Merrily we sailed along
Thought the state was plenty strong
Ditch the twisting world news ruse
Follow a new song…

Legend’s faded storyline
Tried to warn us all
Oh, she’s called “Ebola Chan”
Careful or you’ll fall…

Oh, the stories we were told
Quite a vision to behold
Mysteries of disease in her eyes of gold…
Pink pigtails to combat zone, such a lonely sight
Bone and skulls become a throne, poor Ebola Chan…

And her love would fly, and many men would die
And all the world would bow down to Ebola Chan…
And her love would fly, and many men would die
And all the world would bow down to Ebola Chan…

You would not believe your eyes, how a virus hypnotize
Precautions are only lies, Ebola Chan
Purple wings and no vaccine, bleached skull in her hand
She was born the killer queen, ne’er to grace the land…

And her love would fly, and many men would die
And all the world would bow down to Ebola Chan…
And her love would fly, and many men would die
And all the world would bow down to Ebola Chan…

Oh, the song Ebola Chan
Charms the moon right from the sky…
She will get inside your mind, plans Ebola Chan…
When she cries “Be with me until the end of time”
You know you will ever be with Ebola Chan…

And her love would fly, and many men would die
And all the world would bow down to Ebola Chan…
And her love would fly, and many men would die
And all the world would bow down to Ebola Chan…
And her love would fly, and many men would die
And all the world would bow down to Ebola Chan…

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-07/andreessen-on-finance-we-can-reinvent-the-entire-thing-.html

This is exciting stuff. This is where real change comes from. I prefer him to Elon Musk, who seems kind of hot-air-y to me (and may yet cost his investors a fortune on Tesla).

Lot of talk about bitcoin etc in this interview …

I’m a big Taleb fan, I was actually reading The Black Swan for the first time right before I discovered Moldbug. I’d say he’d be a candidate for intellectual sainthood but maybe not quite there yet.

Falkenstein said Taleb is a classic crank: http://www.isegoria.net/2009/08/taleb-is-a-classic-crank/ – which to me implies that particular conceptualisation of ‘crank’ lumps together both genuine nutters and ex-Cathedral thinkers (esp. generalist synthesisers, as opposed to specialist analysers).

The diamond quote is poetic but if it’s a serious hypothesis, it doesn’t work evolutionarily. The inferior intellects gain no fitness advantage for being inferior, and actually the ‘genius’ intellect also gains little fitness advantage.

(Similarly, the idea that humans evolved intelligence to use tools also doesn’t work — the hominid who invents a new tool shares it with his clan and gets little fitness advantage. The Machiavellian Intelligence Hypothesis is more likely, i.e. intelligence as the product of an arms race of politicking minds. I think of social intelligence as the original intelligence (it clearly massively boosts your reproductive fitness), and logical/mathematical intelligence as some weird offshoot.

Women seem to find intelligence attractive when combined with success (Elon Musk, Barack Obama), when not accompanied by success it’s a fitness counter-signal (if you’re so smart, there must be a very good reason why you’re not rich)).

Very curious, thank you. I will indulge in some bungling exploration of Soleri…

I’ve read something like this before, here it is from the notes of Palol Soleri,
Axiality vs Casualness
Vectorial Environment vs Granular Environment
The system relies on rational and super ration forces. A destined environment vs The A-System is governed by the law of great numbers. A fatal environment.

Evident interdependence of each component: the part and the whole vs Absurd non-interdependence of each component acting as granulae

Individual Paths reflecting one another and activating the axial thrust vs Individual paths indifferent to one another or crashing into each other

Axiality engendered by interdependence: congruous enterprise vs atomism [deprived of gravitational laws…] chaos free enterprise ➡ license

The real is fate consumed into destiny: The polarization of fate into destiny vs The practical: The reaction against fate. Thus directed by it

Coexistence with conflict and, or, reinforcement vs coexistence without contact. Indifference

Duration as historical, evolutive time: a vector vs Time, perhaps, as the beat of fate. Poor duration

I started on some of Soleri’s work because arcologies are cool and looking through his writing found that if applied within a NRx framework with tweaks it becomes quite interesting.

“With something so conspicuously negative as inferiority, one wonders how evolution has allowed it to survive. Could it perhaps be serving humankind in some hidden way, thus being fit for survival? I can only think of one such service. To explain, we will turn briefly to the diamond industry.

Diamonds light up the world with their brilliance. They last forever and, despite their elegant appearance, are harder than rock. But they do not start out that way; initially, they are rough and inconspicuous. Their beauty is hidden. To bring it out, the diamond has to be polished.

Now to polish something you need an abrasive that is at least as hard. And diamonds happen to be the hardest substance on earth. So to polish diamonds, one uses exclusively the very hardest abrasive available; that is, one uses other diamonds. Not those of gem quality; only the inferior ones, which are called “bort”.

The bort has grip on the gem as long as it is rough, and polishes it until it is perfectly smooth and the brilliance comes out. Then, the diamond can shine.

Many geniuses undergo great suffering early in life through inferiors in their environment; could it be inferiors are the bort that polishes the rough gem to bring out the brilliance? For a genius may be born with high intelligence and wide associative horizon baked into one’s D.N.A., but could the genius ever work up the extreme persistence, willpower, determination, self-discipline and diligence without the unstoppable and perpetual inner drive that comes from the realization: I must be significant, for the extreme torture cannot have been for nothing? After all, one does not throw away a half-polished diamond, nor does one apply the hardest abrasives to a piece of ordinary charcoal. Who undergoes the severest trial is meant to arise purer and achieve the highest; the advance of humankind.”

On Taleb, I follow Doolittle here http://www.propertarianism.com/2014/04/03/adding-kant-to-historys-most-destructive-minds/ and say he deserves sainthood.

I always felt that Cooijmans does not necessarily have an inferiority complex, but is merely so cold and detached that he cannot lie, even for any minor purposes. His commentary on crime & prison seems to support this. When I disagree with him, I wonder if it is merely my own failing or a reasonable divergence.
Curt writes somewhat similiarly to Cooijmans, interestingly.

The idea that he has for redeeming democracy by weighting the population of voters by I.Q. seems to be a simple one to implement. But since we cannot even get literacy tests done this will never happen.