Nilsi

Paradoxical conceptions like "rational mysticism" or "egaltiarian fascism," that tease out a higher order synthesis - which is much closer to what Zizek does, than to collapsing everything into neuroscience, or whatever the hell youre doing.

So a critic? The problem is that you speak on things, you know nothing about. He is not a post-modernist - he is more of a post-structuralist/semiotician - and he has a clear goal, which is subverting the ruling ideology. Fair, he is not teaching "jailbreaking your mind," but neither are you. His deconstruction and cultural analysis is miles ahead of your naive selective scepticism.

What you have just described is not meta-modernism, but modernism. Meta-modernism is precisely all the new stuff that emerges from this assembly of perspectives, not the common denominators between them. Your notion of "holism" and "balance" are basically scientific-rationalism.

Cringe.

As it should be. Zizek is a critic, not a leader.

I dont think he has a plan for that. He would probably say "whatever comes out of revolution is better than accepting ruling ideology."

Please!

"The only way to truly change the world is to make a break with it, to totally reject the existing order and its values, and to embrace a new mode of social organization that is based on equality, freedom, and solidarity." "Revolution is not just a change in the system, it is a change in our very way of life, a break with the old order and the creation of something radically new." "The true task of revolution is not just to overthrow the old order, but to create a new one, a society that is truly free, equal, and just." "Revolution is not just about changing the structure of society, it's about changing the way we think and feel about ourselves and our place in the world." "Revolution is not a one-time event, it is an ongoing process of struggle and transformation, a constant effort to create a better world." "The point of revolution is not just to seize power, it is to fundamentally transform the social relations that underlie power itself."

Because they dont care. They spend more time thinking about what movie to watch on Netflix tonight, than on how a well functioning society should be structured, let alone about ideals like Justice, Beauty, Truth... - 99% (Im being very generous) of humans are literally animals that need to be ruled by an elite.

In the "Third Attractor" series on Rebel Wisdom.

I dont think any of these are necessary. Were already seeing it. Who is getting their deepest values met nowadays? Maybe 1 in a 1.000.000. Why is there no revolution or upheaval then? Because people are sedated by entertainment, junk food, drugs, etc. - they are comfortable enough, to not feel the need to go out of their way and demand a more ideal state of affairs. The argument against benevolent dictatorship is that everybody wants to be in that position, creating a constant struggle for power, which forces the dictator to allocate a large amount of energy and ressources into maintaining his power - which in turn takes away from him asserting his ideal state. This is no longer true when 99% of people dont even care, let alone actively resist, whats going on politically. My goal is not to give everybody "true satisfaction" via leveling the playing field and abolishing power dynamics - thats what Schmachtenberger wants to do. My goal is to justify the struggle and suffering of people via grand artistic and scientific achievements. - and fascism lends itself well for that (thats what we can argue: is centralized or decentralized governance more effective at creating great cultural breakthroughs? - I think theres arguments either way).

We could talk about eugenics and Platos republic here - we can carefully breed the Übermensch, in a fascist society. In a democracy this wouldnt be possible. Thats step two - after we assembled the ideal genome. Not that hard to satisfy people needs and values via technology and entertainment nowadays. I understand the game theory behind it, but in a society with unlimited entertainment, I dont think the leadership position would be that sought after. If shit hits the fan, theres always the noble lie we could tell to justify the hierarchy. Also, this need not last, as far as Im concerned. A few years/decades of this system would already be worth the hassle. They are not getting fucked though. If they care about human flourishing, they will be satisfied with the high culture and art, the master race produces; if they dont, they will rot away in the metaverse anyways and not cause any problems.

Thats fair. Hes good for making you question your cultural and ideological presuppositions, but hes not really affiriming anything of substance (besides that we should start a revolution) and certainly nothing Divine.

Get what done? I would rather we have a few bright stars, that bless us with high culture and art, than an egalitarian soup of mediocrity. Of course, good governemnt has some basic goals like continuing the survival of the species, educating the populous, putting food in everyones mouth etc. but beyond that, it can go many directions.

I wouldnt say that. Im for Truth first and foremost and after that Im for high culture and aesthetics, which is why Im a bit of a fascist I guess.

Its tricky to talk about this, as its so abstract. What does it look like for AI to do governance? I have no idea lol. Something like that is what hes proposing, in any case.

Works well is a bit of a stretch lol. I dont think one is generally better than the other, I just prefer dictatorship aesthetically.

Thats what I was saying. He used GPT-3 as an example of this.

I'm just presenting Schmachtenberger's position, as I understand it. I'm for dictatorship. In any case, you have some serious blindspots regarding exponential technology - show me that you've factored those in your political analysis and I will take it seriously.

I think you're vastly underestimating exponential technology. In a world of tabletop CRISPR, AI superintelligence, nanobots and so on, you can't trust humans with the responsibility of governance. All it takes is 1 fuck up and we're done. Do you really want to trust some fucking social media addicted, obese, sweaty ape, that has slept 4 hours last night, because he watched a horde of apes throw a ball across a field, while stuffing himself with pizza and bears... do you want to trust that guy with administrative work, regarding the proper classification of say pathogen research, which any psychopath with a bioengineering degree could turn into a synthetic supervirus in his basement -- because that's the reality you're proposing. And that's 5 years, not 500.

How? We mostly have manufactured demand and consent. This is where it's starting to get complex already - of course we need to make sure that people aren't corrupted and governed by perverse incentives and market forces -- calling what we currently have democracy is laughable. The people will only add unnecessary noise. If we assume, we have properly represented the will of the people (of course, that get's us into the whole "the map is not the territory" AI alignment problem), there is no need to let human ambiguity interfere with delicate and complex operations. He was literally talking about GPT-3.

Bureaucracy is literally the arch nemesis of collective action, especially as things become increasingly complex. What he wants to do is educate and develop the populous, let them set the agenda/values/priorities, have that be the basis for AI alignment, and have that AI educate and govern the people. And so on in a virtuous cycle. At least, that's the only concrete example of collective intelligence he's given. The obvious problem here is that you need an educated populous to begin with As far as I'm concerned, it's way more realistic to get 1 person to the necessary level of development and have that person assert their will and intelligence on the world.

What makes Daniel Schmachtenberger's notion of "collective intelligence" i.e. decentralized distributed governance more appealing to you, than Malice's so called anarchism (if it is)? Of course this presupposes a highly educated and developed majority, but if that's not the case, the only other option to handle the complexity of the 21st century is some kind of benevolent Übermensch dictator - and I'm not convinced any one agent is intelligent enough, not to fuck this up spectacularly (as Xi and Putin clearly demonstrate -- although the label benevolent obviously doesn't apply here).

I didn't think you could do one. Good for you. Now be reasonable and do something like 20-30min a day.

Making them an extension of your will.