoint discussion topic, a sort of liberal boogeyman to wheel out when people demand more democracy or social benefits. I don't really take issue with people who write this sort of literature, but I also don't take it very seriously myself.
ai_critic 1y ago
Perhaps, but Zizek is at least funny and so on and so on.

mindcrime 1y ago

Never heard of him.

ai_critic 1y ago

He's a windbag and perhaps the best example of how some people really just need a wedgie. That said, he does raise some interesting points--in extremely roundabout ways--and it's incredibly telling how different people react to him. The amazing amount of butthurt und sturm und drang that comes up whenever urbit is mentioned, for example, is almost always due to political/tribal stuff and not due to technical deficiencies or the deliberate obfuscation of whatever ideas actually might be there. I think he's basically riding coats of the populist MAGA movement at this point in an almost ESR "I helped make this" sort of way, and while an interesting footnote in the evolution of NRx he's basically just an edgelord with some extra money.

wmf 1y ago
I keep seeing people credit Yarvin with the rise of the alt-right or MAGA but I don't see any elements of NRx in MAGA other than the edgy attitude. None of his ideas have been implemented or if they have it's by accident. Of course his writing is so obfuscated I guess he could use hindsight to twist his own words into something like a correct prediction.
- ai_critic 1y ago
  > Of course his writing is so obfuscated I guess he could use hindsight to twist his own words into something like a correct prediction. I think that's exactly what he's doing.

f33d5173 1y ago

When it seems like someone is using verbosity to obfuscate their lack of substance, they probably are.

aaron695 1y ago

[dead]

PaulHoule 1y ago

Here's what I think about Curtis Yarvin. I don't think Curtis Yarvin ever says the word "degrowth" and the people who think "degrowth" is inevitable, necessary or desirable would not endorse him, but his vision of the future is a vision of degrowth. I think he sees the peak of civilization as around 1777 in France or 1852 in Japan when there was a relatively high technology level and material stock but we were still basically on a solar economy where wealth derived from holding agricultural land and food supplies were limited so we weren't quite ready for Marx's labor theory of value. If you thought the greatest thing in life was the exploitation of personal services, whether that is having a house full of servants or the debauchery of Valmont from Dangerous Liasons, you'd probably think that was the pinnacle of development. If you like pharmaceuticals or good food or things made out of metal, not so much. (Even if he didn't die in a duel or under the guillotine or from syphilis he would have been lucky to make it past 40) So far as I know the story was the same in feudal agrarian Europe, Japan and China and likely elsewhere. There was an ideology that the King or Emperor or whatever had a divine right or was a god or was descended from the gods but actually he ruled with the consent of a class of warlords and landowners and if they wanted him overthrown he was overthrown though it often ushered in a century of chaos as those warlords struggled to figure out who'd come out on top finally falling back on the old ideology out of exhaustion. The strength of modern society is not formal democracy but the very large numbers of institutions of many kinds large and small that through their many degrees of freedom are able to face the complexity of the problems that face civilization. (See Ashby's Law) You have the many branches of government, not one church, but many churches, many businesses, labor unions, professional associations, the academy, and civil society organizations of every stripe from Greenpeace to the Freemasons. The case for degrowth is that civilization faces many threats not least pollution, resource depletion, war, pandemics as well as continuously changing technology, culture and economy. Critically, as Ezra Klein points out lately, the institutional complexity that it takes to manage these threats itself gets in the way of the responsiveness of the system and that's a tough problem. I'll grant it to Yarvin that there has been an "ahistorical turn" and a lot of people, particularly the identitarian left, aren't interested in thinking about 2005 or 1974, never mind 1843 or the Ancien Regime. Yarvin's answer though is either going to be the cause of collapse or the consequence of collapse. Even if you're Peter Thiel your wealth can only protect you so much in that scenario, it's like playing Russian Roulette with a 10 chamber revolver and 9 bullets loaded. For the median person, it's worse. If you are looking for answers that will work in that kind of world you are better looking into matters of religion and the spirit because those are things that don't change along with economy and technology. The way out is the way through.

tastyface 1y ago

“The problem is: our billionaires are n—ers. They may be rich. But they're n—er rich. The nature and function of their wealth is profoundly negrous.” --Curtis Yarvin, https://bsky.app/profile/esqueer.net/post/3lv7lipobrs2a https://bsky.app/profile/esqueer.net/post/3lv7lipobrs2a That should give you a good sense of what kind of man he is, and what it says about those who support him.