This argument is a bit too specific, in that it limits its criticisms to political activity, rather than broadening the argument to all activities in general. Politics only provides temporary solutions; it never provides permanent solutions. And this is true of all events in life. If this is the standard by which you judge usefulness, then nothing is useful. One never needs to use the word "politics," but can apply the argument consistently. This argument was not first made by Nietzsche, but is made simply and clearly in the Bhagavad Gita.
Politics is a sort of surrogate for religion in an increasingly secular age, but it is far weaker than religion was in the historical period at shaping society. Belief in policies is a way to signal one’s morality, just like belief in a certain religion, but belief in policies doesn’t demand a deontology in the way religion does. The only thing it demands is advocacy, which causes normies to get extremely upset when someone doesn’t vote or protest or whatever. Furthermore, no state prior to the 20th century could have possibly existed without a certain degree of religious consensus. The state was a collection of oaths and rituals whose importance had to be motivated in part by a fear of supernatural retribution against the riteless and dishonest. Politics people believe that the gods will turn their backs to the world if not enough people vote. They mask it with witty secular statements like Fascism being built off the backs of the apathetic, but deep down they believe that they can manifest their beliefs if they believe in them really hard.
The only way to actually achieve 3/4 of people’s political desires would be some sort of religious movement. There is no policy solution for most of it, it’s a result of human decadence
Yes, you are largely correct. I’ve mostly moved on from political debates because (with the exception of acute matters like during COVID), politics is a waste of time. Political views are heritable, and heavily dependent on technological context, so most politicking, especially for the average Joe, is pointless.
That said, what do you mean by this?
“The fact that people are as obsessed with the bad collapse theories (climate change, mutational breakdown, AI risk) as they are with the good ones (oil exhaustion, nuclear holocaust) proves politics cannot solve X-risks either.”
What do “bad collapse theories” and “good ones” mean?
Politics is a formalized competition for status between groups. Status is hugely important for everything from psychological well being to reproductive success to cultural and social reproduction and even to survival (depending on society).
Politics determines that the ideas you write about in this blog (like hereditarianism) are low status and by consequences your status as an intellectual is lower than that of less capable writers that repeat politically correct ideas (like blank slatism).
Given that you are a nerdy contrarian straight white man you couldn't even gain much status by joining the hegemonic coalition as they value other demographic groups more.
This means that your prestige, professional prospects, income and sex appeal would be improved in a world with more favorable politics towards people like you.
1) I would push back strongly on abolitionism. The British didn’t just decide slavery was uneconomical to them personally. They set out to end slavery around the globe at huge personal expense simply because they as a society decided it was a worthy cause. Many of the areas they eliminated it would not have done so on their own. Honestly this needs to be seen as one of the most enlightened things man ever did.
2) I recentely moved to Florida and it’s very politically different than the dc area. One obvious area is that we have universal school vouchers down here, so my kids can go to private school. That’s a really big deal in peoples lives and a meaningful difference.
Just because the fight is endless doesn't mean it's pointless. Assuming your politics are rational, you move the political state from lower forms to higher ones.
But you don't have to have self consuming politics. You can have self interested ones. If you do it right you can use your political knowledge to protect yourself from the state wielded by others, find like minded friends or even make money.
Oil exhaustion isn’t a good theory either. Hydrocarbons exist via abyssal abiogenisis. Saturn’s moon Titan contains an entire sea of natural gas (ethane/methane). To date there have been no sightings of space dinosaurs.
There’s no reason to believe that supplies of natural gas aren’t effectively infinite.
I think this only proves that radical politics that attempt to change entire systems are a dead end, but your argument that this effort would be better spent on being authentically hedonistic reveals that you would have to protect those things politically. Wanting to change the system to solve very large scale trends may or may not be a waste of time, but if you're going to watch anime and take drugs etc, then if the government tried to ban those things, you'd have to at least oppose those things, bringing you back into the sphere of political effort again.
This argument is a bit too specific, in that it limits its criticisms to political activity, rather than broadening the argument to all activities in general. Politics only provides temporary solutions; it never provides permanent solutions. And this is true of all events in life. If this is the standard by which you judge usefulness, then nothing is useful. One never needs to use the word "politics," but can apply the argument consistently. This argument was not first made by Nietzsche, but is made simply and clearly in the Bhagavad Gita.
stop being depressed dude ... you will look back on this post in 6 months and realise it was all nihilistic nonsense
Politics is a sort of surrogate for religion in an increasingly secular age, but it is far weaker than religion was in the historical period at shaping society. Belief in policies is a way to signal one’s morality, just like belief in a certain religion, but belief in policies doesn’t demand a deontology in the way religion does. The only thing it demands is advocacy, which causes normies to get extremely upset when someone doesn’t vote or protest or whatever. Furthermore, no state prior to the 20th century could have possibly existed without a certain degree of religious consensus. The state was a collection of oaths and rituals whose importance had to be motivated in part by a fear of supernatural retribution against the riteless and dishonest. Politics people believe that the gods will turn their backs to the world if not enough people vote. They mask it with witty secular statements like Fascism being built off the backs of the apathetic, but deep down they believe that they can manifest their beliefs if they believe in them really hard.
The only way to actually achieve 3/4 of people’s political desires would be some sort of religious movement. There is no policy solution for most of it, it’s a result of human decadence
And people say I’m a doomer/fatalist.
Yes, you are largely correct. I’ve mostly moved on from political debates because (with the exception of acute matters like during COVID), politics is a waste of time. Political views are heritable, and heavily dependent on technological context, so most politicking, especially for the average Joe, is pointless.
That said, what do you mean by this?
“The fact that people are as obsessed with the bad collapse theories (climate change, mutational breakdown, AI risk) as they are with the good ones (oil exhaustion, nuclear holocaust) proves politics cannot solve X-risks either.”
What do “bad collapse theories” and “good ones” mean?
You used to right for unz, right?
Politics is a formalized competition for status between groups. Status is hugely important for everything from psychological well being to reproductive success to cultural and social reproduction and even to survival (depending on society).
Politics determines that the ideas you write about in this blog (like hereditarianism) are low status and by consequences your status as an intellectual is lower than that of less capable writers that repeat politically correct ideas (like blank slatism).
Given that you are a nerdy contrarian straight white man you couldn't even gain much status by joining the hegemonic coalition as they value other demographic groups more.
This means that your prestige, professional prospects, income and sex appeal would be improved in a world with more favorable politics towards people like you.
So yeah politics matter.
1) I would push back strongly on abolitionism. The British didn’t just decide slavery was uneconomical to them personally. They set out to end slavery around the globe at huge personal expense simply because they as a society decided it was a worthy cause. Many of the areas they eliminated it would not have done so on their own. Honestly this needs to be seen as one of the most enlightened things man ever did.
2) I recentely moved to Florida and it’s very politically different than the dc area. One obvious area is that we have universal school vouchers down here, so my kids can go to private school. That’s a really big deal in peoples lives and a meaningful difference.
Just because the fight is endless doesn't mean it's pointless. Assuming your politics are rational, you move the political state from lower forms to higher ones.
But you don't have to have self consuming politics. You can have self interested ones. If you do it right you can use your political knowledge to protect yourself from the state wielded by others, find like minded friends or even make money.
Oil exhaustion isn’t a good theory either. Hydrocarbons exist via abyssal abiogenisis. Saturn’s moon Titan contains an entire sea of natural gas (ethane/methane). To date there have been no sightings of space dinosaurs.
There’s no reason to believe that supplies of natural gas aren’t effectively infinite.
Taken to its logical conclusion, this is an argument for the absurdity of life itself.
Nietszche begets Camus, eventually.
I think this only proves that radical politics that attempt to change entire systems are a dead end, but your argument that this effort would be better spent on being authentically hedonistic reveals that you would have to protect those things politically. Wanting to change the system to solve very large scale trends may or may not be a waste of time, but if you're going to watch anime and take drugs etc, then if the government tried to ban those things, you'd have to at least oppose those things, bringing you back into the sphere of political effort again.