The Age of Fraud: Trump, Chanos, Vivek, Yarvin
Kynikos
This is a reaction to the Trump meme coin that made Trump billions of dollars in one night. Jim Chanos is the legendary short seller that closed his fund last year. His fund was named Kynikos, which is cynic in Greek. It takes time for a prophecy to be fulfilled…
I have to admit, Jim Chanos might be on to something. How can one trust Trump, the extravert parties every night, and is obsessed with looking good above substance (Gaza). The alternative to Trump is unthinkable, the collapse of civilization, but will he deliver or will he drown in his vanities? I just block all news from Israel because it makes me so sad. As if I am not sad enough?
Speaking of fraud, Vivek started as a Presidential candidate, promising to go “all the way until the end”, then promptly switched to become a Trump flunky. Then started talking about “Doge”, cutting the Department of Education, etc. Then online implosion when he said the HB1 visa is good and Americans are stupid (he grew up in Ohio and like we need more Indians here), and now he seemingly abandoned Doge to run for a governor. Man…
Speaking of fraud.
You are not seeing double. Here is the text https://archive.is/Rpc39 and even the video. We know, Yarvin gives podcast to everyone, even to the NYT.
The broken record seems to hit all the points I listed in Curtis Yarvin - "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"
FDR’s First Inaugural mentioned, right from the opening.
I said, “his tolerance and even praise for Hitler and Stalin is noxious, flippant shit”. The interview:
It would be an understatement to say that humanity’s record with monarchs is mixed at best. The Roman Empire under Marcus Aurelius seems as if it went pretty well. Under Nero, not so much. Spain’s Charles III is a monarch you point to a lot; he’s your favorite monarch. But Louis XIV was starting wars as if they were going out of business. Those are all before the age of democracy.
Yarvin: And then the monarchs in the age of democracy are just terrible.
Terrible! I can’t believe I’m saying this: If you put Hitler aside, and only look at Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Pinochet, Idi Amin — we’re looking at people responsible for the deaths of something like 75 to 100 million people. Given that historical precedent, do we really want to try a dictatorship?
Yarvin: Your question is the most important question of all. Understanding why Hitler was so bad, why Stalin was so bad, is essential to the riddle of the 20th century. But I think it’s important to note that we don’t see for the rest of European and world history a Holocaust. You can pull the camera way back and basically say, Wow, since the establishment of European civilization, we didn’t have this kind of chaos and violence. And you can’t separate Hitler and Stalin from the global democratic revolution that they’re a part of.
And this description of Yarvin’s creative output over the last 20 years:
I have to say, I find the depth of your background information to be obfuscating, rather than illuminating.
Yarvin: How can I change that?
By answering the questions more directly and succinctly.
Yarvin: [Laughs.] Fine, I’ll try.
Stop right here. Yarvin writes in a hideous style of infinite quotations, the deeper you go in a post, the less you understand what he is trying to say. It’s the entire creative output. Always leaves you like after Chinese meal, I ate a lot, and I am still hungry. Alas, people think the style is not essential.
I don’t even want to go through his defense of Monarch as CEO. The start-up ecosystem expects 95% of failures. How can you afford this rate of attrition with entire countries? Hell, even Yarvin failed as Urbit CEO. Of course, the contemporary example of monarchs are Xi and Putin. The ideal.
I would be willing to try monarchy, but let’s be honest about it. The examples he always gives of the tech companies (Apple, etc.) is because the tech companies flourish in the segment of the economy with very low regulations. You don’t need a zoning permit for a laptop. And innovation in construction, for example, always chokes on overregulation, not matter whether it is governed by a CEO or dysfunctional democracy. Can a CEO cancel regulations, we will find out with Trump soon enough (looks like Vivek is not going to help anymore).
In one of your recent newsletters, you refer to JD Vance as a “normie.” What do you mean? [Laughs.]
Why not say where this name comes from? On autistic boards, they call people without autistic obsessions “normies”, rather than people with autism who are “neurodivergent”.
Just to be clear, Chanos and Yarvin are far from fraud. Chanos has been challenged by the stock market, particularly his short position in TESLA. But it takes time for a fraud thesis to be recognized, mistakes are possible. I am still waiting for the Chabad to sober up. But who will challenge Yarvin? Out of all places, the NYT is a good start.