I had to look up some of the references and read pieces of the pieces that were linked throughout the text. It was worth every minute and I enjoyed reading it.
"I am sure a lot of Gray Mirror readers feel, in some sense—alone."
I'm one of only a few people I know (OK, OK, I'm the ONLY one I know) who sent my adult children screen captures from UR, back in the day. And NOW, I went and spent $100 on this latest foolishness.
But, today, I got my money's worth: "Academia in the 20s has a lot of problems, and it’s only getting worse. Yet there are still history nerds out there, right now, who are seriously studying the Wars of the Roses—as though George Floyd had never existed!"
Started reading @ 4 AM, now my wife, pregnant, is pissed and hungry since I couldn't put it down until I finished @ 7. There is the old trope "I am sorry for the long letter, I didn't have time to write a shorter one." There needs to be the Yarvin inverse: "I'm sorry for the short post, my hard drive ran out of space."
Now I've ordered Burden of Brown from Amazon and am probably on a list.
Bayesian logic is a trick of the mind to reach the desired conclusion while pretending to have analytically concluded no other conclusion is equally likely. It puts the logician in the frame of mind of the answer to the problem simultaneously with the formulations of the questions. Our minds are not particularly good at parsing what is and what could be, and thus the Bayesian approach to hypothesizing is fraught with internal conflict and self-deception. Arriving at a solution predetermined by the subconscious is frighteningly simple with a Bayesian approach, and thus its user is forever shackled to proving himself to be right before he has even engaged the upper rungs of his conscious awareness.
On even his most self-indulgent forays, Curtis is more interesting than almost anyone else writing today. But I do feel that the more recent posts have produced rather diminishing returns, as one by one we check off the things that will not happen: restore the Stuarts; introduce any monarchical regime; spark a revolution that will physically, not just intellectually, destroy the regime and reigning mindset; find a separate peace apart from the internet; and now, find a separate peace in cyberspace. All of our friend's brilliant, elegant, and at times elevating words seem to be leading to something rather simple: if a real revolution cannot happen, then there remain essentially two courses: exile or collaboration. All else is scratching an itch that can't be helped. If I were advising a 20-year old I would say: make millions of dollars and built a fort. The rest is filling polluted time and space.
When I read a new post here at Chez Gray its usually in the morning over a cup of coffee - this one was so long it took me five cups and I won't sleep till Monday - when I think of Scott Alexander, the first thing that comes to mind isn't rationalism but length. I often feel his book reviews and more exceptional posts are longer than the books/subjects themselves - he's a wee bit on the wordy side lets say, something him and Curtis share...so I'm wondering if the purpose of this post is actually a challenge to Scott to write a longer response than this post - something that could be published by Tor as a novella SFF trilogy - whaddya say Scott - you got 50k words in ya for this? C'mon!
On a more serious note. The need of the CDC leadership and its formerly world-class minions to STAY ON THE SURFBOARD as the political COVID waves continue to curl, higher and higher is causing industrial scale disaster in the West, while the dreaded CCP seems to be managing at least tolerably.
They released what they call "guidance" (a synonym in our age for "goodthink") this week. The subject was "reopening schools safely". After an introductory paragraph covering the inadequacy of the fake remote/hybrid education, the absolute imperative of resuming schooling, and the UTTER ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE of serious risk in so doing - the rest present all the reasons that the most venal and corrupt teacher's union (and the competition is fierce) could come up with to keep the schools closed.
There must a thousand Netflix and movie directors who are very good at the front end through the middle: laying out a premise, teasing out plot fragments, twisting the tension, layering on effects, showing their Haskell W moves, and so on. There are but a handful who can take all of this frothy set up and produce a good, coherent resolution to it. We talk a lot about "narrative" but, at least in the entertainment--and punditry--cosmos, there's relatively little of
it in evidence.
My guess is Curtis is having a bit of trouble figuring out where to go from here. And I sympathize--no one else has a clue either. As I noted yesterday, his march since summer has systematically eliminated one platitude after another, leaving us, yes, nihilism. But nihilism is a tough destination to stay put in. We westerners, after all, are not very good Buddhists--we keep wanting to fill the void with something. Even our Bodhisattvas have skin rash.
So, in Curtis' case we get these essays on the two Scotts. I hope I won't seem ungrateful if I say that nothing about these two individuals interests me in the slightest. Indeed, Curtis's attention to them strikes me as unworthy--as essentially a geeky cat fight of interest only to other cats or geeks. This is probably a cost of living in Silicon Valley, which encourages you to pay attention to others who live there. But we who do not care about them or find them of any consequence. They are part of the noise that every day comes closer to killing us. The less seen and heard the better.
We want Curtis wrestling with "the answer". And if that means the next two or three posts read: "Not sure what to think or do--need more time", then that is fine. We have a vast totalitarian lite future to wade through. We have all the time in the world.
It took me three hours to get through it.
I had to look up some of the references and read pieces of the pieces that were linked throughout the text. It was worth every minute and I enjoyed reading it.
"I am sure a lot of Gray Mirror readers feel, in some sense—alone."
Well, not any more.
I'm one of only a few people I know (OK, OK, I'm the ONLY one I know) who sent my adult children screen captures from UR, back in the day. And NOW, I went and spent $100 on this latest foolishness.
But, today, I got my money's worth: "Academia in the 20s has a lot of problems, and it’s only getting worse. Yet there are still history nerds out there, right now, who are seriously studying the Wars of the Roses—as though George Floyd had never existed!"
WHO ELSE CAN WRITE LIKE THIS?
Fuck the New York Times.
Started reading @ 4 AM, now my wife, pregnant, is pissed and hungry since I couldn't put it down until I finished @ 7. There is the old trope "I am sorry for the long letter, I didn't have time to write a shorter one." There needs to be the Yarvin inverse: "I'm sorry for the short post, my hard drive ran out of space."
Now I've ordered Burden of Brown from Amazon and am probably on a list.
An article from you addressing Scott's "The Anti-Reactionary FAQ" would really be awesome.
Bayesian logic is a trick of the mind to reach the desired conclusion while pretending to have analytically concluded no other conclusion is equally likely. It puts the logician in the frame of mind of the answer to the problem simultaneously with the formulations of the questions. Our minds are not particularly good at parsing what is and what could be, and thus the Bayesian approach to hypothesizing is fraught with internal conflict and self-deception. Arriving at a solution predetermined by the subconscious is frighteningly simple with a Bayesian approach, and thus its user is forever shackled to proving himself to be right before he has even engaged the upper rungs of his conscious awareness.
On even his most self-indulgent forays, Curtis is more interesting than almost anyone else writing today. But I do feel that the more recent posts have produced rather diminishing returns, as one by one we check off the things that will not happen: restore the Stuarts; introduce any monarchical regime; spark a revolution that will physically, not just intellectually, destroy the regime and reigning mindset; find a separate peace apart from the internet; and now, find a separate peace in cyberspace. All of our friend's brilliant, elegant, and at times elevating words seem to be leading to something rather simple: if a real revolution cannot happen, then there remain essentially two courses: exile or collaboration. All else is scratching an itch that can't be helped. If I were advising a 20-year old I would say: make millions of dollars and built a fort. The rest is filling polluted time and space.
Thicc
Can’t believe we get this stuff for free. Will I have to unsubscribe to keep this trend going?
The gentleman must have switched from cognac to Armagnac — forget the bottle, straight out of the cask.
Curtis, what do you think about James Lindsay making a case that wokism should be recognized as a religion? https://newdiscourses.com/2020/09/first-amendment-case-freedom-from-woke-religion/
He even calls it “lapsed Calvinism”.
I’ve long wanted for somebody to make this exact case, though I wish there were some lawyers who would pick it up, too.
Worth every second
When I read a new post here at Chez Gray its usually in the morning over a cup of coffee - this one was so long it took me five cups and I won't sleep till Monday - when I think of Scott Alexander, the first thing that comes to mind isn't rationalism but length. I often feel his book reviews and more exceptional posts are longer than the books/subjects themselves - he's a wee bit on the wordy side lets say, something him and Curtis share...so I'm wondering if the purpose of this post is actually a challenge to Scott to write a longer response than this post - something that could be published by Tor as a novella SFF trilogy - whaddya say Scott - you got 50k words in ya for this? C'mon!
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1276138147521400833.html
The author Zero HP Lovecraft on the Rationalists.
On a more serious note. The need of the CDC leadership and its formerly world-class minions to STAY ON THE SURFBOARD as the political COVID waves continue to curl, higher and higher is causing industrial scale disaster in the West, while the dreaded CCP seems to be managing at least tolerably.
They released what they call "guidance" (a synonym in our age for "goodthink") this week. The subject was "reopening schools safely". After an introductory paragraph covering the inadequacy of the fake remote/hybrid education, the absolute imperative of resuming schooling, and the UTTER ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE of serious risk in so doing - the rest present all the reasons that the most venal and corrupt teacher's union (and the competition is fierce) could come up with to keep the schools closed.
OK, talk about burying the lede ...
There must a thousand Netflix and movie directors who are very good at the front end through the middle: laying out a premise, teasing out plot fragments, twisting the tension, layering on effects, showing their Haskell W moves, and so on. There are but a handful who can take all of this frothy set up and produce a good, coherent resolution to it. We talk a lot about "narrative" but, at least in the entertainment--and punditry--cosmos, there's relatively little of
it in evidence.
My guess is Curtis is having a bit of trouble figuring out where to go from here. And I sympathize--no one else has a clue either. As I noted yesterday, his march since summer has systematically eliminated one platitude after another, leaving us, yes, nihilism. But nihilism is a tough destination to stay put in. We westerners, after all, are not very good Buddhists--we keep wanting to fill the void with something. Even our Bodhisattvas have skin rash.
So, in Curtis' case we get these essays on the two Scotts. I hope I won't seem ungrateful if I say that nothing about these two individuals interests me in the slightest. Indeed, Curtis's attention to them strikes me as unworthy--as essentially a geeky cat fight of interest only to other cats or geeks. This is probably a cost of living in Silicon Valley, which encourages you to pay attention to others who live there. But we who do not care about them or find them of any consequence. They are part of the noise that every day comes closer to killing us. The less seen and heard the better.
We want Curtis wrestling with "the answer". And if that means the next two or three posts read: "Not sure what to think or do--need more time", then that is fine. We have a vast totalitarian lite future to wade through. We have all the time in the world.