Will There Be a Third Imperial Age?

We are at the end of the Second Imperial Age, dominated by European powers who determined that land "designated terra nullius (“no-one’s land”) could be taken" -- should be taken. Writes John Lloyd of "the Financial Times and co-founder of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford."

They did so in pursuit of precious metals and stones, for settlement and defence (of other lands already seized), for points of supply to their ships, in order to demonstrate their power, and [to Christianize the heathen.]

Actually, the imperial age started with the Portuguese and the Brits trading with India, because it was cheaper to run the new ocean-going sailing ships around the Cape of Good Hope to India and back than pay for the camels and taxes of the overland route through Arabia etc. Indeed I had it confirmed from a guide in Jaisalmer, in the desert of western India a couple years ago, that the whole place went to the dogs once the Portuguese and the Brits appeared on the scene. Nobody needed their stinkin' camels and gorgeous havelis any more. So John Lloyd got it a bit wrong.

Yes, there was a lot of terra nullius argument where the humans in question were pre-agricultural hunter-gatherers or horticulturalists. But not in India and China.

Where India was concerned the Brits were forever dealing with the predatory robber lords just out of town of Calcutta or Madras. Like the Maratha Confederacy. Or the princes just up the road from Bombay in Pune, who were no doubt advised by the Brahmin ancestors of Seattle Brahmin politician Kshama Sawant.

The point is that the Brits weren't in India to loot and plunder it. They were there to trade.

But, of course, the Brit ruling class still lived in a feudal culture. So in due course you got Brit imperialists in India saying, up at the Royal Simla Club in the usual haze after tiffin, "Good Lord chaps, we've got to pacify Afghanistan before the Russkies get there."

It is my belief that the old order of loot and plunder is over. The reason is simple: wealth no longer adheres in land and "precious metals and stones," but in intangible capital, ideas and processes that create the stuff we buy in stores and the SUVs we take it home in. After World War II the Soviets looted and plundered eastern Germany of all its physical capital, factories and machines, and took the whole caboodle off to Russia. How did that turn out, Tovarich Brezhnev? Yeah. German per-capita GDP in 2018: $46, 241; Russia per-capita GDP: $11,289.

All we need is for our politicians and activists to catch up with us, and stop playing at chimp border warfare.

The point of empires is to send the Roman legionaries out for loot and plunder and bring the plunder and the slaves back to Rome and parade them through the streets in a Triumph. And it worked a treat for the Romans until the borders of the Roman Empire were so far from Rome that the old system didn't work any more, probably because the slaves all died on the journey back to Rome.

Now that the US is withdrawing from its post-WWII imperialism, John Lloyd writes, we may be at the dawn of a new imperial age dominated by China and Russia.

Russia’s authoritarianism and China’s totalitarianism (the second a harder version of the first), now allied, present a formidable front of two states dedicated to increasing their global power, in a fashion increasingly similar to the imperial strategies of Europe.

Now President-for-almost-life Putin is a former KGB guy, and President-for-life Xi is a Commie apparatchik. What the heck do they know about the modern world?

Most likely they are like the Brit chaps at the Club up in Simla in the 1830s worrying about Russkies after tiffin. Or they are like the idiots-all-round in the run-up to World War I. They only know politics and political power. They do not understand that wealth and power do not come from a big fat empire with ostrich-feather hats and impressive parade uniforms, or from regime-sponsored "activists" painting the streets with trite slogans. Or from gubmint programs that take from productive people to give to regime supporters.

But the problem is that, if you are a politician or an activist, the only thing you know is the game of political power. If the game of political power and empire is over, passé mon vieux, what does the poor wren do then, poor thing?

Well, that is what we are setting up the bleachers right now to find out. My feeling is that Russia and China are backing the wrong horse. I think that Russia and China are going to find out that the the whole world will combine against them. Because whether you are Vietnam or the Philippines or Australia or Japan or Crazy Rich Asians in Singapore, or the poor bloody Germans in Central Europe, you don't want to be under the thumb of some thug Commie bastard from Beijing or Moscow.

And, of course, now we don't care about Mid-East oil any more, because fracking. Yay frackers!

No, the Big Problem of the coming era is what to do with people that have a mania for social moralizing. See, I think that primitive men were all about defending the border -- or looting the neighbors -- and primitive women were all about naming and shaming and shunning that awful witch living alone just out of town.

I think that we have about pacified men and taught them to fight for market share instead of their share of slaves. But women? 

The problem is a bit like the problem with Harvard graduates: You can always tell a Harvard man; you just can't tell him anything.

Just Who Are Those Horrible Systemic Racist White Supremacists?

As we watch all the mostly peaceful protesters protesting against systemic racism and proposing to defund the police, we have to wonder. 

Just who are the monsters, the patriarchs, the white supremacists, the systemic systemists, the racists, of which we've heard tell?

Are they privileged corporate CEOs? No. Everyone from Amazon to Walmart has clearly declared their support for Black Lives Matter, and some have actually paid good money to back up their words.

Are they privileged college professors? Heavens No! College professors are all down for the movement, and are willing to DIE on the cross of Diversity, Inclusions, and Equality: for Blacks, and maybe for the odd Hispanic and certainly for all the non-cis-gendered in their many LGBT flavors.

Are they writers and intellectuals? Certainly not! The whole point of the Harper's Wet-Noodle Manifesto was for the intellectuals to declare themselves firmly on the side of the GoodWhites and absolutely opposed to President Trump's assault on democracy.

Are they Hollywood types? No indeed. In fact Hollywood is so determined to get woke that it looks like you ain't gonna work in this town again if you are a middle-aged white guy.

Are they root'n toot'n feminists demanding that that the marginalized women down the ages have the right to own their own bodies? I can't believe you said that. Feminists demand that marginalized women have the right to choose just like well-born academic women.

Are they nice liberal ladies preening themselves behind a forest of social-moralizing yard-signs of the #WeBelieve and #BlackLivesMatter variety? Absolutely not. Nice liberal ladies always take care to model the proper moral attitude.

Are they the activist college kidz that we see marchin' and protest'n in mostly peaceful protests across this great land and that are absolutely not spreading WuFlu with their protests? Of course not. You must be crazy to think that the kidz, perfectly programmed by two decades of regime propaganda, would have a white supremacist bone in their bodies.

So obviously there is something really weird going on. Some Deep Thinking is required.

Let's get a little more intellectual and apply this question to my reductive Three Peoples theory or Curtis Yarvin's Three Layer "Clear Pill" notion.

Are we talking about the educated Gentry or my People of the Creative Self as the cause of all this Police Brutality and white supremacy? No indeed. The Gentry is all down for the movement, committed to Justice for the historically marginalized.

Are we talking about the Clients, the Victims, or my People of the Subordinate Self. Certainly not! They are the very people that have been enslaved and enserfed and dominated and marginalized since the Dawn of Time and very likely earlier and for whom all good people demand Justice and an end to Police Brutality!

Then, we must be talking about the Commoners, the People of the Responsible Self, that obey the law, go to work, and follow the rules.

Really? Now I don't claim to know everything, just almost everything. And I cannot see how the average Commoner can be the guy that's to blame for all the problems of the world.

You know why? Because he doesn't have any power. He doesn't have any privilege. He can be fired in a moment for an ill-considered comment. Nobody pays no nevermind to his opinions and his beliefs. And as for his clothes and his baseball caps! Darling!

Let us create an image of this guy. He is the guy that you see in a Trump rally that forms the backdrop of Trump's performance.

Does he have more privilege than a CEO?

Does he have more privilege than a college professor?

Does he have more privilege than a famous writer?

Does he have more privilege than a Hollywood producer, or even a Grip, whatever that is?

Does he have more privilege than a feminist?

Does he have more privilege than a nice liberal lady?

Does he have more privilege than a mostly peaceful protesting college kid?

The question answers itself.

Now this notion, this scapegoat for all the sins of the world, goes back to the original Marxian narrative, in which noble educated youth and helpless proletarians would unite to scupper the bourgeoisie that was hell-bent on immiserating the working class due to the inevitable workings of classical economics and the neo-feudal instincts of the capitalists.

Of course, the Marxian narrative was just an update of the scapegoat of primitive humanity as outlined by Rene Girard in Violence and the Sacred.

It had a point, back in the day, when the bourgeoisie and even the petite bourgeoisie, whatever that is, were a minority compared to the masses of workers. Yeah! They were an exploitative minority that was exploiting the workers. Down with the capitalists!

But today, I'd say, this narrative has passed its sell-by date. Because, for one thing, the middle class Commoners are probably a majority of the adult population. I'd say that a politics that blames a majority of the population for all the sins of the world is probably heading for a bruising.

I mean. Suppose a politician came along and told the middle class Commoners that they were the greatest people in the greatest nation in the world and that the Stuck-ups in the Swamp and the criminals in the streets were the guys that were really to blame for all the sins of the world.

Now I don't know where such a politician might come from or what he would look like. No Idea!

But you can see that there is an opportunity there for some courageous and adventurous soul that is not afraid to incur the wrath of all the Great and the Good.

Look, this scapegoat thing is as old as the hills. We humans have been doing the Scapegoat Waltz since whenever. But to compose a new tune to the Scapegoat Waltz and push it to the top of the hit parade. Well, that takes talent. And also a lightning strike.

What do you think?

The Crimes of the Wet-Noodle Manifesto Signers

Yesterday I sneered at the nice liberal signers of the Harper's Manifesto. But now I want to cut a bit deeper. And I echo Angelo Codevilla, who calls the current political regime a "Scamocracy in America." He refers to "the long-running race and poverty scam, the education scam, the environmentalist scam, the sex scam, the security scam, and now the pandemic scam".

All have been based on propositions touted as scientific truth by the most highly credentialed persons in America—experts certified by the U.S government, enshrined by academia as science’s spokesmen, and fawned upon by the media working in concert to forbid any disagreement on the matter whatsoever. Yet virtually all their propositions have turned out to be false, and indeed have produced effects opposite to those claimed.

 Or, as I like to say, our ruling class has made things worse. Actually, I divide the "scams" of the ruling class into two categories, the Left's Crimes and the Left's Errors.

Under the Left's Crimes I adduce that:

1. The left led the workers into the wilderness
2. The left led women into the wilderness
3. The left led minorities and LGBT into the wilderness

The left separated all these folks away from full membership and allegiance to the nation state. And that is a crime because the nation state is the best thing going until the planet unites to battle the Trisolarians from Alpha Centauri.

Under the Left's Errors I adduce that the following programs do not work. But nothing is done to reform them.

1. Social Security
2. Medicare
3. Medicaid
4. Public Schools
5. Welfare
6. Economic Regulation
7. Racial Preferences

There is a reason why nothing is done to reform them. It is that you cannot reform government programs, not until they collapse and run out of money.

But then I have written about "The Six Worst Injustices of the Liberal Domination,"

1. The liberal ruling class has confirmed workers and peasants in their pre-urban tribal, racist, subordinate culture
2. The liberal ruling class has attacked and marginalized the middle class
3. The liberal ruling class has wrecked education
4. The liberal ruling class has wrecked health care
5. The liberal ruling class has wrecked retirement
6. The liberal ruling class has wrecked charity

Want some more? How about "The Left's Syllabus of Errors, Part One."

1. The French Revolution
2. The socialist communities, like New Harmony.
3. Marxian economics
4. Top-down administrative government
5. Interventions to favor the left's Little Darlings, from workers to women to minorities to LGBT
6. War on religion
7. War on the nation state
8. Support or large-scale migration
9. Climate change
10. Oh, and Postmodernism

The point, and I do have one, is that the problem with the left is its worship of political power, the faith that justice rides on the back of political power, wielded by the right people.

But humans are social animals; we thrive by reducing the amount of force, because force is destructive and expensive. That is the point of all social animals, to reduce force. And the Great Enrichment of the last 200 years has demonstrated that we can transform the world without politics by letting nobodies define the future with technological and non-political innovation, penalizing people only for untrustworthiness and failure to contribute.

Meanwhile, here are the Four Stages of Marxist Takeover, from a KGB-trained Russian, Yuri Bezmenov:

1. Demoralization
2. Destabilization
3. Crisis
4. Normalization, with a "new normal."

The good thing is that you can stop the process anywhere you want.  And, it seems to me, that the Brinton Thesis, in Anatomy of Revolution, is that the Crisis is also the point where the Thermidorean Reaction takes over. Why? Because people cannot live forever in the white heat of a revolutionary Reign of Terror.

Most normal people want to live normal lives, working and wiving and thriving.

Hey, isn't it great that we have a Trump here in America and not a Kerensky, as the Russkies had in 1917. It's another proof of God's existence. Or, as Bismarck is supposed to have said: "There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children and the United States of America."

The Usual Suspects and Harper's Wet-Noodle Manifesto

Earlier this week, on July 7, 2020, the unwoke sector of the educated Gentry issued what I would call a Wet-Noodle Manifesto through the website of Harper's magazine. 

All the usual suspects have signed the manifesto: from Margaret Atwood, she of the clueless Handmaid's Tale; to Deirdre McCloskey, whose helpful Bourgeois Era books dissolved in the end into LGBT advocacy; to Gloria Steinem, she who needed a man like a fish needed a bicycle, but ended up marrying a rich guy.

And so on. The only signer that I half respect, as someone that mildly rows against the current, is John McWhorter.

The manifesto starts by praising the mostly peaceful protests following the death of a career criminal during his arrest  -- and makes no mention of riots and looting. This man allegedly passed a fake $20 bill and, if you believe the postmortem, was suffering from heart disease and various comorbidities and had high levels of the post-heroin drug fentanyl and other mind-altering drugs in his body.

Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts.

Let's translate that shall we?

Regime-sponsored rioters and looters have demanded we turn the clock back on sensible "broken-window" police reforms and further break the spirit and letter of the Civil Rights Acts of the Sixties with straight-up racist quotas and jobs for gentry.

 Then we get to Donald Trump:

The forces of illiberalism are gaining strength throughout the world and have a powerful ally in Donald Trump, who represents a real threat to democracy.

Just what planet are you usual suspects living on? I presume this is really saying that Donald Trump represents a threat to supra-nationalist educated gentry in "education, journalism, philanthropy... the arts" and global corporations. as in:

All across the world nationalists and populists are rising to political power, representing in general the ordinary middle-class commoners that get short shrift from the educated gentry in the ruling class that has plans to rise to glory on huge programs of political power from tackling climate change to continuing the failed program of international development. These populists are threatening jobs for gentry.

Listen, usual suspects. Donald Trump rose to power by beating more than ten other Republicans in a fair fight. Then he beat Hillary Clinton in the general election by concentrating on winning Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The Rust Belt states are home to millions of people that have not done well in the last 50 years. Meanwhile the Obama administration was spying on Trump's campaign using the "intelligence community" and a faked up "dossier" provided to them by an agent of a foreign power.

Hey, remember when Nixon spied on the Democrats, using not the intelligence community but a few ex-cops and former IC guys?

Then, usual suspects in the ruling class have spent three years conducting an unprecedented campaign to destroy President Trump personally and politically. And you say it is President Trump "who represents a real threat to democracy."

I don't know what Kool-Aid you usual suspects are drinking, but the biggest lesson I ever learned about politics was from a Greek friend expatiating on the end of the dictatorial rule of the Greek colonels. What was needed, he said, was for the center-right to win the election and for the left to accept the result and then for the left to win the following election and for the right to accept the result. 

That, usual suspects, is the basic ground rule for "democracy." Do you understand what I mean? It means that when the other guys win the election, your candidate steps up and concedes, and says "we are all Americans" and we all revere the same Declaration of Independence, the same Constitution, and the same Founders.

But you chaps have contested the last two change elections, in 2000 and 2016, when your guys were voted out in a normal change election. That, usual suspects, is "a real threat to democracy."

But you will talk to a thousand usual-suspect gentry liberals before you will find one that understands such a basic notion.

I've been reading and commenting on Curtis Yarvin's work-in-progress Gray Mirror in recent days. He proposes that political action, for or against the regime, is meaningless, because the regime always wins. "Detachment" is what he recommends, doing something orthogonal to the power regime.

I've been worried that there is something missing in his analysis. And I am coming to think that the missing link is that he assumes that the ruling class is functional, knows what it is doing.

But what can you say about a ruling class whose usual suspects put out a Wet-Noodle Manifesto like the one they put out this week?

You say that they really don't have a clue. That they are like the ancien régime in France in the middle of the 18th century, fumbling and bumbling from one cock-up to another.

Then, you say, someone is going to knock over these Klueless Klots some day soon, and it might as well be us.

Then, of course, the educated gentry will have to get a real job.

Ch2b: The Frivolity of Opposing the Regime

In his "Gray Mirror" Curtis Yarvin argues against political involvement, because all political action ends up supporting the regime. In "#2b: negative causes are frivolous and doomed" he argues that dissident activity just ends up making the regime more powerful.

OK, so we are agreed that "people who volunteer for positive causes tend to be signing up to stroke their own vanity by serving unaccountable power." But whatabout noble dissidents? We are trying to #Resist! Right?

On the contrary, says Yarvin. "Resistance is useless—at best. In fact, you probably do more for the regime as a dissident than a volunteer." That's because the opponent of a regime almost always plays a cartoon villain. A regime has its narrative, and if you are opposing it you will almost certainly become its "stage villain." The example Yarvin proposes is:

It’s as you lived in 15th-century Paris and thought the Church was very corrupt and bad—but there was no alternative. You couldn’t be a cool Enlightenment philosophe or at least just a Protestant. Because it was the 15th century. And there weren’t even words for these things.

Back then, if you opposed "God, King and Church" there was only one role for you: Satan. Oops. The right thing to do would be to "invent Calvin or Voltaire," which would be something orthogonal to the regime narrative. Hey kids! Nothing to it!

So now Yarvin goes into the tall grass illustrating the three kinds of roles that dissidents play, and why they don't work.

Voyeur/Consumer This kind of person is like the sports fan watching TV. You can yell and scream all you like, but it doesn't make any difference. In fact, you are a consumer of political pornography, and pornography is a craft, not an art. You can get off on it, but it doesn't produce any children.

And this illustrates the difference between engagement and detachment. If you are detached you can appreciate the skill of the political porn craftsmen: how they stimulate the emotions.

Sucker/Saboteur This is the guy whose action has the opposite effect from the intended effect. The sucker is the guy that gets to play the stage villain in the regime morality play. Obviously, he is serving the regime, because he is proving to the multitude the truth of the regime's narrative. And so he is a saboteur, harming the cause of opposing the regime, because it is very hard to oppose the regime without becoming part of its morality play and playing the villain. And you know what always happens to the villain...

Player/Operator Here's the problem. If you decide to oppose the regime from outside you are helping the regime, because a regime needs enemies. Only when it is low on enemies does it resort to making them up, like "imaginary conspiracies, unstable teenagers, straight-out madmen, etc." Not to mention far-right white supremacists! So if you organize a cell to oppose the regime, you are doing it a favor. Hey, the regime should be paying you to oppose it! (Hmm. Doesn't the regime more or less "pay" BLM to oppose it?)

Then, of course you can infiltrate the regime and try to destroy it from within. But that doesn't work either. Yarvin quotes Vaclav Havel to the effect that once an opponent infiltrates the regime enough to do some damage he will either

be ejected by the power structure like a foreign organism, or he will be compelled to resign his individuality gradually, once again blending with the automatism and becoming its servant.

 In other words, the regime, like any organism, is programmed to keep itself alive. It detects foreign organisms and either kills them or neutralizes them. Which makes sense.

I suppose that what Curtis Yarvin is saying is that if you want to change the world you can't be playing the regime's game of power. You have to be playing another game. That, I think, is what Yarvin means by "detachment."

But whatabout successful revolutions? I suppose the main thing about them is that they happen when the regime runs out of money. As in France in 1789. As in Russia in 1917. As in Germany in the hyperinflation after World War I. And our regime hasn't run out of money. Not really close.

But then, I look at our present situation, and I'd say that the question of who is the regime and who isn't is a good question. Yes, you could say that the media, education, Hollywood, mega-corporations are all united. And they can cancel you at will. But, how powerful are they? Because they are involved in a game to fool the American people into thinking that down is up, that advocating for helpless victims is more than just the rulers dealing themselves a big helping of power, and not helping the victims one bit. When President Trump invokes our national heroes carved into the rock of Mount Rushmore, and making the Democrats and the media into cartoon villains, which is up and which is down?

And here's the thing that I come back to. All the great changes of the last 200 years have been effects of nobodies inventing new stuff that changed the world, completely orthogonal to the regime, and that took the regime by surprise. Maybe that is what Yarvin is talking about. If you are an Elon Musk building rockets to go to Mars, or Curtis Yarvin inventing a new software environment with his Urbit, there is no telling what the outcome might be.

And the politicians and regime supporters will be the last to know.

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. 

Ch2: The Emptiness of Political Action, For and Against the Regime

In the first chapter of his "Gray Mirror" Curtis Yarvin "marketed" his idea of "detachment." Now he's going to "argue" it, in "#2: The Action Imperative."

Kant, he says. The Categorical Imperative: that "everyone should act as if their actions formed a universal rule whose results are best for everyone." Early game theory. But suppose Kant was wrong?

Well, not exactly wrong. 

By default, you should still give up on politics, power, and even persuasion—because there is no obvious and realistic Kantian action...

You’re done trying to change the world. You quit that job. It didn’t seem to be working, anyway.

So what Yarvin is saying is that there is no action in politics that could form a universal rule whose results are the best for everyone. If that is true, then what?

Detachment. That's what.

Suppose you want to change the world, and you come up with an idea to change the world and you start to implement it. But there's a problem. There is no check and balance to make sure that you will actually change the world for the better. You idea is unaccountable. That is Bug One.

In fact, the way that politics works, the only ideas to change the world that get implemented are ideas that flatter the ambition and vanity and increase the power of the regime. And they have to be exciting. Who ever heard of a successful political idea that wasn't exciting? That's Bug Two.

So, the only useful ways to change the world are ideas that don't "generate power."

But whatabout an idea that "involves resisting an evil regime?" Problem is that you will almost certainly end up failing and adding to the power of the regime. This is called, in software development, "thrashing," trying to solve a bug without a strategy for solving it.

Actually, once you feel yourself thrashing, the right thing to do is always to step away from the keyboard—then lift or surf or run or something. There’s at least half a chance you’ll solve the problem before you get back.

I agree. Whether it's software or ideas. The best thing is to step away. Sooner or later your unconscious will solve the problem.

And, as a dissident, what is the point of adding to the power of the regime?

OK, let's put the arguments down in black and white:

On side A, we assert that positive causes are (a) unaccountable—not selected to be capable of achieving their ultimate goals; (b) vain—selected to maximize expression of power, real or apparent.

On side B, we assert that negative causes are (a) doomed—almost never capable of achieving even their proximate goals; (b) frivolous—selected to maximize their sense of excitement. 

Do you see why "detachment" is the answer?