About this blog

I read Mencius Moldbug of Unqualified Reservations on a regular basis. He's a highly unorthodox thinker. In summary, one could consider him a freethinker with regards to democracy, or an "a-demotist" by parallell construction with "a-theist". He is to the modern world what an atheist was to the Renaissance period, or possibly the early Enlightenment, having come to his position not by inheritance or instruction, but by freeing his mind from the intellectual shackles of his era - to hear him tell it, at least. Moldbug believes that democracy is a poor form of government and that suffrage is generally a bad idea, along with a great many other reactionary things.

While I disagree with Moldbug on several points, I think he's an intelligent man who's unfortunately marginal. This is at least partly inherent to being a modern ademotist, about which I can do nothing, but I believe that it is also partly due to his verbosity. Moldbug is partial to explaining himself at great length, sometimes interspersed with extensive quotes from other sources, or directions to pause in one of his essays and read a secondary essay, such as the Strictures upon the Declaration of the Congress at Philadelphia (available here, ten thousand words) about which he will say "It is not long. Please do him the courtesy of reading it in full, then continue below."

As I appreciate Moldbug's writing, and several of my friends have appreciated my summaries of Moldbug's positions, I have taken it upon myself to provide shorter versions of Moldbug's articles and arguments for general dispersion. Full credit is, of course, due to Moldbug for the original material, which you may want to read if you have a disagreement with anything posted here and wish to avoid attacking a caricature of his real position.

The above should be considered an encouragement, not a strict rule. The heckler's veto on bores is a legitimate complaint, and the debate tactic of "squidding" (putting up a large cloud of ink, such as a lengthy book, through which one must make one's way before continuing one's opposition) is quite annoying.