A Gentle Introduction to Mencius Moldbug Part 10: "Our Choice"
And so which of these two sides do we want to support?
Well, the left, obviously. At least if you like winning, and everyone likes winning.
After all, the left are on the right-side of history. They are going to be the ones who gets all the glory for the new social reforms when they finally, and inevitably, come to pass. They are the ones that are going to have the satisfaction of saying “I told you so” when they finally bring down the oppressive concept of monogamy, and the antiquated notions of nations having borders
And if you have no moral issues with what is described as “progress”, allying with the left is quite a good deal if you plan for a career in politics, And even if you aren’t, it will still have rewards, psychologically at least.
But, dear reader, this is one small caveat, one small issue with going all in for the left.
And that problem can be felt if feel the suspicion that your society is not in ordinary operating conditions, but is, instead, approaching the beginning of an accelerating, metastasizing decline and collapse. We may be on the cusp of that final step step where the left devours the essential social bonds that form civilization and then finally destroys itself. In that case, assisting the left is only assisting in the acceleration of your own doom and destruction of yourself and your posterity.
It's a possibility, but a remote one, right?
Our current cultural leaders, our current governmental leaders, have a handle on things. They certainly aren't going to pursue projects that would drive civilization to the brink. They certainly wouldn’t allow any progressive cultural moves that don’t have ready technological solutions. They won’t create any issues that can't be overcome by increasing wealth brought about by technology, right?
And sure enough, maybe everything will work out. Perhaps, universal basic income and growth fueled by Silicon Valley will solve the problem of third-world poverty and migration into the West. Perhaps robots and artificial intelligence will solve the problem of family decline and general loneliness of modern society. Perhaps cloning technology will solve the decline in birth rates and machine-guided surgeries will solve the problem of transgenderism to the point where no one can tell between the biological women and the elective ones.
We all have to decide whether this is going to happen or not. You either trust the technocrats who developed our cultural consensus of society or you don't.
If you're a right-winger like me, then for reasons either good or bad, you don't trust our current crop of leaders.
But if you're on the progressive side of things, then in one way or the other, you have placed your trust such men. We are headed for a techno-utopia, or perhaps even a singularity, and democratically elected technocrats are just the ticket to get us there.
Of course, the question has a certain amount of subjectivity to it. Everyone is going to decide for themselves who they're going to trust. But before I move on to the last portion of this essay and leave the decision up to the reader, there is one issue I would like to examine before you cast your vote on whether our current societal trajectory is towards a utopia or towards collapse. And this examination begins with looking at Robert Conquest’s Third Law.