Ch2a: The Emptiness of Supporting Political Causes

In his "Gray Mirror" Curtis Yarvin argues against political involvement, because all political action ends up supporting the regime. In "#2a: positive causes are vain and unaccountable" he argues against  the nuts and bolts of pro-regime politics.

Let's put the three points down in order. Yarvin says that "[P]ositive causes that become popular tend to be" 

1. unaccountable (not selected for plausibility), 
2. vain (selected for creating a sense of power and importance), and 
3. sycophantic (reinforcing the regime).

Obviously, the nearest-to-hand example of this is climate change. For instance, if global warming is a problem we might fix it with "global carbon emissions control" at a cost of $50 trillion versus a program of "geo-engineering" that would cost $50 billion. Obviously, global carbon emissions control wins in a landslide because it is "elegant... expensive... and more popular" than a boring old cloud-seeding program.

And nobody would know if the program would work, anyway. But the attraction of carbon control is clear.

Obviously, when you say we should emit less carbon, what you objectively mean is that you support power in forcing everyone to emit less carbon.

Clearly, the attraction of climate change policy is that it is a fantastic ego trip, just like a big war. Wow! Imagine converting the whole economy to fighting carbon! It's almost as cool as FDR sending the Greatest Generation all across the world to fight Nazis and Japs.

And, of course, such a program is unaccountable. A better word would be to use Karl Popper's notion of a good scientific theory being "falsifiable." Climate change politics fails this test; it is unfalsifiable. It only asks you to believe. This would be rather like blaming witches because the milk turns sour. And suppose you kill half the women in the nation as witches and the milk is still sour? When do you decide that your politics isn't solving the problem?

Or, maybe higher temperatures are a good thing: "higher agricultural yields; better weather up north; insurance against the next ice age…" But really, where is the excitement in "higher agricultural yields." Who is going to peacefully protest for "higher agricultural yields?"

I'd say that all political causes are unaccountable, and that's probably the best argument for limited government. We are always being asked to buy a pig in a poke. Which form of government is best? Which program will work? Doesn't matter what it is, the advocates will continue to argue for it forever and the opponents will argue against it forever, and there will never be true evaluation of its benefits. Or,

As I write, exuberant volunteers are trashing historical monuments (X) to help protect the underclass (Y).

What could go wrong?

And we should be unsurprised, when we see these complex chains between X and Y, to find that X also has some more immediate effect Z—which expresses power. Z often involves punishing, humiliating, or otherwise chastising the enemies of the regime.

Yep. That is always the funnest part of politics. Chastising the enemies of the regime. Until the shoe is on the other foot, of course.

And that's the problem with a guy like me. I really don't want to teach those nice liberal ladies up the street a lesson. OK, I might like to show them how the statement "Science is Real" shows a lamentable ignorance about science.

But if everything comes down in the end to punishing the enemies of the regime, then ordinary people might wonder what use the regime is to them. I mean, if you are not into punishing, either on the front end or the back end, what is the point of politics and the power of the regime?

Maybe the best in life is to go off into a corner and invent a fusion-powered spaceship to fly to Mars. That wouldn't be unaccountable, because it would either work or not; it wouldn't be vain -- well, just a little bit; and it wouldn't be sycophantic to the regime -- why it might help people escape the regime.