So looking at your summary, he doesn't seem to understand what economic growth is, which lines up with him liking Sam Altman's blog post. His talk about 'actual' GDP being the nominal and not the real GDP is similarly stupid. Any more on this topic should probably be in a new thread (ping me if you make one), but I'll finish my thoughts on it here:
You didn't read the article, so you don't know what he's talking about or why he thinks that way. I just summarized it. I'm of the opinion that the GDP is useless, straight-up.
The fact that he thinks 1953 is better than 2013, factoring out technology, is an actual example of privilege. For a straight, white, male, (can't believe I'm saying that unironically) 1953 is great. Now those don't matter. To examine this, we should use Kant's Veil of Ignorance, so he doesn't know what his race, sex, or sexuality will be in either society. There is a chance he ends up black in the Jim Crow South, a gay man being arrested for dancing, or a woman who has no real choice but to be a housewife (the problem there is the lack of choice, not the housewife part). Suddenly, 1953 doesn't look so great compared to 2013.
There's so much laughable here, I don't even know where to begin.
First, there's not really any reason why we should assume a veil of ignorance. You'd have to argue for that point. Moldbug certainly doesn't believe in a veil of ignorance as part of his philosophy. He starts with an idea - Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - and looks at all the ways in which society has gotten worse at meeting those needs. And when it comes to the second level, safety? It's gone down by a lot. Keep in mind that Moldbug is a Jew living in San Francisco at that point in his life. Not exactly an ideal circumstance.
Second, if I were a black, I'd be rather unimpressed with the "progress" we've made in our society. As Moldbug said in one of his
other essays:
Heck, for the last 50 years, one of the central purposes of American political life has been advancing the African-American community. And over the last five decades, what has happened to the African-American community? I’ll tell you one thing—in every major city in America, there’s a burnt-out feral ghetto which, 50 years ago, was a thriving black business district. On the other hand, there’s a street in that ghetto named for
Dr. King. So, there’s that.
One could make the argument that, from a veil of ignorance perspective, I'd rather be black in 1953 than black in 2013. Yeah, I'd lose some self-esteem, but is self-esteem worth being dead? I don't think so.
Third, and most laughably, you're unironically assuming the morality of the social justice warriors. You agree with them on what you want society to look like, you just think that what we have now is the ideal equal society, whereas they think we should go even further beyond. Neither Moldbug nor myself are part of your particular religion. Moldbug's an atheist who worships Thomas Carlyle, and I'm a Roman Catholic.
Perhaps we could start another thread about the "progress" made in the name of civil rights? I think that's deserving of its own thread.
