Tweet

More from @mr_scientism

scientism

@mr_scientism

Feb 13

What drives ‘politics’ is policy fads among elites, which are driven by fads in theory. Elected representatives are just another avenue for this. Voters know little about policy and still less about theory. What drives theory adoption is the private philanthropic networks.

There’s been attention drawn to the role of think tanks in the adoption of ‘neoliberalism’ but it’s really like that all the time. An endless parade of economic, political, administrative, and managerial theory emanating from academia and think tanks, funded by private interests.

The plutocracy rules through theory-selection.

Read 7 tweets

scientism

@mr_scientism

Feb 10

The liberal picture of society is essentially a gas with atoms exerting forces on one another. An 'autocracy' is a gas with one super-powerful atom that exerts force on all the other atoms, which have no power of their own. The 'solution' is to distribute power among the atoms.

The other possibility is to note that there's only one autocrat atom but many regular atoms, so the mass of atoms, if it'd just coalesce in a thermodynamically improbably way, could exert force against the autocrat atom. Distributed power, it's thought, makes this more likely.

The problem is that this picture isn't true (it doesn't even make sense) and the 'solutions' proposed on the back of it have to be translated into real world terms and whenever you translate them into real world terms they become proposals for corruption.

Read 5 tweets

scientism

@mr_scientism

Feb 10

Western liberals imagine the ‘autocrat’ as ‘an absolutely corrupt congressman’ because they’re incapable of imagining a different system. But a genuine autocrat would have too much power for corruption to make sense; he faces directly the existential question of what a nation is.

A stably corrupt state requires a special set of conditions. It must have a ruling class of absentee owners who care only about their position in the game of finance. This is the basis for a perfectly corrupt system, not autocracy. The US is such a state.

There are 3rd world kleptocrats but the possibility of looting a nation-state only exists because Anglo-American financial institutions make it possible. You can loot a whole nation because you can put the money in an off-shore account and spend it in the ‘free world’.

Read 4 tweets

scientism

@mr_scientism

Feb 10

Looking through this 2013 Pentagon study on 'Chinese racism' and how the US can supposedly use it to its advantage. Highlights so far: Includes a dynastic chronology; chapter 1 is on the evo psych origins of racism; no primary sources in the bibliography. esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Doc…

"The Chinese commonly believe that they are cleverer than others, and so may shape events in an oblique manner or through shi [势], the strategic manipulation of events. This conceit among the Chinese that they can manipulate others is supremely dangerous for Asian stability."

I skipped to the part on the Communist era and he says the Communist Party doesn't have explicitly racist views but when they talk about class they secretly mean race. His only source for this is Frank Dikötter.

Read 6 tweets

scientism

@mr_scientism

Jan 26

'Wokeness' and 'identity politics' are just the latest in the long line of methods the plutocracy's philanthropic networks have used to gain and maintain power. In this case, they fund and staff organizations that purport to represent minority groups.

An earlier iteration of this strategy was to build political power through 'experts' who were trained and funded by the philanthropic networks. This was followed by the promotion of 'civil society', which was just organizations funded by the same philanthropic networks.

These strategies are embodied in academic movements and these movements tend to criticize one another, masking the fact that they're funded by and do the bidding of the same organizations. Thus, the current movement criticizes the 'technocratic' nature of the older movement.

Read 4 tweets

scientism

@mr_scientism

Dec 6, 2021

'Airforce 2025' forecast (from 1999): "the study speculates on the rise of a 'Sino-colossus' incorporating China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. ... the US turns inward because of severe economic problems 'the American Century has given way to the Asian Millennium.'"

"Crossroads 2015 ... arrives ten years before the other scenarios. Here, the US faces economic hard times, and the pace of technological progress has slowed. Russia, its power on the rise, attempts to seize and incorporate independent Ukraine."

Another scenario: "the US is pinned down by a host of microcrises around the world ... The US is 'overwhelmed and preoccupied with worldwide commitments, such as counterterrorism and counterproliferation efforts, humanitarian assistance, and peacekeeping operations'"

Read 5 tweets

Share this page!

scientism

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

More from @mr_scientism

scientism

scientism

scientism

scientism

scientism

scientism

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Like this author's thread?