deketemoisont | Examples From Some Favorite Blogs

The Archdruid Report
Ecosophia
The Scholar's Stage
LessWrong
Slate Star Codex
Duncan Sabien
The Last Psychiatrist
sam[]zdat
Hotel Concierge
David Chapman's sites
Dan Wang

(What was the last item in this list now has another post to itself: https://deketemoisont.dreamwidth.org/1929.html .)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

jprussell

Well, 8.1 out of 11 ain't bad (I've only read a handful of articles on The Last Psychiatrist, but I might have to fix that). No wonder we've been having such lively conversations!

Also, linking to a specific post was a nice, concise way to draw attention to what you wanted to highlight from each source.

Oh, and one comment on Dan Wang: I find his commentary about procedural/implicit knowledge and its importance in building/maintaining socially and economically relevant enterprises extremely relevant (and terrifying) when paired with the Long Descent. I just don't think semiconductors are the main area of procedural knowledge to worry about in the long run.

From:

deketemoisont

I'd already considered understanding you as me-except-successful. The ones you hadn't read are Duncan Sabien and PangeranDipanagara, right? The former works at a LessWrongist organization, but *everybody* there is obscure compared to Yudkowsky and Alexander; on the second, had you read any AskHistorians? It used to be great, wasn't last I checked, and I *speculate* he left as it became more SJW (it was Leftist from the start, of course, but I'd say sane).

I might not be completely ignorant about sales. :) And, while I'd linked to The Scholar's Stage in Reading List List, I don't know what I was thinking when I didn't include it here, so now there's a post which isn't a reading list from there.

Well, the terrifying part was already in decent supply with JMG, but yes, you get the graphic detail with Wang. As for the long run going father down than semiconductors: [shudder].

From:

jprussell

Well, to be fair, I only read all of Hotel Concierge on your recommendation, and I'm now working my way through the archives on Last Psychiatrist because of this post. I also see my original "out of" was wrong - it should have been "8.1 out of 12", because I hadn't read any Duncan Sabien, PangeranDipanagara, or The Scholar's Stage.

I'll have to check them out as well, despite getting sucked into the archives of Last Psychiatrist. For awhile there, I was *really* digging the LessWrong diaspora (I enjoyed a lot of stuff that Zvi Mowshowitz put out, especially his series on "Immoral Mazes" and his stuff on game design), but I as I got into occultism, I found a lot of it less interesting. I'm now getting to a place where I can again see what's valuable there, even coming from very different presuppositions, so I'll have to start digging in again.

So far, my only exposure to AskHistorians is that I glanced over their recommended reading on Napeolon/the Napoleonic Wars after I bought a fancy wargame about the Battle of Waterloo and realized I was embarrassingly ignorant of the context and Wikipedia wasn't really going to cut it. Having a specifically credible person to check out there might help get some good use out of their archives. That's always tricky when wading into an online community - figuring out which members are most interesting and helpful, since trying to keep up with everybody in more than one community with any activity is a huge time suck.

And true, it's not like JMG paints a rosy picture, but yeah, Wang does such a good job of highlighting how *fragile* accumulated procedural knowledge is, and how essential to actually having what you think you have with any given technology. It also gives me a new, somewhat melancholy, view on attempts at retro technology - knowing that we currently have the technological means to resurrect something more long-term sustainable/viable, but that the procedural knowledge might take longer than we have to re-develop.

At any rate, I'll check out the [updated] links to Duncan Sabien, PangeranDipanagara, and The Scholar's Stage (and, oh, hmm, someone must have linked to a post on "The Scholar's Stage", because I recognize the header, but I can't remember what I read there).

From:

deketemoisont

"I also see my original "out of" was wrong" - The Scholar's Stage wasn't in the list when you commented! Regarding your recognition, I'm pretty sure I linked to that exact post on an Ecosophia Open Post.

I went through a similar experience regarding LessWrongism (though I attribute it more to having acquired Progress-skepticism (something you'd *not* get from any occultist, or even one I see as worth paying attention to) than to my attention to occultism proper) but intend to read Mowshowitz (who hadn't caught my attention that much originally) on your recommendation (though lower-priority than some stuff I got including from you).

On AskHistorians: sure, and I'm pretty sure it's not as it used to be - I do remember having once found a number of great answers there, but PangeranDipanagara (historical name, BTW) is the only once-user I remember for having made a lot of them.

Well, I might of course be wrong in that, but I wouldn't be worried about retro-technology *given the motivation* - but the few people with any of it are scattered ...

From:

jprussell

Ah, okay, then I feel a little less bad about missing useful stuff. It might well have been your link that I followed - looking through the archives on The Scholar's Stage none stood out to me as "ah yes, this is what I read before", but it all looked interesting!

Fair enough on the LessWrong-skepticism. In my case, weirdly, I found JMG's point of view on magic/occultism compelling before I found his arguments on anti-Progress compelling. My army buddy who turned me onto Greer was full-on "yup, industrial civilization is fucked", but highly skeptical of the magical side of things, whereas I was like "maybe magic works, but we might still figure out this energy thing". I've since changed my mind, of course, but that's where I was when I first got into JMG.

On AskHistorians: it would surprise me by about 0% if they've gotten less useful over time and now mostly spout nonsense. It would make me sad, but not surprise me.

As for retro-technology, that's the challenge, right? Right now, some weirdo enthusiasts might try some stuff just because it's old, and mayb along the way preserve some procedural knowledge that will be helpful in the long run. On the other hand, I worry about cases like "I dunno, bro, but if you push this pedal and turn this key, it makes a loud sound!" being all we have of internal combustion engines.

From:

deketemoisont

From:

jprussell

Not asking for detail, just a bit of chronology: you had a religious experience before looking into magic, then were introduced to JMG and took seriously first the magic and later the peak oil hypothesis? Seems we're now at "energy-wise we're fucked, but we might still figure out this spiritus/awen/önd [I couldn't find an Anglo-Saxon term] thing".

No worries! My timeline went something like this:
- ~1989-1998: Raised generic American Protestant Christian
- 1998-2001: Open to Wiccan stuff because of my first girlfriend was a witch
- 2003-2007: Met smart Christian friends in college, gave Christianity a shot as a religion I took seriously
- 2007-2013: Kinda lazily considered myself a Christian
- ~2013-2018: Increasingly atheistic agnostic
- ~2016-2017: A friend of mine introduces me to JMG explicitly from the political/energetic standpoint, but mentions the magic stuff, which I find far more interesting
- ~2017-2021: I get interested in the Runes and start studying them from the standpoint of "this is all a way of accessing my subconscious, nothing non-material happening here
- 2021: I read World Full of Gods, decide to give daily magical practice and "actually believing Gods are separate beings" a shot, and have a weird, strong religious experience - I get hooked
- 2021 - 2023: Following along with the practices laid out in Druid Magic Handbook, The Dolmen Arch, and eventually "The Modern Order of Essenes".

What's maybe not crystal clear above is that I started some form of "magical" practice before I learned about JMG, found out about him, which pressed me to take the religious side of things more seriously, which has major results, and that then kept going, and eventually, I was like "if JMG is right about this spirit stuff, maybe the idea that progress is a myth and energy is more finite than any of us want" is a cogent one.

"On the other hand, I worry about cases like "I dunno, bro, but if you push this pedal and turn this key, it makes a loud sound!" being all we have of internal combustion engines." - stuff I find depressing shouldn't be this funny. :)

Heh, well, thanks - since finding Postcards from Barsoom on substack, thanks to a comment on Ecosophia as well as spending most of the last week reading the archives of The Last Psychiatrist, I've been thinking about the role of humor in otherwise "serious" political/societal thinking discourse. I'm pretty sure that the answer is "it matters way more than any of us think", whatever else it is.

Cheers,
Jeff

Edited Date: 2023-03-26 03:09 am (UTC)

From:

jprussell

Turns out I was wrong! I *had* read a bit of Duncan Sabien - his post(s) on using the MTG color wheel as a personality typing system. I read that, oh, must of have been late 2018 or early 2019, because my older daughter was a baby. I remember, because that led down the rabbit hole of me getting into MTG Arena (the updated online version of the game) and playing it waaaay too much for a while there.

Still, the idea of operating a classroom by economic principles is a striking one, and has me wondering how I'm acting counter-productively in the classroom and what I might do differently. Fortunately/Unfortunately, I can't impose silent recess on college students!

Anyhow, thanks for the recommendation - I enjoyed that as well as the Scholar's Stage article about losers writing history (I didn't know that about Thucydides, and while I knew Sima Qian had been castrated, I didn't know the story behind it, or that he was the court astrologer!).

Haven't waded into PangeranDipanagara's stuff yet, as it's a bit intimidating knowing where to start.

From:

deketemoisont

I *did* wonder "Does he remember his daughters' ages during *anything*, or is there a connection?".

Heh, heh, heh ...

I didn't remember by now Sima Qian was the astrologer either!

See https://deketemoisont.dreamwidth.org/1929.html later!