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And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again? Archilochus

Tuesday, May 13, 2025

Left vs Right? Or Dissidents vs. Collaborators

 Curtis Yarvin

excerpt from chapter 2:

Dissidents under all regimes often come to grief by expecting power, their enemy, to be fair to them - or believing that some demonstration of unfairness will harm the regime's legitimacy. Actually, successful illegitimate action CONFIRMS a regime's legitimacy. Only the powers that be can break their own rules.

Since the power of exception is the ultimate power, observing that any agent acts unfairly, lawlessly or with impunity means observing that it holds some share of objective sovereignty - ie, it is an authentic and legitimate government agency. This does not even require it to be an official government agency.

True sovereignty is observed and not prescribed. It may be prescribed in old papers, deeds, and pedigrees; it is observed in the usual and habitual process of government. An agent that makes and breaks its' own rules is clearly sovereign in its' own domain- and to be sovereign is to be unaccountable.

Anyone in a conflict with asymmetrical rules tends to lose. And if dissidents lose, the regime wins. And if it is not a good regime, this is a bad result. So it is better not to play. Very difficult logic! As a dissident, you always knew this. The trouble is just that you let yourself stop thinking about it.

Pursuing a strategy you know can't work is what coder call thrashing. Thrashing is what you do with a bug when you have no strategy for solving it. You try anything and everything you know won't work. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't.

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