Also, assuming the goal here would be to create some kind of urbit based secret society on alter-twitter, it is worth pointing out that secret societies in order to be viable long term need to either be A) actually secret and anonymous or B) attached to significant economic benefit and financial interdependency of members or C) preferabl…
Also, assuming the goal here would be to create some kind of urbit based secret society on alter-twitter, it is worth pointing out that secret societies in order to be viable long term need to either be A) actually secret and anonymous or B) attached to significant economic benefit and financial interdependency of members or C) preferably both.
As Moldbug is keenly aware, heretical thinking leads to doxxing, and doxxing leads to poverty. The financial and social benefits attached to membership would need to outweigh the risk associated with being outed.
I think you're being a bit too pessimistic. I don't think doxing at that scale is viable, nor do I believe that anyone would try it. People have been posting all kinds of heretical things under their real names on Gab for example, I'd be surprised if even 0.01% suffered any real consequences that aren't fixable with basic opsec. In any case, there are platforms that already exist and many that are being created that do actually implement 'hard' solutions to all the things you describe. The trouble with Urbit is that it's a little too identity-focused.
Also, the thing with secrets is that many of them tend to keep themselves. Freemasonry is a good example - anyone could get an effective PhD in it just by going to their local library, yet most of its practices remain secret because nobody is interested enough to make the effort. Another good example of this effect is magic tricks. There's a pretty good series of posts about this on LessWrong called 'Antimemetics'. Of course FMs also follow Curtis' rule of detachment, which probably helps.
I read some of those articles on antimemes today while looking at my phone and wrestling my toddler with the other hand. So forgive me if I miss the point a little...
I think nobody has knowledge of how to do magic tricks because nobody except possibly children have any real desire to be magicians. A lot of people have desire though to be... politicians. Or to climb corporate hierarchies. Or to be a public or semi public official. Or to profit from a public persona in any way. The closer you get to power in your aims and station, the more enthusiastically you will find people will dox and defame you.
I speak from personal experience on this issue (hence the noted pessimism), but it honestly doesn't really require personal experience to see that anyone who has a financial dependency on anything which even marginally intersects with the cathedral's sphere of influence requires fairly iron clad assurances of anon/pseudonymity and/or financial security.
Why would, for instance, a corporate lawyer, or an HR professional, or a university official ever in a million years publicly commit wrongspeak of any form?
The desire for a forum to speak the truth as you see it seems to me to have been a major driver for the classic american men's clubs. I have also been lead to believe by old time insiders, the primary draw of the FM in the last century was actually financial.
What does it matter if we get legislation nominally protecting speech from online if we can be easily and summarily *deplatformed from our jobs* in turn?
I think anon/pseudonymity and/or financial security are absolute must haves for the new antijacobin club.
I guess that's kind of my point though - people aren't getting mass deplatformed because there are not that many who are looking to deplatform them. It requires work - and work requires energy. I doubt they'll muster up enough energy to deplatform every wrong-thinker, even those who are in plain sight so to speak.
I do agree with you regarding the more 'vulnerable' people in our society - but then again, I don't think having an internet-based secret society would solve that problem - they'd still have to behave in public - at least for a while.
And really, the rest I agree with you on - and I have to say, I didn't mean for my post to be an argument against implementing better security or anything like that, I just wanted to point out that there's an element of entropy working against our opponents' efforts.
Yeah, I think there is this kind of like, uncanny valley problem that we have, where the more you have to lose the less likely you are to vocalize opposition to the regime in any sort of public or official forum... until you have so much to lose that your actually just a billionaire or a maniac and you can say whatever you want. So you have this mass of like, based boomers with nothing to lose and then this crowd that adam corolla describes as the "fuck me" money crowd. And everyone else in the middle or upper middle is totally hand cuffed.
You are definitely right that you get like a security through obscurity / strength in numbers / dilution of negative attention thing going on. Like I don't think i'm going to get doxxed posting on this substack for example. But if you can somehow bake profitability into the model of dissident action you have a meme that is robust and strong from a darwinian perspective, but also greatly expands the talent pool from which you can pull the *prince who was larped* . Barring profitability you need anonymity, in my opinion.
I think if you take collective right wing political dissident thought and take away profitability and anonymity you end of with the libertarian party :) Or like, the kekistani people. You know?
I think you need to have a mix of desirability and mystery in order to attract intelligent mavericks. What is more desirable and mysterious than a club for secret money?
Also, assuming the goal here would be to create some kind of urbit based secret society on alter-twitter, it is worth pointing out that secret societies in order to be viable long term need to either be A) actually secret and anonymous or B) attached to significant economic benefit and financial interdependency of members or C) preferably both.
As Moldbug is keenly aware, heretical thinking leads to doxxing, and doxxing leads to poverty. The financial and social benefits attached to membership would need to outweigh the risk associated with being outed.
I think you're being a bit too pessimistic. I don't think doxing at that scale is viable, nor do I believe that anyone would try it. People have been posting all kinds of heretical things under their real names on Gab for example, I'd be surprised if even 0.01% suffered any real consequences that aren't fixable with basic opsec. In any case, there are platforms that already exist and many that are being created that do actually implement 'hard' solutions to all the things you describe. The trouble with Urbit is that it's a little too identity-focused.
Also, the thing with secrets is that many of them tend to keep themselves. Freemasonry is a good example - anyone could get an effective PhD in it just by going to their local library, yet most of its practices remain secret because nobody is interested enough to make the effort. Another good example of this effect is magic tricks. There's a pretty good series of posts about this on LessWrong called 'Antimemetics'. Of course FMs also follow Curtis' rule of detachment, which probably helps.
White devil,
I read some of those articles on antimemes today while looking at my phone and wrestling my toddler with the other hand. So forgive me if I miss the point a little...
I think nobody has knowledge of how to do magic tricks because nobody except possibly children have any real desire to be magicians. A lot of people have desire though to be... politicians. Or to climb corporate hierarchies. Or to be a public or semi public official. Or to profit from a public persona in any way. The closer you get to power in your aims and station, the more enthusiastically you will find people will dox and defame you.
I speak from personal experience on this issue (hence the noted pessimism), but it honestly doesn't really require personal experience to see that anyone who has a financial dependency on anything which even marginally intersects with the cathedral's sphere of influence requires fairly iron clad assurances of anon/pseudonymity and/or financial security.
Why would, for instance, a corporate lawyer, or an HR professional, or a university official ever in a million years publicly commit wrongspeak of any form?
The desire for a forum to speak the truth as you see it seems to me to have been a major driver for the classic american men's clubs. I have also been lead to believe by old time insiders, the primary draw of the FM in the last century was actually financial.
What does it matter if we get legislation nominally protecting speech from online if we can be easily and summarily *deplatformed from our jobs* in turn?
I think anon/pseudonymity and/or financial security are absolute must haves for the new antijacobin club.
I guess that's kind of my point though - people aren't getting mass deplatformed because there are not that many who are looking to deplatform them. It requires work - and work requires energy. I doubt they'll muster up enough energy to deplatform every wrong-thinker, even those who are in plain sight so to speak.
I do agree with you regarding the more 'vulnerable' people in our society - but then again, I don't think having an internet-based secret society would solve that problem - they'd still have to behave in public - at least for a while.
And really, the rest I agree with you on - and I have to say, I didn't mean for my post to be an argument against implementing better security or anything like that, I just wanted to point out that there's an element of entropy working against our opponents' efforts.
Yeah, I think there is this kind of like, uncanny valley problem that we have, where the more you have to lose the less likely you are to vocalize opposition to the regime in any sort of public or official forum... until you have so much to lose that your actually just a billionaire or a maniac and you can say whatever you want. So you have this mass of like, based boomers with nothing to lose and then this crowd that adam corolla describes as the "fuck me" money crowd. And everyone else in the middle or upper middle is totally hand cuffed.
You are definitely right that you get like a security through obscurity / strength in numbers / dilution of negative attention thing going on. Like I don't think i'm going to get doxxed posting on this substack for example. But if you can somehow bake profitability into the model of dissident action you have a meme that is robust and strong from a darwinian perspective, but also greatly expands the talent pool from which you can pull the *prince who was larped* . Barring profitability you need anonymity, in my opinion.
I think if you take collective right wing political dissident thought and take away profitability and anonymity you end of with the libertarian party :) Or like, the kekistani people. You know?
I think you need to have a mix of desirability and mystery in order to attract intelligent mavericks. What is more desirable and mysterious than a club for secret money?