12 Comments
Jul 19, 2022·edited Jul 19, 2022

I have no idea why Noah Smith gets as much attention as he does from smart people. I find him banal, partisan and completely predictable. A NYT intellectual.

As for Yarvin, his observation seems to boil down to the old saw that the left plays offense and the right plays defense. That's asymmetrical, obviously. Rufo has changed that for CRT and LGBTQ in schools, going on the offensive with a conservative cause. Unfortunately it seems like structurally the right has to wait till the left goes too far in order to fight back. In the long run then, we will always be lurching leftwards, with an occasional (transitory?) conservative correction.

Expand full comment

Curtis also thought that China had a good COVID strategy and blamed people who resisted as being a bunch of wreckers.

Once Curtis finds a particular hammer, everything is a nail.

While it's true that the right should seek bigger victories and not settle for small ones, victory comes to those accustomed to winning victories.

Expand full comment

In my experience at least, Noah Smith usually advocates for central planning, regardless of the problem. I find his various articles to usually be highly informative, I really do (see his recent piece on China, which I think is excellent). But he does have this soft/blind spot for top down policies.

Expand full comment

Employment and jobs booming? No, job openings and hiring are up to replace the retiring baby boom generation. Labor force participation has dropped precipitously in the last decades—now back to 62.4%, a level not seen since the 70s

Expand full comment

“Curtis Yarvin writes,

…try thinking of your culture and society as a battered wife.

Your job, when you are a battered wife, is to get out of the situation.”

Try thinking of it as Battered Wife Syndrome which explains the pathetic response of the grand public to the CoVid & Woke tyrannies…

Women with Battered Wife Syndrome feel helpless. They believe they deserve the abuse and that they can’t get away from it. For many, despite the abuse, they feel at least secure and wouldn’t know how to manage independently. And when their partner is not smashing their teeth, or kicking them in the ribs or pushing them down the stairs, he loves her really and always buys flowers & chocolates when she gets out of hospital - just as our abusers love us really with their ‘free’ schools, healthcare, welfare, keeping us protected from nasty viruses and, well, just safe - all they ask in return is our obedience and give up our freedom.

Expand full comment

What a day for commentators showing their true colors.

Yarvin demonstrates he has no problem with state power, so long as he likes the state using it. It can't be a bad thing to do, because it is the good guys doing it.

Smith openly states his longing for the good old days of government planning, although he isn't clear on whether he preferred the Communist or Fascist methods of making that happen.

What a lovely crop of intellectuals we have these days.

Expand full comment

I endorse the notion that “the economy is weird right now”. Something very strange has happened by semi-shutting down the economy, and then re-starting it. I don’t know that we have a good precedent for what’s happened, and I don’t know that anyone has a good sense of what is to come.

Many of the effects of the shutdown were indeed temporary. People seem to be going back on vacation; I attended a sold-out concert with a few thousand people; Top Gun Maverick is still going strong at the movie theaters.

But many seem to have fundamentally altered our society. Parents saw what their children were being taught in school and some percentage are revolting; Some not-insignificant numbers of people seem to be leaving the official workforce permanently (e.g., to help older parents, to homeschool, etc.); a surprising number of my friends have bought second homes in remote locations. There are many more…

And some things are just in limbo. Will we have masks and testing forever? How will the work-from-home trend evolve? Is the stock market going to go up or down today? International relations and trade seem especially fraught, and it’s hard to imagine whether we’re headed towards some sort of re-alignment or retrenchment, or change in alliances. Etc.

In the economy, at least with respect to the industries I’m familiar with, it seems that the well-managed companies are doing incredibly well, while those with leaks are starting to take-on water quickly. But will that continue?

It’s all very odd, and the pundits seem to be grasping for analogies and precedents. But I simply think we’re in uncharted waters, and we may be seeing something occur for which we don’t have any great playbook.

Expand full comment

Peter Zeihan's other focus on demographics provides at least a partial explanation for the labor market. The Boomers are exiting into retirement, and the Gen X/Millenial/Zoomer cohorts behind them are both insufficiently large to fill the gap and underskilled from lack of experience.

Expand full comment

He postulates that ordinary people want to neither rule others nor be ruled. Progressives want to rule.

But ordinary people do logically wish to be protected from aggression from others, which implies someone making "rules" that other have to follow. Unfortunately "Progressives" mainly flunked Econ 101 and so mix up aggression with the working of market economies and so favor too many of the wrong kind of rules.

Expand full comment

Count me as another in the camp thinking "fine analysis, terrible solution" re: Moldbug. I don't think the internal dynamics of the "elves" are amenable to the strategy he wants to employ, considering how willing many seem to be to punish even mild dissent. There was that old Scott Alexander essay where he points out that the sole form of political dissidence that was tolerated in Soviet Russia was the kind where you complained about the regime being insufficiently Stalinist; ie, offering up rhetoric which effectively pushed the party/state in the direction it was already trying to go. I see the same dynamics at work amongst our modern day activist class.

Expand full comment

FWIW I don’t think you went too far. In contrast to Yarvin, whose solution is to delegate power and responsibility to monarchy, your version of the metaphor emphasized the need for agency and accountability on the part of individuals. As much as Yarvin’s hobbits may “just want to grill”, there comes a time when their proactive leadership is needed to save the Shire.

Expand full comment
founding

“ and in any case, we must do what needs to be done.”. That is a truly frightening phrase from Noah Smith. What exactly needs to be done? All the stuff mere voters never let us do before, because we now “must”? On who’s authority must it be done? Maybe it will be purchased by the elite intellectual class from the vast store of trust they have recently banked after their stellar performance in the pandemic, the financial crisis, and shepherding power so responsibly through the current and former President? Beware kulaks, Noah and his friends will not tolerate you stopping what needs to be done.

Expand full comment