Two highly-recommended recent blog posts on a critical issue: The demographic calamity of modernity. One by Peter Frost, the other by One Irradiated Watson. (It’s a perennial topic, for obvious reasons.)

Now for the bucket of cold water. NRx has almost nothing to say about it. Of course, it can remark on the problem, insistently, and even diagnose it with some definite precision. What it has yet to do is to cross from urgent policy recommendations to anything remotely approaching a road map for implementation.

The way stations on the hazy track into the future that NRx generally follows — this blog very much included — tend to include a more-or-less comprehensive phase of social collapse, and subsequent restoration of comparatively non-demotist, authoritarian models of governance. (It leads, roughly speaking, through the Jackpot.) Is there any solid basis for the assumption that a regime coming out of this — perhaps Neocameralist / Monarchist in character — would vigorously pursue the pro-natalist policies advocated by contemporary reaction? It is at least questionable, given that the actually-existing states presently closest to this type have proven to be — despite public expressions of concern — entirely incapable of doing so.

The problem of time-horizons at the root of the modern fertility crisis is easily trivialized, as if it were merely a product of adjustable degenerate attitudes. The deep problem — partially tractable to game-theoretical apprehension — is that, under the conditions of the modern state in an environment of intense competition, suppressed natalism is a short-term winning strategy, and if you don’t win in the short-term you’re not around to play in the long term. If the world becomes increasingly Hobbesian in the decades ahead, this dilemma becomes more acute, rather than less so. It presses no less heavily upon a monarch than a democratic leader. Continuing industrial advance means that the (strategic) opportunity cost of subtracting smart females from the work-force becomes ever greater. Any ideal of ‘long-term thinking’ that ignores all of this is incomplete to the point of utter dysfunction.

The condescension really ought to stop. Modernity crushes fertility because it sees ahead better than you do — you just don’t like what it’s seeing.

ADDED: Responses from Hurlock and Athrelon.

ADDED: Alrenous on fertility and purpose.

Michael Anissimov has published an e-book condensing the main Neoreactionary (and in fact older Right-Libertarian) arguments against democracy. The first chapter can be read here, the book purchased from here.

(Open thread + links)

A cold look at the kill list. Leftists of the right. Singularity skepticism. Why is ‘sexual orientation’ like phlogiston. Social justice and slave morality. NRx and Dixie (also relevant). Not the same people. Fragged Friday. The weekly rounds.

ISIS eyes on Saudi Arabia. Going over the cliff in Greece, and Venezuela.

What religion can do, perhaps. The thin weird line. How atheists lose it. Two religious experiences. SV hipster evangelism.

The Bellcurve, meta-review. More unwanted human biorealism (1, 2, 3). Darwinism and teleology (with vigorous discussion in the comments). The media’s race war. The chan wars. War.

The Machiavelli of India. Dampier reviews Bloom. A contrarian take on Hollywood politics. Philosophers in Starbucks.

It’s not easy to survive from the ‘Net.

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An aphoristic gem from ‘Rasputin‘ (buried somewhere in here):

Moldbug isn’t a Neoreactionary in the same way that Christ wasn’t a Christian.

The first stage of the NRx master-plan — coaxing our “perceived enemies” into the consummation of their howling insanity — now seems to be approaching completion.

If leftist moral-political axioms were an argument, these (dazzlingly white*) guys might have one.

* Perhaps the funniest part of all this, it’s only a matter of time before they’re chaited by the all-devouring lunacy they align with.

ADDED: The New Inquiry piece helpfully fnorded (+) by laofmoonster.

(Open thread, links)

NRx doesn’t vulgarize to a denunciation of Cultural Marxism (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 …). Yes, ‘Duh!’, but well worth making explicit. Widening perspectives in time and space. “[T]he Reactosphere [is] an Illiberal University System.” Against critical thinking (and response). On the holiness problem. A thoughtful appraisal of Neoreaction (1, 2), but I’m reserving judgment on this. Terminal-phase feminism. Fragged Friday. Mitrailleuse off-blog channels. Meta-masters (1, 2, 3).

“Things without boundaries rapidly become unthings.” (This is also good.)

A few of the more notable aftershocks following the Paris massacre, from two generations of Le Pens (this is better), Malcolm Pollack, and the Anarcho-Papist. No go zones? A wide-angle view. Our interesting times are getting more interesting. The Saudi king is dead. The interim successor “has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and at many times cannot remember his own name.” ISIS made its move just in time. (Chaos, right?) An analysis of Saudi oil politics. Then back to France (sort of). Auster holds up well.

Venezuela, don’t laugh (related).

The Duck at Chateau Heartiste. Before Yarvin was Moldbug (from 1995). A Scott Alexander no-like list. The long culture war (and a more conventionally humanistic account). Broken democracy. The value of independent corroboration.

Unamused at work. Gregory Hood on MLK. Bookishness is over-rated. On Guillaume Faye on sex. The Economist tip-toes towards reality. Hope for Wikipedia?

Mix this with the Archdruid Report, and you begin to get why the world is so confusing. One of the crucial defenses of the term ‘Neoreaction’ — and thus an argument for clinging to it despite all frustrations — is its intrinsic orientation to grasping both of these perspectives at the same time. (Do that without time-spirals, and you’ve come up with something I’ve yet to consider.)

Bahrain government unfairly spying on man who has dedicated his life to overthrowing it. http://t.co/gKRdZFrOwW

— anomalyuk (@anomalyuk) January 23, 2015

(There’s a perfect sanity to this tweet, sarcasm of course included, that would be hard to top. That is equally to say there is a perfect exposure of our reigning moral-political insanity. The “C’est un chien sauvage …” quote that should accompany it is escaping me for now … Something like: “It is a fierce beast. When it is attacked, it bites.” No doubt one of my cultivated readers can help.)

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If this is NRx I’m Mao Zedong.

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(Open thread + links)

Some initial reacto-chatter — Sex and natural law (don’t miss the comment thread). Prepare for World War P. Inception politics. Battered West syndrome. The new alchemy. A new behaviorism. Exosemantics (are we going to get a Coles Notes for this?). A routine that’s still working well. Social Matter audio. “We shall never truly defeat socialism until we abolish private property” (apparently). Secular religion. Whose side is history on? Round-ups from FN and Steves, and continuous flow here.

The compression of ritual space (and a reading list from hell). Scale-free patterns.

Putin, international man of misery. A Pope beyond hope. Romney is perfect (for 1996). Awkward words in China (related). Unthinkable fears. Much of interest here (especially this).

Gibson’s ‘the Jackpot’ — or cross-lashed, polycausal catastrophe — makes a real contribution to contemporary apocalypticism (this article offers no more than a hazy clue).

More Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare reactionary succulence.

Much entertaining frivolity this week (unless it’s just me) — “quite possibly the most racist article you will ever read” (I doubt it, but still …). Racism. Racism and hate. More racism and hate. Not racist. (This is how it used to be done.)