/lit/ - Literature

>>13809862
Because we live in the Society of the ASS.

That's not what the book says.

Not sure what the book says exactly, but just a reminder, we don’t have properly functioning democracy, and a shabby set of freedoms. So fuck you fascisies

>>13810464
>properly functioning democracy
What's that look like?

>>13810526
Athens, but full participation

>>13810643
>Athens, but full participation
Would it even works applied to a whole Nation ?

>>13810464
>>13810643
>Like Athens if it didn't work

You are actual evidence as to why women shouldn't vote.

> dude just let the central bank inflate your currency creating a bubble that triggers a crisis which results in a revolution among the political and economic overclass you know the kind that your bitter beta intelligentsia wants except you purge them afterwards

Democracy doesn't work
The vast majority of people are braindead retarded.
Let me clarify, no democracy will ever work. Regardless of the limits you put on voting. Only men can vote? Vast majority of men are retarded (albeit still a much lower ratio than women). Only landowners can vote? Vast majority of landowners are retarded. Only "intellectuals" can vote? Vast majority of intellectuals are retarded.
The only system that works is an incredibly authoritarian one. Stalinist Communism, Fascism, Monarchism etc are the only ideologies that even have a chance because they don't give half a shit what the dumb faggot masses think.

>dude just use CAPITAL LETTERS to BTFO people
How are OPs taken seriously?

t people who haven't read the book.

>>13810952
It's true that modern democracy leaves a lot to be desired, but I don't think humans have yet developed a superior system for choosing its leadership, frustrating as that fact is.

I cannot support any autocratic form of government because it just isn't beholden to the people in the same way. We all know that power corrupts, that's why those in power need to be answerable to the voters and an independent judiciary. Neither exists in an autocratic regime.

I know its a nice fantasy to think that having a king means he can make the hard, painful, and necessary decisions that no elected leader ever could. But this is just that, a fantasy. Does that happen in the autocracies that exist in the real world? It does not. Look at Venezuela where the country is run into the ground by corrupt thugs, look at Saudi Arabia where the monarchy will give the religious extremists anything to prevent an islamic revolution and is engaged in pointless proxy wars with Iran, look at China where corruption and environmental degradation are beyond out of control.

Are these places you want to live?

>>13810952
But the majority of authoritarians are retarded too.

>>13811037
True but in authoritarianism you might get the 1/50 chance of getting a smart leader instead of democracies where you have a 0 percent chance of the majority of people being smart.

>>13810979
>but I don't think humans have yet developed a superior system for choosing its leadership

>>13809862

>>13810643
>Athens
>functioning democracy
Lmao. Have you read any history books?
The greek democracy was the biggest joke ever. Even remarked as a period of decandence

>>13810979
You forgot to mention the USA. Do you think it's a coincidence that all the presidents are millionaires if not billionaires?

>>13810979
So you list a bunch of nigger countries that are unsuccessful without making note of the fact that the constituents of these states, the subjects, are niggers, not whites.

>>13810643
>Whats an example of a functioning democracy?
>This non-functional democracy if it was functional
At last, I have finally experienced true wisdom

>>13810726
Who needs nations?

>>13810952
We know why they’re “brain-dead”. The state raises them that way.

>>13810979
Who needs leaders? How many? Over what?

>>13811108
Have you read my post? No? Why are you responding to it if you can’t be assed to read it. Not even long.

>>13809862
because libs need to feel good about themselves and not admit their country is built off of blood and destruction

>>13810464
>>13810643
>>13812066
Kill yourself.

>>13809862
Better than Guns Germs and Steel I guess

>>13810979
>We all know that power corrupts, that's why those in power need to be answerable to the voters and an independent judiciary. Neither exists in an autocratic regime.
This meme sounds nice but it isn't true. Is power some kind of supernatural force that turns good people into bad/corrupt people, simply by its addition?

It's not that power corrupts. It's that corrupt people more often want power and are more willing to do whatever it takes to obtain it.

>>13812324
Leave butterfly alone.

She is one of us now

>>13809862

>>13812066
Yeah let’s go full schizo between who contributes to society and who makes decisions, how is anything bad going to happen?

>running a smallish enterprise (6000 staff) requires 8 layers of management
>governing a country or empire of hundreds of millions of people is so simple that a single man has already figured out how it works a mere 40 years into his life
always makes me kek

Anybody who tells you how politics works is only telling you how they wish it worked.

>>13810643
Pathetic and cringe

>>13810526
cybernetic society organised from the bottom-up with algorithmic catalysts maintaining integrity of psychological continuity

>>13814183
So what we already have.

>>13810952
The problem of democracy is that those who intend to inform the public to make informed decisions in the voting booth are exactly the ones that are incapable for seperating themselves from their own presuppositions and cultures of the time. The newspapers, media, the opinion leaders are all driven by some pre-existing logic or ideology. The people cannot be expected to inform themselves outside their own practical need for knowledge. This is why its meaningless to talk about intelligence as in being technically gifted. Intelligence is rising one self above the norms of society. Education wont do it, clearly. Newspapers definitely wont cut it. They have become tools of demoracy for democracy's sake, not for mans own sake. I am utterly disgusted by our state of society, and I see no chance for improvement. Intellectuals arent intellectual. The only sign of intellect really is recognizing how utterly dumb and uninformed we are. Democracy builds on a false notion that people are somehow informed. What a cruel, sick joke.

>>13810643
> full participation

you know that it was an ethnostate right? the only citizens were Greek male landowners with established families.

I read somewhere that part of the reason why the US picked countries like China and Saudi Arabia to do business with is because they're a dictatorship.
A dictatorship can make deals on behalf of entire nations and provide more stability and safety to investors.
So if someone lives in a developing nation freedom and democracy is not what they need.

>>13814168
Maybe that management grows like a cancer of stupidity.

>>13814168
> these problems are so complicated it's impossible to have good ideas about how to make them better.

this is a stupid argument to bring to any discussion.

luckily the person doesn't have to build the organization from scratch. it's already there. plus it's decentralized into independent states and cities.

>>13814214
>this is a stupid argument to bring to any discussion.
It's not the argument I made.

>>13809862
You missed the point. Not giving people the franchise fucks shit up. You can have an effective authoritarian dictatorship like in the 30s and open up the administration and economic sectors to all citizens. Its cliques, an administrative class, and massive economic repression that cause exclusive institutions and regression

>>13810643
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

>>13810643
>i stopped reading after the battle of salamis

>>13813647
The wermacht was an inclusive institution, this picture in and of itself embarrasses the OP

>>13809862
There is literally nothing wrong with catholic fascism.

>>13809862
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/08/shawn-rosenberg-democracy-228045

The Shocking Paper Predicting the End of Democracy
Human brains aren’t built for self-rule, says Shawn Rosenberg. That’s more evident than ever.

>Taking democracy’s place, Rosenberg says, will be right-wing populist governments that offer voters simple answers to complicated questions.

>Democracy is hard work and requires a lot from those who participate in it. It requires people to respect those with different views from theirs and people who don’t look like them. It asks citizens to be able to sift through large amounts of information and process the good from the bad, the true from the false. It requires thoughtfulness, discipline and logic.

>compared with the harsh demands made by democracy, which requires a tolerance for compromise and diversity, right-wing populism is like cotton candy. Whereas democracy requires us to accept the fact that we have to share our country with people who think and look differently than we do, right-wing populism offers a quick sugar high. Forget political correctness. You can feel exactly the way you really want about people who belong to other tribes.

>It’s easier to pledge allegiance to an authoritarian leader than to do the hard work of thinking for yourself demanded by democracy.

>>13811108
What legitimate history books refer seriously to "periods of decadence," fascist?

>>13810952
>be 16
k pal

True understanding comes from thinking of political systems as information processing architectures. Essentially the deciding power of the group needs to be reduced into a signal (a vote for instance) that allows everything behind the vote to be simplified into a simple publicly available datum.

Republics have several tiers of processing, so that general consensus transfers into votes for elected officials, and decisions from elected officials translate into more nuanced and rarified signals. Until ultimately a high level executive decision is made.

Authoritarian systems bypass this processing, instead cramming all the decision making into one or a few persons. The problem with that, abstractly considered, is the information bottleneck.

Planned economies fail for the same reasons. Free markets are distributed and allocated information locally as well as globally, in real time based on the actual transactions themselves. Whereas watching all these events and inducing the best possible values for each exchange requires near omniscience.

On the flip side, an "enlightened despot" has on occasion throughout history shown capable of cutting through all the deadlock and noise of a poorly coordinated political system. Sometimes you do need veto power.

>>13810643
Sortition is alright but I wouldnt' discount the advancements made to the constitutional design in the past millennia. Separation of powers, checks and balances, bills of rights, independent judiciaries, representation through election, presidential vetos, unitary executives etc are all great leaps forward.

>>13814240
You're 100% right. OP completely missed the point. Probably because he's not well versed in New Institutional Economics.

>>13810526
Athens had full participation.

>>13814870
>>New Institutional Economics
>METAMETAECONOMICS!!!

>>13809862
this book was a flaming shitheap

He kept taking shots at (((Diamond))) and saying that muh institutions actually created great societies while never bothering to ask where and why those institutions appeared. Truly a brainlet

>>13815021
whether or not the theory is true, OP is totally incorrect in his interpretation. to the point of brain-dead retardation

>>13814405
>Democracy is only for big brains
Commies on the suicide watch lmao

>>13815046
>never bothering to ask where and why those institutions appeared

The entire book is case studies, including microscale studies. His major study, "why is south america so fucked up when considering how much the peruvians and spanish had their shit together" basically plots the generation of institutions out of the hacienda and ecomienda systems. Did you even read the book?

>>13815077
that was not in there

>>13815089
It is not about the direct reference, he constantly mentions that type of microscales in many different countries with same theme. That is how he did generalization to deal with this awful but important question.

>>13815059
"ASS" is a perfectly legitimate criticism of any ASS book. Perhaps even the most perfectly crafted argument since Plato's Third-Man.
The real question is, can you refute OP's argument?

is this any good?

>>13815122
to be more specific I meant the very first appearance of these institutions
he shat on Diamond but glossed over why humanity needed them in the first place

Perhaps because people settled down and started farming, leading to bigger societies and divisions of labor that needed these institutions? I think the book could tie in with GGS rather than refuting it

It's been years since I "read" it (audiobook, that book does not lend itself well to that format) so I could be fuzzy on deets

>>13815153
No.
Stop reading liberals and academics.

>>13815065
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed." - Thomas Jefferson

It isn't a new idea.

>>13814405
>ONLY WE MAY OFFER SIMPLE SOLUTIONS!
>THE REACTION TO DEMOCRACY WHICH USES THE SAME METHODS CAN IN NO WAY HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH DEMOCRACY!!!
>>13815223
Good luck maintaining a total aristocracy while working 80 hours a week and getting redditstalked into SSRI heaven.

>>13815153

Its great and Deneens articles in First Things are ultra-kino. Can't wait for his next book, if he does a tour I want that autograph..

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/04/the-ignoble-lie

>>13815188
Ted was probably the most retarded smart guy I can think of.
Why did he think bombing things would stop technological progress.

>>13813735
>schizo
By being one in the same? You think that will be bad?

>>13814195
Do you know how to read? I didn’t type “exactly like Athens” now did I?

>>13814471
I am not supporting an elitist state, but a chain of autonomous townships. States lead to classism, poverty and war

>>13815474
Where did he say that was his immediate purpose or goal?
When you ASSume you make an ASS out of you and all other ASSes.

>>13815474
>Ted was probably the most retarded smart guy I can think of.
Asimov had guys like Ted pegged, especially the line about underappreciated and undersuccessful.

>>13810969
>Imagine being btfo by capital letters because your retard

Anyone got that amazing image of the African with the AK-47 reading the book in the OP?

That's true though. Nations that give their workers/commoners more control over their lives and influence over their nation's policies tend to be more successful than nations that just work their commoners to death to extract wealth from them.

The United States is failing right now because about 90% of the population exists to just work to boost the bottom lines of a bunch of mega-shareholders that are mostly exempt from taxation.

Institutions are incredibly important in creating a modern society. If you disagree with this you're fucking retarded.

>>13810526
A homogeneous people.

>>13816915
Just 4 u bb

>>13817740
explain the UK, US, France, Taiwan and Canada, then.

>>13810952
If women didn't vote, then we would have a better society, with lower taxes and higher birthrates (which would kill arguments for immigration).

>>13817765
...there's nothing to explain? Many Western countries fucked themselves over with immigration. America is constantly on edge of some extremist leader, Canada is already ruled by a despot, France is too far gone, UK is too far gone...

>>13817775
We would have lower standard of living as women would be de-incentivized to produce and innovate. Taxes would be higher for men as they would have to contribute more since women wouldn't be paying taxes. Also, we would need a stronger police state to stifle the suffrage movement. All together, not to good. Ressentiment!

>>13817775
"fewer" children

>>13817796
lmao these countries are some of the most prosperous in the world. you need to re-examine your world view, friendo.

>>13810952
Based and platopilled.

>>13817839
>women would be de-incentivized to produce and innovate
Are you implying they do now?

>>13817903
https://www.thoughtco.com/how-many-women-inventors-are-there-1992649

>Today, hundreds of thousands of women apply for and receive a patent every year. So the real answer to the question "how many women inventors are there?" is more than you can count and growing. About 20% of all inventors are currently female and that number should quickly rise to 50% over the next generation.

Three seconds in google lmao

>>13812726
Nick, this is your master Moldbug telling you to call it off. we've been infiltrated.

« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !mxvabIoSIE
« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!yvm0QrHZZJQ

Based on the replies in this thread, no one could tell the difference.

>>13817929
I guess that makes you a dumb nigger, then.

>>13817927
the virgin jaw

>>13812066
>Who needs nations?
read Dani Rodrik

>>13817839
>as women

>>13817775
>He thinks there’s an immigrant crisis
Go read something that challenges your faith, cornboy.

>>13817929
Because you don’t care

>>13817944
What is your thing again? You a left liberal? (Or just pretending?)

>>13817966
No. Answer the question

>>13818111
how don't you understand the need for nations? imagie being so naïve that you support fucking open borders.

>>13818121
Start with the Greeks, nationalist scumbo

>>13818200
Plato opposed democracy and the republic he proposed was vastly different than those of today and he by no means implied election or geographic representatives. Plato's republic is a justification of a benevolent dictatorship.

>>13810952
>humans are shit, so lets let a handful of humans decide everything for everyone else

How do you set up a system where only the non-braindead rule? Even if you were able to put it into motion, at some point the members of the Leviathan would just use its powers to change the selection system to allow the braindead in because it benefits them, unless you missed all those times oligarchs let their retarded children have position of power and it went down hill from there.

>>13818225
The Vatican from 500 ad to 1950 ad. It worked.

>>13818217
Plato wasn’t very bright.

>>13818238
I said non-braindead

>>13810952
Democracy doesn't work, and it is not really working. Elites decide everything everywhere. Democracy just means that they at least pretend to listen to masses and care about their opinion a bit. As a member of the masses I find that illusion better than no illusion at all.

>>13817927
Is this why accs aren't posting any more? The BTFO must have hurt.
It's not personal guys.

>>13809862
That's not what the book is about you inbred, it's about how solid institutions that aren't based on value exctraction of lower classes are the foundation to a prosperous nation.

Why do you people make these shit threads about books with reading them at all?

>>13819126
ASS

>>13816989
Yes and the free and democratic state of China is definitely progressing because of this.

>>13819150
Let me guess you didn't read the book either.>>13819150

>>13819160
>reading ASS

>>13817915
>may soon rise to 50%

>>13819174
What?

>>13819186
Stop Reading ASS!

>>13819159
First off China is still a very poor country. Yes they have a lot of glossy cities, but this is rapid urbanization highly subsidized by the state sector that's often carried out frantically. There are empty skyscrapers across China, because wealth is not growing as fast as everyone keeps hyping it is. Vice even did a video on this very subject a few years back. Large parts of China still live in poverty, and if Chinese workers start requesting better working conditions and higher wages those manufacturing jobs will just be sent to the third world to punish them.

Second, you're confusing formal democracies with countries that are actually democratic. The US gives the majority of its population very little control or influence over the structure of its economy, what the public treasury is spent on, foreign policy carried out by the US, or the structure of its healthcare system. The population that voted for Obama (and the public healthcare option he promised) had no control over Congress' decision to oppose the will of their own voters and make sure Obamacare was nothing more than a mandatory public buy-in of private insurance. The population of Detroit had no democratic say over the decision by GM to move manufacturing jobs to the third world and turn Detroit into an impoverished mess. The US population is also given no democratic control over the NSA's mass spying on of the American citizenry.

Another part of a truly free society is being protected from assailants, yet American workers are retaliated against for trying to unionize by their employers, which the government allows. Workers can also be fired for failing to meet productivity rates (which are already at historic highs), and can be laid off to reduce labor costs for companies (again, without democratic say over the decision).

The US is mostly run to extract wealth upwards, which would meet the author's definition of an unfree, extractionist society.

>>13817927
Seriously, the bullying against accelerationist members of this community is getting way out of hand, especially since accels are some of the biggest contributors, have the highest social intelligence, and are the most involved in this board. Its not just "memes" or "banter", its vicious attacking, and regardless of intentions it does demean people and hurt feelings. I can't say I'm the only accelerationist who finds it hard to take pride in his own Sinoism after having years of constant and needless attacks defaming my speed from insecure losers here. Why not bully Christians or Marxists? Do they not have much more to be ashamed of than our superior philosophy? Guenonfags and schizoposters get bullied less than us and yet we are the purest philosophy in the world.

Like when its not just banter, when a meme is repeated over and over again, repeated systematically, it eventually becomes a truth irregardless of the intentions in repeating it. And that isn't just jokes any more then, then its harmful!

Would you call an accelerationist a "tranny"(not true at all) to her face? Would you say to a kind, peaceful and scientific salt of the earth Chinese woman that they are "slower" than Western men? Would you say those words to your fellow futurist brethren? Are you starting to feel ashamed now? You fucking decelerationists?

Your destroying philosophy, your dividing capital against itself, your doing the opposite of what you claim to support when you engage in this incredibly abhorrent behaviour. So I encourage you to stop now.

> the core of his argument: Democracy is hard work and requires a lot from those who participate in it. It requires people to respect those with different views from theirs and people who don’t look like them. It asks citizens to be able to sift through large amounts of information and process the good from the bad, the true from the false. It requires thoughtfulness, discipline and logic.

Logic is key to being able to argue and reason but Logic is deprecated in the current social milieu. /pol/, Trump, religions and cults of all kinds weren't created in a day, it took a few generations after Logic was removed as core curriculum in schools. Schools went from building kids up to tearing kids down, from a place where knowledge and ability was imparted to a scheme for grading and sorting children.

>>13810643
>the original dimukrasi that killed socrates and was brimming with warmongering populism
neato

>>13810643

Did you never hear of Mytilene? How about the Sicilian Expedition?

i see what you are doing, i realized just now what you were talking about at the thread about the shooters and the thread about pascal. and i have to say that you are half right, that even if you werent it wouldn't matter because i would apply it the same. and that while reading those threads, i've understood others threads in other borads in a sole experience. and i have to say that i've seen how my mind is filled with filth from this place, how it has changed me, and that it's not worthy the insight i get with the filth that comes by the side. my sin was hubris, which remains invisible while you sin, and stops owning you after you see it, and then you don't have that sin because of all them it's hubris the one who works with ignorance and fades with enlightement. about the sin of wrath, i have to say that so far i've found very suscesful to indulge on it in inconsequential manners, like fantasy, idea and daydreaming, which i think is the best thing to do, for it soothes, and doesn't happen but in the home of the wrathful. the wrathful may go around sharing his wrath with others, putting it in them. there is nothing i despise more than that, nontheles, i did it. poison was put on me and, what i sweared never to do, i did: i put it in others. for the people of this site sakes, i left it, so that you fellow fourchanners don't get my poison. and for my own sake to, for i'm not been good for a couple years. i'm going to be done with the wrath, the springs of wrath, and the poison and them i'm going to do something to soothe people and indulge in fantasy, which is a healthy outcome for anything bad within oneself.

>>13814405
>Democracy is hard work and requires a lot from those who participate in it. It requires people to respect those with different views from theirs and people who don’t look like them.
Unless you are white and skeptical about immigrant, in that case you are a racist loser and deserve a bullet and to be denied your right to vote. Thanks friend.

>>13817929
How do I go about filtering these trips and anyone who responds to them?

>>13810952
>Stalinist Communism, Fascism, Monarchism
The last one is completelly different from the other two. Communism and Fascism accept the principal tenent of Democracy which is that the government serves the people. There are always factions in both communism and fascism and both survive Because there's a strongman on top willing to enforce purges.
In Divine Right Monarchy, nobody can do anything about the power of the King, and the King profits best of the people by granting them economic and cultural freedom. His Imperium is secure, no such thing as Purges at the Sun King's court.

>>13817929
>he doesn't as a rule filter out any tripfags not only by name but also by trip so as to prevent this very situation from occurring and thereby freeing himself from the mental malaise of having to deal with tripfags
The ABSOLUTE fucking STATE of brainlets.

>>13818225
I'm pretty far right and I unironically support a variant of what China (and the Vatican) are doing. Have a party, that acts as a spectrum from democratic to authoritarian as you go up the pyramid. At the bottom, anyone who wants to get involved can do so. There's Cadres at various ranks. Eventually you get the county/province/prefecture/whatever level Cadres, wherein everyone in a Cadre under that county/province/prefecture/whatever Cadre gets to vote on five members to send to the Legislature. From there, every member of this initial Cadre votes for (arbitrarily) 100 members to form an upper layer Cadre. The upper layer Cadre then votes for 5-10 members to be the Directory. Each Director, nominally, has the same powers but is granted a direction and mandate ("Director of Economics, Finance, and Accounting") for them to focus on. There are, of course, requirements to meet if you want to become part of the Directory (You can't be in charge of the Directory of Education if you haven't been an educator in some way).

>>13821159
i don't know what to think about such complicated things: i have gotten lost midway, but the very fact that you have come to contort such a thing, tells me that you care about people faring good, although you may not be capacited to do so. if you are inclined to oranization the caring for something will come in organigram form. some people are inclined to fix problems through control and organization, which is an outset of an overal sense of discontrol and impotence. anon, you may check the springs of the descontrol and de impotence so that you can do the things with clarity

>>13810077
This.

>>13809862
This kind of secular faith in democracy is bad for it. Democracy is just as error prone and corruptible as any other political system. Consider the tendency in democracy to exhibit polarizations, deadlocks, and counterproductive disharmony.

It's also an unexamined, deeply flawed assumption that crowdsourcing decision making matters about high level issues of statecraft is necessarily wise. Expertise and credentials are required for most important decision making. We would never trust mob rule to certain problems, and yet we delegate to it for ultimate decisions about how the country is run. Then stupid people vote stupid people into office who enact stupid policies, all because sheer numbers prevailed.

There almost certainly is a better way to do it than democracy. Dictatorship or fascism are obviously not the way, but a system with a little more foolproof would be perfect for a deadlocked country like America right now.

>>13821785
ASS