I've seen several people on Less Wrong recommend Mencius Moldbug's writings, and I've been curious about how he became so popular here. He's certainly an interesting thinker, but he's rather obscure and doesn't have any obvious connection to Less Wrong, so I'm wondering where this overlap in readership came from.
[EDIT by E.Y.: The answer is that he's not popular here. The 2012 LW annual survey showed 2.5% (30 of 1195 responses) identified as 'reactionary' or 'Moldbuggian'. To the extent this is greater than population average, it seems sufficiently explained by Moldbug having commented on the early Overcoming Bias econblog before LW forked from it, bringing with some of his own pre-existing audience. I cannot remember running across anyone talking about Moldbug on LW, at all, besides this post, in the last year or so. Since this page has now risen to the first page of Google results for Mencius Moldbug due to LW's high pagerank, and on at least one occasion sloppy / agenda-promoting journalists such as Klint Finley have found it convenient to pretend to an alternate reality (where Moldbug is popular on LW and Hacker News due to speaking out for angry entitled Silicon Valley elites, or something), a correction in the post seems deserved. See also the Anti-Reactionary FAQ by Scott Alexander (aka Yvain, LW's second-highest-karma user). --EY]
Lurker here. The economics sub-section at http://moldbuggery.blogspot.sg/2009/03/collected-writings-of-mencius-moldbug.html?m=1 is interesting. Hello from Singapore.
"Here at UR, "economics" is not the study of how real economies work. It is the study of how economies should work "
should not bring to mind this:
"Here at Fantasy University, "physics" is not the study of how real physical principles work. It is the study of how physics should work."
or should not raise giant red flags that you are about to be fed a steaming pile of horse shit. I don't know about everyone else but for me the moment anyone purports to dictate how the world ought to be over and... (read more)
I am also a long-time LW lurker, and this thread finally made me open an account. I've read most of the main Moldbug sequences (Cathedral/neocameralism/economics) over the past few months.
I was very pleased to find that this thread existed, particularly in the context of the phenomenon identified in that essay which coined the term 'insight porn'. I had previously expended many brain-hours pondering the nature of this set of closely affiliated ideas, and I still don't think I have entirely satisfactory answers.
http://theviewfromhell.blogspot.co.nz/2012/09/trying-to-see-through-unified-theory-of.html
2Multiheaded
Upvoted for practicing what you preach.
(None of the linked articles are among what I'd recommend, however. I can't say if that's because I can't understand them and am biased, or because they are mostly hot air and rhetoric.
I cannot comment on Austrian economics as I don't know what to believe about any economic theory at all, but here, in 1998, Krugman criticises it as a morality fable that doesn't, in Bayesian terms, pay rent in anticipated experience - and in modern times, he sustains his criticism of its descriptive and predictive worth. Here is some other economist's brief slam of Austrian epistemology.
Generally the Less Wrong 'mainstream' seems to dismiss it out of hand for its non-empiricism and incompartibility with Traditional Rationality.)
I've seen several people on Less Wrong recommend Mencius Moldbug's writings, and I've been curious about how he became so popular here. He's certainly an interesting thinker, but he's rather obscure and doesn't have any obvious connection to Less Wrong, so I'm wondering where this overlap in readership came from.
[EDIT by E.Y.: The answer is that he's not popular here. The 2012 LW annual survey showed 2.5% (30 of 1195 responses) identified as 'reactionary' or 'Moldbuggian'. To the extent this is greater than population average, it seems sufficiently explained by Moldbug having commented on the early Overcoming Bias econblog before LW forked from it, bringing with some of his own pre-existing audience. I cannot remember running across anyone talking about Moldbug on LW, at all, besides this post, in the last year or so. Since this page has now risen to the first page of Google results for Mencius Moldbug due to LW's high pagerank, and on at least one occasion sloppy / agenda-promoting journalists such as Klint Finley have found it convenient to pretend to an alternate reality (where Moldbug is popular on LW and Hacker News due to speaking out for angry entitled Silicon Valley elites, or something), a correction in the post seems deserved. See also the Anti-Reactionary FAQ by Scott Alexander (aka Yvain, LW's second-highest-karma user). --EY]