14 upvotes, 7 direct replies (showing 7)
View submission: Curtis Yarvin Says Democracy Is Done. Powerful Conservatives Are Listening.
Yarvin’s actually pretty fucking smart (he’s a friend of a friend of a friend of mine). Being smart doesn’t mean that you are immune from falling into what may be absurd ideas. Many smart people have a problem of thinking that just because they are educated/smart in one area that they are great in all fields. I have a ton of friends who have PhDs in Theoretical Physics/Mathematics, who have been Quant Researchers on Wall Street, etc.— a lot of them are falling down the rabbit hole of Yarvin/Land’s neoreactionary ideology because they don’t see progressive ideology as benefiting them in anyway, and are going for an option that will work for them as White/Indian/Asian men.
Comment by Fickle-Syllabub6730 at 19/01/2025 at 16:27 UTC
22 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I think he's smart. But if I could summarize his life story (from what's available publicly that I know), he's a programmer/techie type who got in when the getting was good. He also is part of the group of edgelords who started writing online blogs and manifestos in the 90s when the internet made it possible to share it with other people for the first time in human history. And him making a bunch of money through tech let him concentrate on this stuff as a full time passion rather than needing a day job, and connected him with other rich tech people to give him positive feedback that he's a modern day Machiavelli or something.
Louis CK talks about how he learned early in life that it was deeply fun to say controversial things and see people's faces react. And he channeled that feeling into comedy. Eminem channeled it into rap. Matt Stone and Trey Parker channeled it into South Park. And looking at how Yarvin says these things about slaves and women, I have a feeling that due to his background and the world he got into, he (sloppily) channels that feeling into online writings and trolling and broad manifestos about how the world should be. By his demeanor and aptitude at public speaking, I'd wager that he never really expected to get the point where he's actually interviewed or has to justify these ideas in a real debate, he was having personal fun saying controversial things and getting a reaction, and has now found himself drinking his own Kool-aid.
People like him have always existed, that doesn't bother me. Even catching the ear of a Thiel-type isn't unusual. The fact that these ideas are now in government and spreading across the broad conservative thought ecosystem are kind of scary though. I think that within a short time, some of the Ben Shapiros and Crowders will be justifying this. Then the Fox News and mainstream right wing hosts. And then at a barbecue your lifelong Republican uncle will be parroting it as well.
Comment by das_war_ein_Befehl at 19/01/2025 at 16:31 UTC
21 upvotes, 3 direct replies
His arguments are dogshit and they’re not even logically consistent internally.
You have to be a bit of a dunce to think one man rule is a viable system given the *several thousand years of data showing these systems being fragile and unsustainable*.
Yarvin is just a nerd who is still mad that Usenet started letting anyone with an internet connection get access in 93 and hasn’t gotten over it since.
Comment by mrkfn at 19/01/2025 at 16:06 UTC
19 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Based on everything I’ve seen of Yarvin, he doesn’t strike me as being very intelligent especially in self awareness and seeing through his own biases and outside his ideological blinders. His ideas are bad and not what a modern world needs. He’s basically advocating for an oligarchical apartheid state. So pass.
Comment by ScottyDoesntKnow29 at 19/01/2025 at 17:08 UTC
6 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I don’t know about smart but he’s pretty fucking immature and more than pretty much an asshole. You’re aware that he started his whole list of grievances bc he couldn’t handle normies having access to the same internet as him and his band of immature dweebs?
Comment by NoamLigotti at 20/01/2025 at 16:08 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
That's why I consider "smart" and "intelligent" to often be meaninglessly relative.
So he's a moron in deeply consequential areas like how to structure society and self-awareness, but he's smart in, I dunno, some other ways. As far as I'm concerned he doesn't qualify as smart, and does qualify as a moron. (But that's relatively speaking, as any simple summary judgement of intelligence is when applied to most people.)
Comment by Croc_Chop at 19/01/2025 at 17:30 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Nah he needs to be shoved back in the locker where he belongs. Making your problems everyone else's is a dumb idea no matter who it's from.
Comment by gunshaver at 23/01/2025 at 08:02 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Every time I hear him speak he just rattles off some bullshit about history, and never advances an actual argument, nor can he even really formulate one when challenged. His ideology is just surface level bullshit built on reactionary grievance and aesthetics.