Astral Codex Ten

Left

7 min read

Left

Article

Left is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 3 times across 3 issues between September 17, 2021 and October 10, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as “Once you reintroduce these, you have a solution to nihilism. The Left can come up with a laundry list of High Modernist plans”; “are routine with the Left in most Western countries”; “the Left would never accept an alliance with the likes of us anyway”. It most often appears alongside democracy, Donald Trump, facebook.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 3
  • Issue count: 3
  • First seen: September 17, 2021
  • Last seen: October 10, 2024

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Book Review: The Revolt Of The Public
September 17, 2021 · Original source
Some of the protests were more socialist and anarchist than others, but none were successfully captured by establishment strains of Marxism or existing movements. Many successfully combined conservative and liberal elements. Gurri calls them nihilists. They believed that the existing order was entirely rotten, that everyone involved was corrupt and irredeemable, and that some sort of apocalyptic transformation was needed. All existing institutions were illegitimate, everyone needed to be kicked out, that kind of thing. But so few specifics that socialists and reactionaries could march under the same banner, with no need to agree on anything besides "not this".
Gurri isn't shy about his contempt for this. Not only were these some of the most privileged people in their respective countries, but (despite the legitimately-sucky 2008 recession), they were living during a time of unprecedented plenty. In Spain, the previous forty years had seen the fall of a military dictatorship, its replacement with a liberal democracy, and a quintupling of GDP per capita from $6000 to $32000 a year - "in 2012, four years into the crisis there were more cell phones and cars per person in Spain than in the US". The indignado protesters in Spain had lived through the most peaceful period in Europe's history, an almost unprecedented economic boom, and had technologies and luxuries that previous generations could barely dream of. They had cradle-to-grave free health care, university educations, and they were near the top of their society's class pyramids. Yet they were convinced, utterly convinced, that this was the most fraudulent and oppressive government in the history of history, and constantly quoting from a manifesto called Time For Outrage!
So for example, Gurri examines some of the sloganeering where people complain about how eg obesity is the government's fault - surely the government could come up with some plan that cured obesity, and since they haven't done so, that proves they're illegitimate and don't care that obesity is killing millions of Americans. Or homelessness - that's the fault of capitalism, right? Because "we" could just give every homeless person a home, but capitalism prevents "us" from doing that. Or if you're a conservative, how come the government hasn't forced the liberal rot out of schools and made everybody pious and patriotic and family-values-having? Doesn't that mean our lack of strong values is the government's fault? The general formula is (1.) take vast social problem that has troubled humanity for millennia (2.) claim that theoretically The System could solve the problem, but in fact hasn't (3.) interpret that as "The System has caused the problem and it is entirely the system's fault" (4.) be outraged that The System is causing obesity and homelessness and postmodernism and homosexuality and yet some people still support it. How could they do that??!
Highlights From The Comments On Orban
November 11, 2021 · Original source
But this is the point: Democracy and dictatorship aren't opposites. In fact, they are natural companions! So much so that before the 20th century, "democracy" was often used *literally as a synonym* for "authoritarian and demagogic rule"! Orban is a great example of why the word "democracy" came into ill repute in the past: because it was widely understood that "the people" (often pejoratively "the mob") will often vote for a strongman to stomp his boot on the face of disliked others. That's not so much a disagreement with @slatestarcodex as just a comment where I think the modern western liberal mindset obscures understanding the phenomenon of populist leadership.
Inline links: @slatestarcodex
I think the undercurrent to Richard’s complaint is that right now the situation is asymmetric: most bureaucrats are by nature liberal, and so when a liberal regime is in power, it can cooperate with the bureaucracy, and when a conservative regime is in power, it has to try to struggle with and overcome the bureaucracy, and that unfairly (?) makes conservative regimes look more authoritarian than liberal ones.
Orban himself calls his regime an “illiberal democracy”, which seems as fair a description as any. Technically people vote, and probably the elections are even mostly fair, but things are rigged enough behind the scenes that it’s really hard for the elections to matter.
SB 1047: Our Side Of The Story
October 10, 2024 · Original source
The AI safety movement could easily transition from being a quirky, heterodox, “extremely online” movement to being just another generic left-wing cause. It could even work.
Last year, I would have told Dean not to worry about us allying with the Left - the Left would never accept an alliance with the likes of us anyway. But I was surprised by how fairly socialist media covered the SB 1047 fight. For example, from Jacobin3:
Inline links: Jacobin, 3
But as I’ve actually used some of the various technologies lumped together as “artificial intelligence,” over and over my reaction has been: “Jesus, this stuff is actually very powerful… and this is only the beginning.” I think many of my fellow leftists tend to have a dismissive attitude toward AI’s capabilities, delighting in its failures (ChatGPT’s basic math errors and “hallucinations,” the ugliness of much AI-generated “art,” badly made hands from image generators, etc.). There is even a certain desire for AI to be bad at what it does, because nobody likes to think that so much of what we do on a day-to-day basis is capable of being automated. But if we are being honest, the kinds of technological breakthroughs we are seeing are shocking. If I’m training to debate someone, I can ask ChatGPT to play the role of my opponent, and it will deliver a virtually flawless performance. I remember not too many years ago when chatbots were so laughably inept that it was easy to believe one would never be able to pass a Turing Test. Now, ChatGPT not only aces the test but is better at being “human” than most humans. And, again, this is only the start.
Inline links: aces the test, better at being “human” than most humans