The great paradox of American politics is that you have one party that panders to a bunch of people who think 5G is giving them cancer and another party that actually passes laws that will make your 5G internet go away.
"Who, by the way, is still a libertarian in 2025?"
There aren't many ideological libertarians, but there are many people who wouldn't want their taxes increased to pay for student loan forgiveness and other such things, including many of the newly converted high-income Democrats.
There are still libertarians at Cato, Reason, GMU, etc. I don't call myself one because I decided it was a bad idea to identify with an ideology, and got more meta by embracing radical decentralism. Of course, as Hanania has noted, socialists aren't even attempting to build experimental communes that workers will flock to, as people consistently "vote with their feet" in favor of capitalism when they have options, but I want the options rather than a simple global imposition of capitalism.
Does anyone who thinks we’re seeing “unleashed cultural vitality” because of the “death of woke” or w/e have any examples of like… cultural accomplishments? I suppose they could claim they haven’t had enough time at the wheel, but still.
It's probably wishful thinking on my part, but I do think we're seeing a shift. I think the DEI left has no response after Kamala lost, and it's clear we have to move back to the center. And I see someone like Jonathan Haidt as a good role model, and he is an atheist who defends religion. So maybe it can be spiritual? Or at least less technocratic, less nerdy.
In terms of the "professional-managerial class," they do suck, but they're really just the bourgeoisie. And the usual criticisms apply: they're timid, risk-averse, entitled, repressed. I think the biggest problem though, is that there's been this idea that everyone should be bourgeois, bourgeois should be the default, and it hasn't worked out. It amounts to people with money & resources expecting people without money & resources to live like them. I remember having an argument with a moneyed, radical left friend who advocated change on behalf of other people. I asked him, "What about your life?" and he said, "My life is fine, my life is great, I want everyone to have what I have." Which is really "let them eat cake." They aren't asking for cake, they just want cheap eggs.
"That the left half of the American political spectrum has higher “human capital”—smarter, more educated, more competent personnel—than the right half has been a structural fact of American politics for my entire lifetime, if not for most of the twentieth century."
How old are you are? In the time of William Buckley the criticism that conservatives leveled at liberals was that they were stupid while liberals accused conservatives of being mean.
Idk what's going on with him but just from what you've quoted, there's something deeper. I think the biggest issue is there's a center, somewhere there, but it's hardly a position like left or right. Some of the most insane psychopaths I've seen specifically on the left and you don't even have to read how Rufo was treated, and he's well aware of these things. The biggest, recent intellectual movement has been on the internet right. That extends from 4chan to theological stuff, classics in between. You see the difference with bluesky which is like internet 2003 (no theology, no philosophy, no memes). It can barely be considered a culture.
That being said, there are centrist institutions. You have pinker and all that stuff but that hasn't been ascendant at all since 2016. Whatever he's going through, I hope he figures it out and finds himself well, but there's just no evidence for leftists being more moral. It has to be something underlying it. Very well could be Christianity rejection because that just sounds reactionary and I'm not sure what else could be reacted against.
For someone with a PhD, Hanania's writing felt insufferable the few times I exposed myself to it after learning about him from John Gantz. It sounds like Hanania is using so much of his time and skills to cater to the left that he is becoming like the "Luddite left."
The vast “PMC” is where more intelligent and competent than average but not particularly remarkable people go. We’re seeing an alignment between outrageously unrepresentative smart strivers who stand above the PMC (like Elon) making common cause with those at the bottom who are more likely to contend with HR on a day to day basis than a brilliantly psychotic entrepreneur or VC.
Everyone reading this knows that the PMC are “our people.”
Podcasters and content creators and the like are overwhelmingly drawn from this class, super successful YouTube channels like “Gas Station Encounters” notwithstanding
You hit the nail on the head. I don't understand when people can't just switch to the party that aligns more closely with their beliefs. I keep wanting to ask him if he regrets his vote yet, but I don't think we are quite there yet.
What's funny is that sometimes he exhibits an autistic-level obsession with truth that ignores the bigger picture, while on other subjects he seems to fail at using the same cost-benefit analysis that led him to the EHC concept. Like he basically just voted for Trump because he hated mask mandates. So now we get to watch Ukrainians suffer and die and our economy fall apart and our allies abandon us and the executive branch seizing power from the other branches, but at least no one is asking you to put a cloth on your face.
But the truly strange thing is how we can't stop reading his articles anyway. For me it's partly that I can't find any other still on-side conservatives I can stand listening to or reading so I'm not living in an information bubble (but now that he's so anti-MAGA that doesn't exactly seem real anymore). But I also just genuinely like his writing style and opinions even when I disagree.
So Richard wants the free exchanges of goods and services, but no longer wants the free exchange of ideas.
🙄
OTOH, repeal Section 230 protections against lawsuits and I am perfectly fine with any social media platform that wants to politically censor doing so to their hearts’ content, just as the NYT has every right to do.
But of course no social media platform would accept that trade.
That Richard is now on the leftist side of censorship is beyond disturbing, but completely consistent with his now many months-long love of all things leftist, of the MSM and of midwits.
Maybe someday he will wake up and realize that you can’t have free markets with authoritarian speech censorship.
Or maybe he’s simply become Thomas Friedman and finds the Chinese model superior, and will come out fully this way soon enough.
The fact that the leftists that control the Dem party are less for free markets than even the Chinese notwithstanding…
I think you are both wrong in your philosophies here, but I grant that you are correct about the logical conclusion of what Richard has been writing recently , especially in his diatribes against Musk.
David Friedman recently very perceptively wrote of Musk that "His record in the past is of overpromising, delivering much less than he claimed — but still much more than anyone else expected."
But Richard, like most leftists, perhaps because he is on the spectrum now insists on ignoring Selena Zito’s wise advice and instead treats Musk like Trump, taking them both literally but not seriously.
The great paradox of American politics is that you have one party that panders to a bunch of people who think 5G is giving them cancer and another party that actually passes laws that will make your 5G internet go away.
https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/17/24346159/att-new-york-affordable-broadband-act-5g
"Who, by the way, is still a libertarian in 2025?"
There aren't many ideological libertarians, but there are many people who wouldn't want their taxes increased to pay for student loan forgiveness and other such things, including many of the newly converted high-income Democrats.
There are still libertarians at Cato, Reason, GMU, etc. I don't call myself one because I decided it was a bad idea to identify with an ideology, and got more meta by embracing radical decentralism. Of course, as Hanania has noted, socialists aren't even attempting to build experimental communes that workers will flock to, as people consistently "vote with their feet" in favor of capitalism when they have options, but I want the options rather than a simple global imposition of capitalism.
Does anyone who thinks we’re seeing “unleashed cultural vitality” because of the “death of woke” or w/e have any examples of like… cultural accomplishments? I suppose they could claim they haven’t had enough time at the wheel, but still.
Their own book deals and Substack growth, I guess?
It's probably wishful thinking on my part, but I do think we're seeing a shift. I think the DEI left has no response after Kamala lost, and it's clear we have to move back to the center. And I see someone like Jonathan Haidt as a good role model, and he is an atheist who defends religion. So maybe it can be spiritual? Or at least less technocratic, less nerdy.
In terms of the "professional-managerial class," they do suck, but they're really just the bourgeoisie. And the usual criticisms apply: they're timid, risk-averse, entitled, repressed. I think the biggest problem though, is that there's been this idea that everyone should be bourgeois, bourgeois should be the default, and it hasn't worked out. It amounts to people with money & resources expecting people without money & resources to live like them. I remember having an argument with a moneyed, radical left friend who advocated change on behalf of other people. I asked him, "What about your life?" and he said, "My life is fine, my life is great, I want everyone to have what I have." Which is really "let them eat cake." They aren't asking for cake, they just want cheap eggs.
"That the left half of the American political spectrum has higher “human capital”—smarter, more educated, more competent personnel—than the right half has been a structural fact of American politics for my entire lifetime, if not for most of the twentieth century."
How old are you are? In the time of William Buckley the criticism that conservatives leveled at liberals was that they were stupid while liberals accused conservatives of being mean.
Isn’t this the guy who said he’d rather be ruled by the first 100 names in the Boston phonebook than by experts?
Given how badly the "experts" dropped the ball during Covid maybe he had a point.
Idk what's going on with him but just from what you've quoted, there's something deeper. I think the biggest issue is there's a center, somewhere there, but it's hardly a position like left or right. Some of the most insane psychopaths I've seen specifically on the left and you don't even have to read how Rufo was treated, and he's well aware of these things. The biggest, recent intellectual movement has been on the internet right. That extends from 4chan to theological stuff, classics in between. You see the difference with bluesky which is like internet 2003 (no theology, no philosophy, no memes). It can barely be considered a culture.
That being said, there are centrist institutions. You have pinker and all that stuff but that hasn't been ascendant at all since 2016. Whatever he's going through, I hope he figures it out and finds himself well, but there's just no evidence for leftists being more moral. It has to be something underlying it. Very well could be Christianity rejection because that just sounds reactionary and I'm not sure what else could be reacted against.
For someone with a PhD, Hanania's writing felt insufferable the few times I exposed myself to it after learning about him from John Gantz. It sounds like Hanania is using so much of his time and skills to cater to the left that he is becoming like the "Luddite left."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/18/stem-graduates-technology-careers
The vast “PMC” is where more intelligent and competent than average but not particularly remarkable people go. We’re seeing an alignment between outrageously unrepresentative smart strivers who stand above the PMC (like Elon) making common cause with those at the bottom who are more likely to contend with HR on a day to day basis than a brilliantly psychotic entrepreneur or VC.
Everyone reading this knows that the PMC are “our people.”
Podcasters and content creators and the like are overwhelmingly drawn from this class, super successful YouTube channels like “Gas Station Encounters” notwithstanding
You hit the nail on the head. I don't understand when people can't just switch to the party that aligns more closely with their beliefs. I keep wanting to ask him if he regrets his vote yet, but I don't think we are quite there yet.
What's funny is that sometimes he exhibits an autistic-level obsession with truth that ignores the bigger picture, while on other subjects he seems to fail at using the same cost-benefit analysis that led him to the EHC concept. Like he basically just voted for Trump because he hated mask mandates. So now we get to watch Ukrainians suffer and die and our economy fall apart and our allies abandon us and the executive branch seizing power from the other branches, but at least no one is asking you to put a cloth on your face.
But the truly strange thing is how we can't stop reading his articles anyway. For me it's partly that I can't find any other still on-side conservatives I can stand listening to or reading so I'm not living in an information bubble (but now that he's so anti-MAGA that doesn't exactly seem real anymore). But I also just genuinely like his writing style and opinions even when I disagree.
So Richard wants the free exchanges of goods and services, but no longer wants the free exchange of ideas.
🙄
OTOH, repeal Section 230 protections against lawsuits and I am perfectly fine with any social media platform that wants to politically censor doing so to their hearts’ content, just as the NYT has every right to do.
But of course no social media platform would accept that trade.
That Richard is now on the leftist side of censorship is beyond disturbing, but completely consistent with his now many months-long love of all things leftist, of the MSM and of midwits.
Maybe someday he will wake up and realize that you can’t have free markets with authoritarian speech censorship.
Or maybe he’s simply become Thomas Friedman and finds the Chinese model superior, and will come out fully this way soon enough.
The fact that the leftists that control the Dem party are less for free markets than even the Chinese notwithstanding…
I think you are both wrong in your philosophies here, but I grant that you are correct about the logical conclusion of what Richard has been writing recently , especially in his diatribes against Musk.
David Friedman recently very perceptively wrote of Musk that "His record in the past is of overpromising, delivering much less than he claimed — but still much more than anyone else expected."
But Richard, like most leftists, perhaps because he is on the spectrum now insists on ignoring Selena Zito’s wise advice and instead treats Musk like Trump, taking them both literally but not seriously.