I think the goal is to shut the rest of the world out of the US market.

What is the point of being a killjoy? — javi2541997

Keepin' it real, man.

I took your invitation to indulge in irrelevant shit throwing. — fdrake

You're misunderstanding me. I was being completely honest. I wanted you to think about it going forward.

and the majority of posts you've made would've gotten you banned if we kept the editorial standards from the old site. Your move! — fdrake

What does that have to do with anything?

I see. Well I suppose you could make a Feedback thread. — fdrake

Very funny.

This was my goodbye message to him. Don't defend abusive people.

Dude. She was abusive to everybody every single day.

The majority of Mikie's posts that you were talking about, I believe, were directed toward people who he believed - reasonably - were supporting genocide, the thorough subversion of democracy, and the annihilation of the human race. It is unreasonable to expect anyone to be civil about such things. — fdrake

And you really believe this is what was happening?

Oh? Who? — fdrake

Mikie was just one long stream of verbal abuse. There wasn't even any philosophy in it. Just abuse. You defended her every step of the way. Why did you do that?

You defended people who were abusive. Maybe don't do that in real life.

It occurs to me that democracy probably wouldn't mean much to a sociopath.

Aah yes, manufactured talking points. Projection is one of the biases I was speaking of. — NOS4A2

Gaslighter. :lol:

Like I said, the usual suspects — NOS4A2

I think you're the usual suspect in this case. You're repeating manufactured talking points like a good little soldier. :grin:

For instance when Biden defied the Supreme Court for his illegal student loan forgiveness — NOS4A2

Biden didn't defy the Supreme Court.

So why do people freak out like they're losing something? Why the lamentations in this thread?

By buy-in and contribute to the laws, do you mean he doesn’t violate them? Personally, the only reason I don’t violate any laws is because I do not want the authorities to have a reason to punish me. So I don’t drive through red lights. Other than that morality is the only thing that guides my behavior. — NOS4A2

So it doesn't make any difference to you if you live in a democracy or a dictatorship. It's the same thing either way.

Rousseau takes great pains to distinguish between the particular and general will, but I think he failed. There is no general will, and thus no Sovereign. In practice the “general will” always turns out to be the will of some individual or faction or other (a particular will), namely, the rule of those who claim to know and represent the “general will”. The rule of this group or any other can never be the rule of the people. A republic or any other state is necessarily an oligarchy, and no one living in one can ever free. — NOS4A2

But most people don't really want to be out in the woods trapping rabbits. They want to live more sophisticated lives of the kind that can only be found in society. So isn't the idea that you buy-in to the laws with some assurance that you're contributing to them, if not 100%? No?

To hell with that. You have just undermined the authority that could promulgate such an assurance. — Paine

Oh well. I tried.

The mention of a mandate that overruled the preferences of a minority. — Paine

I think that's what happens when there's an election. The majority overrules the minority.

Honestly, this is a volatile issue. It's a little more than some people can handle, I'm starting to realize. The USA is changing in big ways, but I don't think you'll really need to worry too much. Everything will be ok.

I am guessing from this screed that you have little interest in the topic of individual liberty that occupied your forebears. — Paine

How do you come to that conclusion?

Then I don't see the importance of insisting upon the essay being germane. — Paine

Oh. I think Musk is part of an expanding group with overlapping interests. There's Trump, who floated the idea of getting rid of term limits, and overtly sought to overturn an election. There's Vance, who has sympathy for Dark Enlightenment ideas. There's Vought, who the Project 2025 guy. And so on.

The general vibe is some kind of authoritarian libertarianism. What I'm seeing is that Musk is going straight for control of the Treasury, which would allow him wide control over how the government can respond to an attack from the Executive. Why is Musk in such a hurry? I mean, what is his vision for the US government in 4 years? I'm guessing an overhaul.

But what underpins it all is that Trump won comfortably. They have a mandate. I just happened to pick Dark Enlightenment to start with because this is a philosophy forum, and it's philosophy.

It does. But how does that element relate to the description of power that Land lays out? — Paine

I don't think it's related, sorry.

I have my own experiences with divergence and all these different polities being discussed here directly involve my life as I understand it happening. That goes for my family and all the people I love and have loved.

That love extends to people who believe stuff I do not and enemies who wish me harm. That is what Rousseau meant by compassion. I will hurt you if I have to. But no fist pumps and triumphant trumpets. — Paine

And so you can't be neutral. I understand. Does it hurt if someone seems to be flippant about it?

We're the same in that we're both coming from love.

one moment, you stand outside of Land's thesis, at another you argue from it. Pick a lane — Paine

I'm in an orbiting satellite collecting data on the 21st Century. What is my lane?

I do have a tendency to start talking as the person whose view I'm describing.

Offer a little consideration for the neurodivergent pleeeeeeeeeese.

He said they had a 'natural' morality, as depicted in the quote given here — Paine

What would be cool is if everyone could keep an eye out for the things a Marxist would reject in the Enlightenment views we discuss.

Remember, Land was influenced by Marx when he was younger.

Finally, state capture is inseparable from corruption. Doing business with the US federal government could soon require one to pass a loyalty test rather than a public interest test.

Absolutely. That's the idea.

I know you're eager to jump over to Nietzsche on our way to explaining the ideological backdrop here. But we're still doing Rousseau. Could you be patient?

Rousseau says that all human evil starts with interactions
— frank

Where does Rousseau say that? — Paine

Discourse on Inequality. In their most primitive state, humans are supposed to be free, happy, and lacking morality.

As the matter relates to Land's thesis, Land seems to be making the same mistake of Oppenheimer in his The State. The source of evil in Rousseau is the idea of private property. — Paine

I was trying to paint a picture of the Enlightenment before starting Land's essay.

If you want to help, you can explain how Hobbes broke with traditional attitudes about the legitimacy of the monarchy.

@NOS4A2

Rousseau says that all human evil starts with interactions. People piss each other off when they're in close association. Jim kills Frain because she took his car. Zee assaults Celia because she laughed at the wrong time, etc.

But there's no way to avoid this because we can't voluntarily go back to living in tiny family groups. We're stuck in societies that have enshrined class distinctions.

So could a society be constructed so that the laws are the general will of the people? If we could, then wouldn't people finally be free?

This is why Rousseau was optimistic about democracy: because it's all about personal buy-in. @NOS4A2, I think you'll agree with me that Rousseau was wrong. But why was he wrong? Why does democracy fail to bring about what he hoped?

Deleuze, Foucault, Nietzsche, Hume—these are the waters Land swam in prior to his political leanings leading to a sort of exile, — Count Timothy von Icarus

And Marx. The political landscape is changing from left vs. right, to moderates vs extremists. Left and right extremists are in the process of merging (I think).

Thanks! :grin: :up:

No problem. :smile:

Awesome, thanks.

Did you find the essay online? When I click that link nothing happens.

No, it isn't, because there's no such thing as being incorrect without further ado. If it's incorrect, then it's incorrect for a reason. A sufficient reason, to be more precise, as demanded by Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient Reason. If you cannot grant such a reason, then you are in the wrong here, not me. — Arcane Sandwich

This is poor post quality.

Because he believes that Democracy is the system that is closest to human nature. Human nature, according to him, is naturally good. Democracy corrupts human nature, according to him, but it's the least corrupting option, in his view. — Arcane Sandwich

This is incorrect.

Why does Rousseau believe democracy is the cure for human evil?

So we're looking at the ideological setting for Musk's endeavors. This is the far right, so it's part of Trump's base.

First were going to think about Rousseau, who believed that all evil comes from human association. If we could just go back to when humans rarely even saw one another, things would be great. But Rousseau realizes we can't go back. We've evolved into creatures who are dependent on what will eventually be called a "class state."

But there remains a way to remedy the disaster: government of the people, by the people, for the people. According to some, Rousseau was wrong.

It turns out that Nick Land's essay, Dark Enlightenment, isn't available online, as far as I can tell. So we'll just start with an overview of Enlightenment ideals, why some people, like the Vice President of the USA, believe those ideals have been disastrous, and then move on to examining quotes from Land's essay.

That will be a good start.

You suck.