Curtis Yarvin Quotes (1973-)

“The psychological sword of the state is the political formula. A political formula is any thought—good or bad, true or false, crazy or sane—that convinces the subject to love, serve, and obey the officials. For instance, the slogan “Black Lives Matter” is a political formula. It exhorts us to support those forces, persons, and institutions that promote, or are purported to promote, “Black Lives.” ...The ideal formula has a message for each culture. For the regime, the best formula is self-affirming; it convinces the official class that it is doing the right thing. For the clientele, the best formula is self-interested; it convinces the clients that the regime is working for them. For the commons, the best formula is self-deprecating; it convinces the commoners to stay humble and pay their taxes.”

“If there is a germ of useful provocation in Moldbug’s posts—a glimmer of a productive idea that could be the basis of a discussion—those germs are more than vitiated by his sprawling, associative, and bombastically categorical writing.”

“Not only does Moldbug know such iron fists would rule best, allow emigration, not cheat their investors, and never ever accept manipulator payola, he apparently knows this deductively, as a noble philosopher, not like data-addicted corrupt pansy social scientists. And he has no interest in improvements in the status quo below his philosopher-deduced-best pinnacle. What more can one say to such a person?”

“I am not a neoreactionary, but sometimes I think Mencius Moldbug is the greatest living political thinker.”

“Moldbug is good medicine for genuine progressives, who more than most have an obligation to think through their beliefs. It's strong and possibly toxic medicine, but having your thought congeal into mindless ideology is even more toxic.”

“[H]is writing seems designed to leave a reader guessing as to whether he's really serious or executing the most brilliantly satirical long-term troll-job in the history of the Internet.”

“For all his faults, Yarvin is an engaging writer with a very dry sense of humor, bringing the pompousness of a Silicon Valley know-it-all to abstruse eighteenth-century European political thought.”