American far-right political theorist and computer scientist
Curtis Yarvin (born June 25, 1973), also known under his pen name Mencius Moldbug, is an American computer scientist and quintessential political theorist of the neoreactionary movement. He is also creator of the Urbit computing platform and, currently, authors primarily the Gray Mirror blog.
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The basic grim truth that Americans need to face up to is that American successes and victories in the 19th and 20th centuries did not happen because of America's unique political system. They happened despite America's unique political system. America became great not because American democracy was great, but because America was a great people in a great place. As such, it was uniquely resistant to the poison of democracy, and alone survived its own disease. Now that the bloom is off the continent's youth, we can see how well American democracy works in a normal country. Others have experienced this disappointment; now, it is our turn.
The war in Iraq is an American civil war by proxy. The real prize of this war is political power in the United States. If the US military wins, the Republicans win. If the US military loses, the Democrats win. We saw the exact same thing in Vietnam, and given that, in general, the Republicans are the Democrats' punching bag, the result is pretty inevitable.
The First Republic was the Congressional regime, which illegally abolished the British colonial governments. The Second Republic was the Constitutional regime, which illegally abolished the Articles of Confederation. The Third Republic was the Unionist regime, which illegally abolished the principle of federalism. The Fourth Republic is the New Deal regime, which illegally abolished the principle of limited government.
One interesting case of an ideal shared by both the 1930s Nazis and the 2007 Progressives is the Environment. Nazi environmentalism was definitely a different thing from ours, but the family resemblance is clear, and although environmentalism was hardly the most important part of the Nazi program it perhaps provides a window into their worldview… Is it so impossible to imagine Environmentalism being used as the basis for mass murder?
[A] free, prosperous democratic society is like a person who's so strong and healthy he can take a dose of arsenic every day—or at least, every four years—and still survive, sort of. The free, prosperous democratic society might be remarkably unfree and unprosperous compared to an undemocratic society that never took the arsenic, but so few of the latter survived the last two centuries that we have no basis for comparison.
Reaction is the reconstruction or restoration of the civilized mind, through political power, from any form of progressive or revolutionary degradation. In order to be a great reactionary leader, you have to have made your subjects more sane through the exercise of force—probably through the drastic, but effective, method of curing them entirely of politics.
[P]ublic opinion in a democracy is a sort of funhouse mirror that reflects—albeit inaccurately, imperfectly, and often quite reluctantly—the views of the governing elite. To be fair, it also has a certain filtering effect which discourages some of the nuttiest intellectual fads, if only because they can be positively incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't been to Harvard.
Washington, especially since it governs not only the United States but also most of the world, is just too huge to serve as a good thought-experiment for government. It's easier and more fun to think in terms of California, if California could somehow be a sovereign state. Assuming security and responsibility, how could we produce effective government in California? The answer: find the world's best CEO, and give him undivided control over budget, policy and personnel. I don't think there is any debate about it. The world's best CEO is Steve Jobs. Which would you rather live in: California as it is today, or Applefornia? Which would you rather carry: the iPhone, or the Calphone? I rest my case.