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What Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance, and Others Are Learning From Curtis Yarvin and the New Right (https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right-where-peter-thiel-is-placing-his-biggest-bets)
59

They keep using the word “post-left.” I don’t think it means what they think it means, given that I’ve always heard of it as a strand of anarchism.

There is a certain group of very online people who call themselves post left and they are a bit redbrown and specialize in bad takes, and chasing after young (often incel) boys who say 'based' a lot. So it now, like the word crypto, probably has multiple meanings. (E: the word redpill prob was better here in context, but also stuff like 'progressive left' has very different meanings depending on context. 'The progressive left put Rittenhouse on trail' is either what happened in reality (if you are a weird rightwinger) or said by somebody who is just making up anti left scare words). Amd as these people seem to thrive on negative attention from the bad takes they make spreading, I will not be giving examples.
and it turns out the red-brown podcasters were all the fucking op they appeared to be, quelle shocker
What happened?
I assume someone outed them as being funded? Faked? Wait, maybe this is referring to how one of them has a podcast with a Russian state network.
The[ long way around to libertarianism](https://i.imgur.com/ZoZBz7I.png). Hoo boy.
Once again, right-wingers co-opting socialist and anarchist language.
Eh, it can mean whatever anyone wants it to mean.

“His writing doesn’t really represent who he is,” Laurenson told me. “So I answered this email and I was just like, ‘Hi, I’m a liberal, but I have a high IQ. And I want kids, and I’m actually just really curious to talk to you.’” The two are now engaged.

On Yarvin…lol

There was a little press run that Moldbug got back in 2016 too, and it was the same ego massaging being done in this article. I know Thiel certainly has had some effect on policymaking, but to attribute that to a disparate gathering of effete ideologies seems way overinflated. Some of these people are just podcasters that got tired of playing poor “we represent the real America” individuals, and decided to try their hand at being socialites at conventions full of socially awkward weirdos. (No offense to anyone socially stunted, present company included)

I think Yves Smith over at naked capitalism had the best response "Every so often the press decides to try to make a bunch of young conservatives cool. It never succeeds, because they never are."
When NYT declared Ben Shapiro the "cool kids philosopher" after Trump came into office. One of the most ridiculous things I had ever read.
I saw that you mentioned Ben Shapiro. In case some of you don't know, Ben Shapiro is a grifter and a hack. If you find anything he's said compelling, you should keep in mind he also says things like this: >When it comes to global warming, there are two issues: is there such a thing as the greenhouse gas effect, the answer is yes. Is that something that is going to dramatically reshape our world? There is no evidence to show that it will. Is that something that we can stop? There is no evidence to show that we can ***** ^(I'm a bot. My purpose is to counteract online radicalization. You can summon me by tagging thebenshapirobot. Options: civil rights, climate, sex, history, etc.) [^More ^About ^Ben ](https://np.reddit.com/r/AuthoritarianMoment/wiki/index) ^| [^Feedback ^& ^Discussion: ^r/AuthoritarianMoment ](https://np.reddit.com/r/AuthoritarianMoment) ^| [^Opt ^Out ](https://np.reddit.com/r/AuthoritarianMoment/comments/olk6r2/click_here_to_optout_of_uthebenshapirobot/)

My heuristic that if Thiel is involved in something it will be in the service of evil is still holding up. Just wish the rat bastard hadn’t coopted all the names from Tolkien, who would have detested him.

And he clearly didn't learn anything from Tolkien. He certainly picked up a lot from Ayn Rand, late Heinlein, and Orson Scott Card

[deleted]

Last time this happened with the people trying the conservatism-is-cool bollocks with bits of the so-called alt right there was [You Are Not a Rebel](https://thebaffler.com/war-of-nerves/you-are-not-a-rebel) from Laurie Penny. It's pretty vicious about them.
That was one piece five years ago. There’ve been scores of those as linked above since then. I’ve not been keeping count but I’ve already read several this year. Notwithstanding, Penny’s article is in *The Baffler* (!!!), which is a completely different beast.
No, I agree with your general point. Sadly, they almost always go for the ghastly fawning pieces. I seem to recall there was even one about the utterly loathsome Matthew Heimbach.

I don’t know why I read all this

They’re literally just fascists and I already knew that

Small note, for all moldbugs pretentions of high iq and erudition, he is using the term dictator not totally correct. https://acoup.blog/2022/03/18/collections-the-roman-dictatorship-how-did-it-work-did-it-work/

Tl:dr; the OG dictators only ruled for a short period to fix a specific problem, had several checks and balances so they couldn’t grab total power nor change the rule of law, and when powerful men actually tried to change this and rule longer with more power it ended in disaster for them and the republic. (So yes, their plan to install a dictator and how they think this will prevent the ‘fall of rome’ period, is actually what caused the fall of the state capacity of the western roman empire. This is the problem with being an autodicact and not listening to ‘woke professors’. And don’t even get me started on the insane plan of ‘just fire all the bureaucrats’. I’m once again very happy that I don’t live in the USA).

Unrelated to that cant shake the feeling of this being a convention for nerds still trying to chase the cool jocks, who they will convince of their nerdy opinions any day now. (Labeling their nerdy shit as trumpism is probably also part of it).

Dictator has had various meanings through history. A modern dictionary gives three definitions, e.g.
I expect a grandmaster thinkonaut like Old Moldy to not use the most popular one obviously, esp as he is trying to save the USA from the fall of Rome. (I'm obviously also just being pretentious myself).
>he is trying to save the USA from the fall of Rome But the fall of Rome made the rise of the USA possible. Hastening such a fall so something even better has a chance would seem to be the logical choice.
Not a fan of accelerationism myself.
Obviously, nobody with any scruples *can* be an accelerationist, but Yarvin's hardly got that problem.
The "Fall of Rome"/Dark Ages myth is as persistent as it is pernicious. Poets call Rome "the Eternal City" for a reason - it never stopped existing, never stopped being a major center of cultural, intellectual, or political life.
Funny enough, Machiavelli argued in his 'Discourses' just this, that Caesar created a Rome that was left to the whims of whichever autocrat was in charge and people mistakenly blame the consequences of this act.
TBH, I think Machiavelli is wrong there, in that Caesar didn't create that Rome: He was just one of the guys who took advantage (and didn't even actually succeed, that was the work of dear Octavian)

More definition through obfuscation. These people despise MSM reporting but not so much they won’t talk on the record to Vanity Fair. And then when given a softball query - “Tell us how you’re different from a Regan-republican,” they reply, “Read Yarvin.” Who, btw, enough of these people would be eager to see institutionalized as a monarch. Ah, but only so long as it takes to “Right the ship.” After which the Programmer King retires to private life, spending quality time with the grand kids 🙄

Seriously. I don't know how they can talk about it with such a straight face.
Cincelnatus

Vomit.