Neoreaction goes HipHop! lol

1. No one has ever claimed Moldbug is completely original or anything like that. He himself has stated numerous of times that he is simply re-reading old books and authors and reiterating their arguments.
2. We were reacting against your claim that everything that is contained in Moldbug is contained in John Gray. That is just false and you know it, but being too much of an intellectual poseur refuse to admit it. One very big thing: Gray never discusses American history at the length at which Moldbug did, both in his posts and his exchanges with other bloggers (like Foseti, etc.)
3. I read one of Gray’s books a couple of years ago (responding to your claim that we have all ”apparently’ haven’t read Gray) – it was pretty good stuff, but nothing special, and you trying to pain Gray as the most original thinker in the universe is lol, because (as Moldbug will be the first to tell you) all of Gray’s arguments have been made a dozen of times already by men of the early 20th century, even by men in the 19th and late 18th centuries.
4. With regards to my last comment you say: “What matters if what i’m saying is true, and instead of running the groundwork yourself you complain foolishly. I take it you must have missed this post.”
Has it maybe crossed your mind, that we don’t have all the fucking time in the world to pursue every single overzealous recommendation of an author, because ummm, idk, we are busy with stuff like reading other authors? And that it would help if you could prove your grandiose claims? We got your recommendation some six months ago. Now chill.
5. You refuse to admit your infantile style of reasoning, which still hasn’t made your point, you avoid my request for quotes with the “Simply read his books” which is quite silly, since 1. I’ve actually read one of his books and 2. You started the whole thing by trying to convince us that we should read all his books because MOldbug apparently ripped him off or something (lol), and you attempt to convince us to do that, not by quoting the guy, but by simply constantly reiterating “I have read him, you are wrong. You should read him”.
6. At the same time you accuse others of being infantile, which is hilarious.
7. Finally, I believe John Gray to be a good author. From the one book of his I’ve read: I didn’t agree with everything, but there is a lot of interesting stuff there although I believe nothing substantial (the style of the book was essayistic and semi-aphoristic so I don’t blame him for that). So I do agree with a recommendation. The guy is a good read, but there is such a thing as ‘overselling’ someone. If you want to prove your point that Mencius really just copied John Gray (who is the original ‘neoreactionary’ or whatever), point me to where Gray discusses American history at length, and also where he gives an as detailed account of modern progressivism’s american puritan origins as Moldbug does.

“Nor do I enjoy extended and lengthy discussions over what would be simple decisions to otherwise thinking individuals, but the way some fools carry themselves here is unbelievable.”

You seem to live with the mindset that if you tell people to do something, they should do it, and they should believe your claims without any doubt. Sorry to break it to you, this is not how the world works.

Finally (2.0): The Taleb/Moldbug point you make actually is rather interesting so it will probably be worthwhile to look into that more (unfortunately, I am busy reading other stuff right now, so if you could flesh it out a bit more, especially from Taleb’s side on your blog, that would be great).

Mencius had John Gray. John Gray did it himself. What’s the big deal about assigning proper credit. If this ‘movement’ wants to actually succeed don’t you think it’s a little important to get some basic stuff like that out of the way? You’re the sycophant if you think having to defensively maneuver around people who are such slaves to Moldbug’s opinions that they can’t even admit some guy in fucking print 10 years before he started writing touched on the same topic. I’ve been telling people this for like 3 monthish. I’ve given it enough time. It demonstrates that some people here advocate intense shit like slavery without having done the basic groundwork.

Don’t give me pussy comments like yours.

http://midnightmodernity.com/mencius-is-not-the-first-neoreactionary/
http://midnightmodernity.com/john-gray-neoreaction/

In the end, after several paragraphs of red herrings you finish with this:
“I own all of John Gray’s books, and have read Mencius entire corpus. You are wrong.”
Which seems to be your actual (and only on-topic) point in that entire (pretty long) comment. So why didn’t you just write that to begin with?

If you want to talk about Taleb vs Moldbug (on fragility and volatility and etc.), talk about Taleb vs Moldbug. But don’t start an argument about Moldbug vs Gray (whether Moldbug is simply a lite version of Gray) and then circle around it into a Taleb vs Moldbug (a totally different topic), while pretending that you haven’t really changed the subject by quoting Taleb on Gray in the end (which is obviously suppose to convince us to agree).

And of course in the end your original (and final point, which frames the circular nature of your “argumentation”) “I have read both Moldbug and Gray, and you are wrong”, with which you started the whole thing, still remains unsubstantiated by actual (relevant) arguments and quotes.

And all of this while unironically constantly complaining how much the intellectual level has declined amongst neoreactionaries.

Ugh.

“Well, one possibility is that “chaotic good” just maps to evil, which maps right back to “chaos.” That is, the only practical definition of evil is that evil is the same thing as chaos. Since good is the opposite of evil, as chaos is the opposite of law, this answer also says that good is identical with law. Thus, “lawful good” and “chaotic evil” are tautological.” – Mencius

vs

When strong winds blow, don’t build walls, but rather windmills: there is a way to turn every bit of adversity into fuel for improvement. via New England Complex Systems Institute Executive Education:

“The critical issue in both cases is the artificial suppression of volatility — the ups and downs of life — in the name of stability. It is both misguided and dangerous to push unobserved risks further into the statistical tails of the probability distribution of outcomes and allow these high-impact, low-probability “tail risks” to disappear from policymakers’ fields of observation. What the world is witnessing in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya is simply what happens when highly constrained systems explode.”

“Complex systems that have artificially suppressed volatility tend to become extremely fragile, while at the same time exhibiting no visible risks. In fact, they tend to be too calm and exhibit minimal variability as silent risks accumulate beneath the surface.” – taleb via

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67741/nassim-nicholas-taleb-and-mark-blyth/the-black-swan-of-cairo/

“Nor did the point escape Machiavelli, that in the midst of murders and civil wars, our repiublic became stronger [and] it’s citizens infused with virtues… A little bit of agitation gives resources to souls and what makes the species prosper isn’t peace, but freedom.” – Taleb

Mencius directly contradicts this.

nntaleb: The more I read him, the more I realize John Gray (the philosopher not the pop-psych) is the greatest and most lucid thinker on the planet. – via his twitter

So hat happens when Moldbug’s movement directly catches the eye of Taleb/John Gray? I would love to see all your broken hearts. You guys are setting Mencius up for a loss that is not his fault, because you think you ‘own’ his body of work.

I own all of John Gray’s books, and have read Mencius entire corpus. You are wrong. I’m sorry.