Another ‘NRx summary’ article: The Darkness at the End of the Tunnel: Artificial Intelligence and Neoreaction
As par for the course, there are mentions of Less Wrong and Eliezer Yudkowsky, who are somehow lumped with NXx for reasons that elude me. Especially as of 2015, the rationalist community is only tenuously, at best, linked with NRx. Then of course there are mentions Nick Land and Moldbug, both of whom (especially Moldbug) between 2007-2013 or who laid the intellectual groundwork of NRx. The article mentions Michael Anissimov over a dozen times, who was involved around 2013 but by early 2014 was already on the way out, and at this point is almost irrelevant. Also, mega-capitalist Peter Thiel is mentioned, but Andrew Sullivan?
As is often the case with these NRx summaries, this last one too, the author’s research inexplicably ‘stops’ at early 2014, as if NRx hasn’t evolved beyond that. Post-2014 NRx has shifted from the ‘materialistic’ world (HBD, capitalism, scientism, futurism, etc.) to the idealistic, which, to the best of my understanding, has to do with immigration becoming a defining issue since 2014, especially spurred by the European migrant crisis as a consequence of the Syrian civil war which worsened in 2014, and then also Brexit and the rise of Trump. In these NRx summaries, there is a 3-year ‘gap’ between early 2014, when Moldbug stopped writing, and 2017. Sometimes Social Matter and Hestia Society are mentioned, but often not or only in passing. Does this represent a failing of NRx, because its latter work cannot match the significance and acclaim of its earlier output? I don’t think so. The newer stuff is good, but the media can’t cover everything, so they are going to focus on what they deem to be the most seminal work. But the good news is, the fact that the major media is (The Atlantic, Vox, etc.) writing about NRx , as well as Bannon possibly being inspired by NRx writings, is evidence NRx is having a growing influence.