Jim talks to Curtis Yarvin about his recent article, "2020, the year of everything fake": presentism, history, COVID-19 response failures, and much more...

In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Curtis Yarvin about some key points in his recent article, "2020, the year of everything fake". They start by talking about the ability &/or inability to take the world seriously, presentism, history, political formulas & their connection to governmental failure, the fall of the soviet union, and the stupidity quotient. They then explore aspects of the US institutional failures related to the COVID-19 response: virus origin, vaccines, conflicting incentives, lockdowns, and US governmental ops capacities today & in the past. They go on to talk about the Manhattan Project, oligarchy vs monarchy, and Curtis wraps the episode up by reciting a speech from 1933 to demonstrate how much has changed.

Episode Transcript

Curtis' site, Gray Mirror

2020, the year of everything fake

The Rise and Decline of Nations by Mancur Olson

The Logic of Collective Action by Mancur Olson

Nicholson Baker's article, The Lab-Leak Hypothesis

JRS: Currents 002: Brian Hanley on Releasing the Vaccines

Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance

Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott

Curtis Yarvin (AKA Mencius Moldbug) is widely credited with founding neoreaction (NRx). Yarvin describes NRx as a political philosophy and intellectual movement dedicated to providing secure, responsible, and effective government. Yarvin further says a central thesis of neoreaction is that accomplishing this goal requires a critical re-evaluation of “democracy” from the perspective of political engineering and informed by a study of the great political thinkers of the past.