Talk:Curtis Yarvin/Formatted quotations

2Blowhards Advertising to Kids http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2006/10/advertising_to.html 2006.10.21.22.25	In reality, intellectuals have always worshiped power and they can be expected to always do so. '''Historical periods in which intellectuals are estranged from power are the exceptions. We just remember them better, because they have resulted in most of the progress of civilization.''' But if we are in one now, you definitely could have fooled me. !	!	!	2006.10.23.01.34	The most powerful people in the West today, measured strictly by their ability to influence the real world, are journalists and professors. !	The Price of Muscle-Flexing http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2007/01/costs.html 2007.01.30.14.27	Hominids crave power, and they rationalize it as responsibility. No one ever achieved power by promising to enslave his followers. It is always about improving the world, at least from the perspective of prospective supporters. And it is almost always sincere. Insincere leaders are very rare, because hominids are very good at detecting insincerity. It is much easier to delude others if at the same time you delude yourself. !	!	!	!	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. !	Roberts and Easterbrook http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2007/04/roberts_and_eas.html 2007.04.11.15.53	… '''the ruling caste are the people who say "we" when they mean "the government". The ruled castes always say "they".'''//*** Paraphrasing Freda Utley. !	!	!	!	In fact, natural selection tends to favor the ascent of ideologies which not only are ineffective, but actually iatrogenic. In other words, the solution is actually causing the problem it purports to be trying to solve. !	!	!	!	In a society where scholars are the ruling caste, actual scholarship tends to disappear. !	!	!	!	'''Universities are no longer institutions of scholarship. They are revolutionary seminaries. Their product is cadre.''' !	Global Warming -- Or Not -- Online http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2007/04/global_warming.html 2007.04.13.13.09	The New York Times could print nothing but lies for a year, and it would still be the most powerful institution in the world. !	!	!	2007.04.13.14.55	You think you're charging the matador, but you're charging the cape. !	England R.I.P.? http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2007/04/england_rip_1.html 2007.04.19.22.29	Technical advances have masked, and continue to mask, the signs of decay that would otherwise be obvious. !	The Mencius Vision http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2007/04/_trial_version.html 2007.04.22.00.00	The other day I was tinkering around in my garage and I decided to build a new ideology. !	!	!	!	'''Moderation is not an ideology. It is not an opinion. It is not a thought. It is an absence of thought.' If you believe the status quo'' of 2007 is basically righteous, then you should believe the same thing if a time machine transported you to Vienna in 1907. But if you went around Vienna in 1907 saying that there should be a European Union, that Africans and Arabs should rule their own countries and even colonize Europe, that any form of government except parliamentary democracy is evil, that paper money is good for business, that all doctors should work for the state, etc., etc.—well, you could probably find people who agreed with you. They wouldn't call themselves "moderates", and nor would anyone else. !	!	!	!	Replacing your own ideology is a lot like do-it-yourself brain surgery. !	!	!	!	In fact, it's basically impossible to combine a system in which agreements stay agreed with one in which equality stays equal. !	!	!	!	Democratic politics is best understood as a sort of symbolic violence, like deciding who wins the battle by how many troops they brought.//*** See James Fitzjames Stephen. !	!	!	2007.04.23.12.50	I exaggerate—slightly. !	!	!	2007.04.23.19.28	… '''humans clearly have an inherent sense of right and wrong. They also clearly have a mechanism which makes this moral sense almost always correspond to their interests.'''//*** To Steve Sailer. !	Maybe there's a cheaper way... http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2008/03/friedrich_von_b_3.html 2008.03.03.15.26	The reason the US is finding it impossible to occupy Iraq is that its own domestic political system has made it impossible.//*** To Gregory Cochran. !	!	!	!	The US military's error in Iraq, in Vietnam, and even in Korea was to think that it could win a domestic political victory by winning a foreign military victory.//*** To Gregory Cochran. !	!	!	2008.03.04.01.26	The only problem with colonialism was that it got nationalized. Which was enough. Colonialism chartered company–style is profitable. Colonialism as a government department is a disaster.//*** To Gregory Cochran. !	!	!	2008.03.04.20.35	… '''USG is not even a single agency, let alone a single person. It is a vast collection of agencies and people, all of whom are trying to get ahead in the world.'''//*** To Gregory Cochran. !	Andrew Bacevich, Reluctant Obamacon http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2008/09/andrew_bacevich.html 2008.09.09.16.07	The US military fails in places like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan because it is operating under a doctrine designed to fail. !	!	!	!	If the US was a unified, effective actor which intended to conquer and civilize Iraq and Afghanistan, it would abolish the native puppet governments of Maliki and Karzai, place all lawless areas under martial law, create military formations with US officers and native troops, create civilian governments with US executives and native employees, and in general do what the British did in India, Egypt, Burma, etc., etc. !	!	!	!	'''Of course empire works. Conquest works. It has worked for the entire course of human history. It is not only effective, it is profitable.''' !	!	!	!	Yes, the US military should leave Iraq and Afghanistan. But it should leave not because it is impossible for a modern military to defeat a bunch of tribal warriors. It should leave because it is fighting an American civil war by proxy. One, this is just sick. And two, the right place to fight a civil war is always at home. !	!	!	2008.09.09.23.14	Did you ever wonder why nationalism seemed so similar, right down to the names of the parties, in, say, Algeria, Indonesia, and Vietnam? What did Algeria, Indonesia, and Vietnam have in common? Certainly nothing that could be described as Algerian, Indonesian, or Vietnamese. Oh, no. What they had in common was that they all had friends—or, more precisely, sponsors—at Harvard. !	!	!	!	'''Men fight because they expect to win. Period. When they know they'll lose, they surrender.''' !	They Say "Racist!!" Your Reply Is ... http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2008/10/they_say_racist.html 2008.10.06.13.54	… the Right wins when it strikes hard, fast, and decisively.//*** Paraphrasing Alexis de Tocqueville. !	!	!	!	'''Conservatism is a disaster. What we need is full-on Bourbon reaction—offense, not defense.''' Whatever is done, it needs to eradicate leftism, not just ameliorate it or try to slow it down. You don't argue with cancer. You cut it out. !	!	!	!	'''The Left cannot be appeased. It can only be smashed.''' !	!	!	2008.10.07.00.21	'''Who knows more about human biology? You, or James Watson?''' !	!	!	2008.10.07.01.39	In reality, progressives don't like actual Negroes any more than they like democracy. They have no love at all for the poor. What they love is to pick them up, turn them into feral barbarians, encourage them to devastate civilized society, and provide millions of jobs for themselves caring for the animalistic, burned-out shell of what was formerly one of North America's great cultures. !	!	!	2008.10.07.17.26	If we want to end the era of chaos, democracy, and revolution, we need to deal squarely with the poisonous legacy of the Puritans. !	!	!	2008.10.07.23.06	You are probably used to worrying about the crimes of your government overseas, but not in this way. You have an eagle eye for the crimes of the Defense Department. When it comes to the crimes of the State Department, you have the approximate visual acuity of the average snail. !	!	!	2008.10.08.14.23	'''The strong government executes firmly and decisively. The weak one is fickle and inconsistent, and as a result has to be much more vicious to achieve any given level of security.''' Cybernethics / Cybernéthique http://fare.livejournal.com/187443.html 2016.05.30.19.23	In 1968 our parents' generation burned everything down. Because fire is cool. Kids these days are imitating their parents, as kids do. But they're flicking their lighters on a pile of ashes. Sometimes they will get a cinder or two to glow for a moment. Whatever pleasure this produces, it's now objectively less fun than actually constructing something new. Gene Expression Moral sentiments and Material Interests http://www.gnxp.com/new/2006/09/28/moral-sentiments-and-material-interests/ 2006.10.05.00.12	Every society in human history that has ever given itself over to government by intellectuals has lived to regret it. Ours will be no different. !	!	!	!	The history of ideas since 1789 is an endless record of mass murder in the name of the people. !	!	!	!	The relative peace of the last sixty years has been achieved only at the price of creating a university system which is an established church in all but name, and which suppresses any thought it finds even remotely disturbing. !	Religion – definitions http://www.gnxp.com/new/2006/12/22/religion-definitions/ 2006.12.22.23.52	When you create a category called "religion" which lumps together all the delusional traditions that people who are not like you have inherited unquestioned from their intellectual ancestors, you are making it harder, not easier, to question your own assumptions. !	Your generation was more violent http://www.gnxp.com/new/2008/06/23/your-generation-was-more-violent/ 2008.06.23.22.57	Restore the Belle Époque! !	!	!	2008.06.25.19.35	History is a branch of literature, not a field of science. !	Post-Modernism and Stuff White People Like http://www.gnxp.com/new/2008/08/02/post-modernism-and-stuff-white-people-like/ 2008.08.03.11.36	Progressives have created a vast set of puppet cultures which enable them to describe their monoculture as a multiculture. !	!	!	!	… far from advancing toward tolerance for all, Western civilization is being overrun by an aggressive and intolerant monoculture. !	City upon a Hill http://www.gnxp.com/new/2008/12/28/city-upon-a-hill/ 2009.01.03.15.18	This is how Rothbard so frequently reasons himself from Lockean absolutes to sheer insanity. He is a master of the reductio ad absurdum, but so stubborn that he defends the absurdum. !	When I was a moron http://www.gnxp.com/new/2009/02/05/when-i-was-a-moron/ 2009.02.06.18.05	The root cause of terrorism is liberalism.//*** To Gregory Cochran. !	!	!	2009.02.08.08.47	… profit is the essential quality of all stable government. !	!	!	!	… you don't want to be governed by a persistently unprofitable government any more than you want to eat in a persistently unprofitable restaurant. !	!	!	!	… if taxes are not set at the peak of the Laffer curve, the capital which is the state is not being valued properly. Effectively, the state is giving money away to its customers. This is best seen as a disorderly, informal, and corrupt way of siphoning off profits. !	!	!	!	The [British] Empire had to die not because it didn't work, but because it worked too well. The quality of imperial rule was starting to present evidence against democracy herself. !	!	!	2009.02.08.16.19	A sovereign should never make any concessions in response to violence or the threat of violence, unless there is no alternative but surrender. !	What does the decline in homicide rates look like? http://www.gnxp.com/new/2009/08/04/what-does-the-decline-in-homicide-rates-look-like/ 2009.08.05.20.43	How do you anesthetize a population? When it reacts normally, convince it that it's being hysterical. !	!	!	2009.08.06.11.27	Today's American has no idea what it feels like to live in an atmosphere of genuine public safety and order. !	Open thread…. http://www.gnxp.com/new/2007/07/25/open-thread/ 2009.11.10.07.11	… nothing corrupt, criminal, or mendacious can be described as reactionary. !	!	!	2009.11.11.07.15	Reaction is the reconstruction or restoration of the civilized mind, through political power, from any form of progressive or revolutionary degradation. In order to be a great reactionary leader, you have to have made your subjects more sane through the exercise of force—probably through the drastic, but effective, method of curing them entirely of politics. interfluidity Liquidity As Information http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/54.html 2007.01.18.01.12	Simplicity is the cure for violence. For example, if we postulate an imaginary oracle that could predict the outcome of any battle, we could eliminate war. The predicted loser would have no incentive but to concede to the demands of the predicted winner.//*** To Steve Randy Waldman. !	There’s no reason for non-recourse http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/180.html 2009.02.25.11.16	'''The free market isn't something that just happens. It needs to be designed and invented. The past is at best an inspiration.''' !	!	!	2009.03.02.15.31	Economically, a fiat monetary system works exactly the same as a metallic monetary system in which the sovereign owns an infinite gold mine. !	!	!	2009.03.02.21.14	'''The definition of a sovereign is that a sovereign is above the law. Its will is its own law.''' !	Rethinking subsidized finance http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/184.html 2009.03.07.02.11	The righteous ruler has nothing to hide.//*** To Steve Randy Waldman. !	!	!	2009.03.09.15.52	To debauch a people, debase their currency.//*** To Steve Randy Waldman. !	Degrees of recourse http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/195.html 2009.03.27.20.32	To a true libertarian, "classical liberalism" is a moral imperative, not a prudent policy. To me, it is just a prudent policy, and it is only a prudent policy in those cases where it does not turn out to be imprudent. !	Fixing “global imbalances” in three easy steps http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/540.html 2010.02.11.02.02	The way to do political, rather than cosmopolitical, economy is straightforward: consolidate the national balance sheet, treating the entire nation as a single corporation. Current account deficits then appear as losses. The notorious decay of nations which run a chronic trade deficit appears as a parallel with the notorious decay of corporations which run at a chronic loss. Similarly, the old mercantilist strategy of accumulating precious metals—much mocked by Adam Smith—appears as no more than the accumulation of retained earnings by a profitable polity.//*** To Steve Randy Waldman. Unqualified Reservations The essential idea of leftism http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/04/essential-idea-of-leftism.html 2007.04.27.12.56	The essential idea of leftism is that the world should be governed by scholars. !	Jaroslav Hašek and the kernel-monitor meme http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/04/jaroslav-haek-and-kernel-monitor-meme.html 2007.04.28.16.22	That's always the trouble with history. It always looks like it's over. But it never is. !	Journalistic independence http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/04/journalistic-independence.html 2007.04.29.10.49	All decent, reasonable men are horrified by the idea that the government might control the press. None of them seem concerned at all that the press might control the government. !	What if there's no such thing as chaotic good? http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/05/what-if-theres-no-such-thing-as-chaotic.html 2007.05.01.10.57	… every kind of human action has become shrouded in a vast cloud of something called "ethics", which no one can define, but no one is allowed to question. An actual holy book would be a serious improvement. !	He who refuses does not repent http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/05/he-who-refuses-does-not-repent.html 2007.05.02.15.03	… the hardest part of thinking clearly is recognizing false assumptions that are universally shared.//*** Paraphrasing George Orwell. !	!	!	!	There is no institution to which one can go in order to receive a sound paleoconservative education. Most of the people in the idea trade would simply deny that such a thing exists. Safeway will sell you a whole, salted rhinoceros head before Harvard will teach you that Lincoln was a tyrant. !	The genius of the New Deal design http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/05/genius-of-new-deal-design.html 2007.05.02.20.46	The genius of New Deal "liberal democracy" is that while it's somewhat liberal, it's not at all democratic. It is in fact designed specifically to resist democracy. The combination of this design with a civic creed that assigns unlimited positive connotations to the word democracy is simply brilliant. We may despise it, but we have to admire it. !	The Utley rule and the BDH alliance http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/05/utley-rule-and-bdh-alliance.html 2007.05.08.19.30	I can't imagine counting the number of times I've heard someone say "we should…" when what they really mean is "the government should…".//See Freda Utley. !	The Antisingularity http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/05/antisingularity.html 2007.05.11.13.25	… universal faith in progress is evidence for, not against, decline.//Paraphrasing "Fewtril #196". !	The iron polygon: power in the United States http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/05/iron-polygon-power-in-united-states.html 2007.05.12.16.02	The First Republic was the Congressional regime, which illegally abolished the British colonial governments. The Second Republic was the Constitutional regime, which illegally abolished the Articles of Confederation. The Third Republic was the Unionist regime, which illegally abolished the principle of federalism. The Fourth Republic is the New Deal regime, which illegally abolished the principle of limited government. !	!	!	!	A good way to find the most powerful people in the US is to find the most responsible people. No one in the US is scheming for power. A lot of them seem to be working for change. No one in the US is brainwashing the masses. A lot of them seem to be educating the public. No one in the US is ruling the world. A lot of them seem to be making global policies. !	Our planet is infested with pseudo-atheists http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/05/our-planet-is-infested-with-pseudo.html 2007.05.16.15.38	In fact, rationalism is to reason as scientism is to science. !	Understanding racial idealism http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/05/understanding-racial-idealism.html 2007.05.20.11.02	… the modern world has largely replaced religion, defined as the veneration of paranormal beings, with idealism, defined as the veneration of mysterious universal principles. !	Limited government as antipropertarian idealism http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/05/limited-government-as-antipropertarian.html 2007.05.23.09.42	Limited government is a recipe for corrupting the judiciary. !	!	!	!	… the most absolute and amoral of powers can have good reasons to restrict its own actions and obey its own restrictions. !	!	!	!	… revenue-maximizing government is not a medieval atrocity from the past, but a permanent feature of human history whose rare exceptions are unstable and undesirable. This does not mean we have to live with the mindless, appalling institutions that rule us at present—quite the contrary. What it means is that any plan for rationalizing these institutions should avoid the fatal mistake of trying to create a vacuum of power, an error into which all systems of juridically self-limited government inevitably fall. !	!	!	2007.05.23.18.52	… the problems with the US are not the result of the fact that its powers are more extensive than they should be. They are the result of the fact that it abuses its powers. And this is the result of the fact that the US is, by corporate standards, profoundly malstructured and mismanaged.//*** To Nick Szabo. !	The unlikely appeal of nonidealism http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/05/unlikely-appeal-of-nonidealism.html 2007.05.23.22.02	In fact, the word racism is applied in almost exactly the same way, by almost exactly the same authorities, as atheism in 1811. It is an omnibus epithet for a tremendous variety of ideas and opinions which responsible authorities find dangerous or displeasing. !	Good government as good customer service http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/05/good-government-as-good-customer.html 2007.05.25.20.01	… the state is simply a real-estate business on a very large scale. !	!	!	!	… '''taxation is not theft. Taxation is rent.''' !	The Democrats: party of lies http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/05/democrats-party-of-lies.html 2007.05.29.12.45	It is a commonly held misconception that elected politicians hold any significant power in the current Western system of government. At best they represent figureheads around which power coalesces, and you can follow the power by following the name, as if it were a small and dusty bobber attached to a large and energetic fish. !	!	!	!	In the twenty-first century, any writer whose work appears anywhere but his own blog is a shill. Or at least, he should be assumed to be compromised unless proven otherwise. The Internet has all the tools you need to write and be read without being beholden to anyone. If anyone rejects this independence, you have to wonder why. !	!	!	2007.05.31.18.51	The problem today is that the people who think they are the most daring are in fact the most obsequious. !	!	!	!	The artists of today produce kitsch because they're rebelling against a fictitious power structure by supporting a real one. !	Hillary fires back http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/06/hillary-fires-back.html 2007.06.01.21.42	For obvious reasons of human psychology, journalists […] are likely to favor political systems in which they themselves are more important and powerful. !	The generalist's stone: a stable mind http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/06/generalists-stone-stable-mind.html 2007.06.02.21.38	Most people in the West don't think their entire system of government is fundamentally, irreparably corrupt. Nor did most people in the Soviet Union. !	Principles and platitudes http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/06/principles-and-platitudes.html 2007.06.04.13.40	… the replacement of religion by idealism has allowed people who are essentially religious fanatics to achieve positions of unprecedented temporal supremacy, not only without arousing the alarm of reasonable, scientifically minded writers, but in fact enlisting their enthusiastic support. !	The mystery of the gray government http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/06/mystery-of-gray-government.html 2007.06.06.17.13	The secret of power is that power and responsibility are the same thing. !	!	!	!	… the US is best interpreted as one country with two governments. !	Why there's no such thing as "liberal media bias" http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/06/why-theres-no-such-thing-as-liberal.html 2007.06.07.20.02	In a democracy with a free press, the press is the government. Public opinion on any subject will naturally shift toward the opinions of those who explain that subject to the public. !	!	!	!	In the English language as we use it now, words like progressive and conservative are actually relative designations. Progressiv" means "left of the mainstream" and conservative means "right of the mainstream". When the mainstream shifts, these words have to shift as well, and the result is that many of the radical left-wing ideas of 1907 would be radical right-wing ideas in 2007. !	Separation of information and security	http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/06/separation-of-information-and-security.html	2007.06.10.21.17	Journalism […] looks like an unfree market because it is tied so closely to the unfree market of higher education. !	Friction in theory and practice	http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/06/friction-in-theory-and-practice.html	2007.06.19.20.19	… as long as the actions of two parties advance each others' interests, they can be considered allies, even if their philosophies of the world are so utterly opposed that they cannot afford the luxury of any such favorable reference. !	!	!	!	A common error […] is to identify tyranny and monarchy, which in fact are quite unrelated political forms—all they share is the coincidence of personal rule. We may not all know it, but we'd almost all rather live under the "autocratic" and "absolutist" tsars than under Stalin. !	!	!	!	… tyranny is best seen as a sort of static civil war. The tyrant's office differs from the monarch's in that the latter's legitimacy is assured by law, whereas the former's is a matter of personal power and prestige. !	!	!	!	Tyranny […] is essentially informal and unstable. At least in the modern era, they tend to evolve into juntas, which tend to evolve into oligarchies, which tend to evolve into democracies. […] With each of these steps, legitimacy and internal security increase, and the state becomes stronger and harder to overthrow. Unless Gaza is your idea of fun, a strong and secure state is a good thing. !	!	!	!	Perhaps the principal error of modern libertarians is their failure to distinguish between weak government and small government. My ideal government is extremely small, extremely efficient, and extremely strong—its authority cannot be challenged. It does not repress its citizens not because it is physically incapable of repression, but because repression is, far from being in its interests, directly opposed to them. !	Why conservatives never quite catch the boat http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/06/why-conservatives-never-quite-catch.html 2007.06.21.19.44	… a foreign traveler in 1864 […] asked some random American to explain the war. "It's the conquest of America by Massachusetts," was the answer. Massachusetts, of course, later went on to conquer first Europe and then the entire planet, the views of whose elites as of 2007 bear a surprisingly coincidental resemblance to those held at Harvard in 1945.//*** Paraphrasing Charles Royster. //**** Paraphrasing Auguste Laugel. !	!	!	!	'''Conservatives cannot admit that conservatism is futile, because then they'd have nothing to do. No man will willingly abolish his own occupation.''' !	!	!	2007.06.23.22.43	Power corrupts not by repression, but by seduction. !	!	!	2007.06.25.23.48	Academic politics is a murky and brutal game, and a small finger on the scales can steer it quite effectively, especially over time. !	!	!	2007.07.01.19.23	You get rid of the system by making it fashionable, among the most fashionable people, to believe the system needs to be gotten rid of. It is certainly possible to build a system of government that can withstand, in a purely military sense, the disapproval of its own elites, but such is not the case with ours. !	!	!	!	The system will be defeated when most intelligent people realize that The New York Times is a government gazette and Harvard is a government seminary, and when they form alternate institutions that fulfill the same role in a way that is genuinely independent. !	!	!	2007.07.02.23.18	The problem with the permanent bureaucracy is that any enterprise controlled by its own employees tends to expand without limit. !	!	!	!	… the moderate ideas of one generation are the extremist ideas of its parents, and the whole system shifts gradually over time. !	Some objections to ultracalvinism http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/06/some-objections-to-ultracalvinism.html 2007.06.23.15.52	… leftism is Protestantism and Protestantism is leftism …