From: jimruttshow8596
Curtis Yarvin, also known by his pen name Mencius Moldbug, offers a critical perspective on modern governance in his essay “2020: The Year of Everything Fake” [00:01:09]. His analysis draws comparisons between contemporary societal structures and historical periods, arguing that modern institutions often lack the competence and seriousness of their predecessors.
The Inability to Take the World Seriously
Yarvin suggests that modern society struggles to take itself seriously, much like how people today view past civilizations [00:01:37]. When encountering beliefs from ancient societies, such as the Old Kingdom of Egypt’s giant dung beetle pushing the sun or a pharaoh being the sun, modern observers don’t engage in serious debate [00:02:00]. Instead, they might humor such ideas, recognizing them as products of a different historical context [00:02:15].
This perspective raises a crucial question: is our own society more akin to the intellectually vibrant Italian Renaissance or the declining period of Late Antiquity, characterized by figures like “Biggus Dickus” [00:03:00]? While every period deserves respect, not all are intellectually equal [00:02:50]. Modern discourse, however, tends to perceive itself as a new Renaissance, a view shared by past eras, including Late Antiquity—a period Yarvin argues cannot be taken seriously [00:03:52].
This self-perception is influenced by “temporal chauvinism” or “presentism,” which assumes one’s current world is entirely real and deserving of immense respect [00:07:16]. This was a mistake made by scholars of the Late Roman Empire, who, despite their empire’s decline, did not perceive any problems and were preoccupied with self-serving connections and pretentious intellectual traditions [00:07:34]. Their literary tone was often flattery, focused on “grifting” and networking rather than addressing existential threats like barbarian invasions [00:08:25]. This detachment from reality, as exemplified by a writer like Sidonius focusing on trivialities while the Roman Empire was collapsing around him, mirrors the “clown show” nature of modern political processes [00:09:02].
Mythos and Political Formula
The concept of a societal “mythos”—a set of shared beliefs—is central to understanding how people perceive their governance [00:10:33]. Just as Aztecs believed they were “good and wonderful people” while performing human sacrifices, most people in any given era fully embrace their society’s mythos [00:10:50].
James Burnham’s The Machiavellians introduces the concept of the “political formula,” which is the element of the mythos that legitimizes government and power in the eyes of the people [00:11:24]. For an Egyptian peasant, the pharaoh’s divinity was the political formula [00:12:11]. In modern times, the political formula often makes individuals feel powerful and important, leading them to believe they “matter” because they support the government [00:12:31].
The shock of the COVID-19 pandemic revealed a “complete incompetence” in the U.S. government’s response, particularly when compared to countries with different governance models [00:09:55]. This event served as a “slightly Chernobyl-like effect,” making many question the fundamental ideas on which the system is based [00:14:02]. Prior to this, few, including political scientists, predicted the fall of the Soviet Union, demonstrating how deeply ingrained a mythos can be, even when the underlying reality is crumbling [00:15:13].
The Stupidity Quotient (SQ)
Yarvin proposes the “Stupidity Quotient” (SQ) as a lens to analyze events, inviting people to consider what a child’s common sense would suggest [00:18:12].
SQ Example 1: COVID-19 Initial Response
When faced with a dangerous disease emerging from China, a child would instinctively suggest stopping all international flights [00:19:24]. Yet, the U.S. government (USG) initially decided not to “disrupt travel and trade,” demonstrating an inability to think as logically as a six-year-old [00:19:56]. This highlights a fundamental problem: establishment figures often optimize for “bolstering the institutional reputations and strengths of their particular little factions,” rather than making sensible decisions [00:20:51]. Loyalty within these bureaucracies prioritizes self-advancement and the institution’s real, often unstated, goals over its nominal public mission [00:21:46].
SQ Example 2: Vaccine Approval Process
While vaccines were developed relatively quickly, their distribution was hampered by a lengthy FDA approval process [00:31:30]. This caution stemmed from a fear of a “positive mistake”—an adverse event from a rapidly approved vaccine—which carries a higher prestige cost than a “negative mistake”—allowing many more people to die while waiting for approval [00:38:12]. This disproportionate weighing of risks is a “conflict of interest” within institutions: their self-preservation and prestige override the public’s well-being [00:39:12].
The Hippocratic Oath, “above all, do no harm,” is presented as a “mythos” that reinforces this conflict of interest [00:37:30]. Historically, a doctor in 200 BC, dealing with powerful patients, would prioritize personal survival over the absolute best interests of the patient, thereby brainwashing the patient into believing the doctor’s self-serving strategy was optimal [00:41:48]. This illustrates how a seemingly noble principle can be a “memetic strategy” that becomes unquestionable, even when it leads to suboptimal outcomes [00:43:08].
The Lockdown: A Flawed Response
The implementation of lockdowns in the West further exemplifies the limitations of modern governance. Unlike the effective Chinese strategy of aggressive, proactive testing and isolation in quarantine facilities, which drastically reduced R-naught values [00:45:31], the West’s response was inadequate [00:45:53]. The World Health Organization (WHO), influenced by the hospitality industry, initially discouraged quarantines due to concerns about “travel and trade,” a policy that proved to be a “lie” [00:46:04].
The Western approach, particularly in the U.S., was marked by an “overstated” belief in the capacity of American institutions [00:47:45]. Ideas like “test, trace, and isolate” with tracing apps were proposed academically but were unfeasible in a country where the government doesn’t even know its population count accurately [00:48:10]. The “digital shambles” of the U.S.’s infrastructure, where identity is often proven with a utility bill, highlights its inability to track or control its citizens compared to states that maintain a list of their citizens [00:50:29]. This “anarchy built into” the American system, as described by James C. Scott in Seeing Like a State, means the state is “bounded in its ability to perceive the population,” control crime, or control disease [00:51:47].
The popular “hammer and the dance” essay, while well-intentioned, offered advice suitable for a more capable government, like Taiwan’s, not the “75-year-old heart patient” that is the U.S. state [00:48:44]. Presenting the idea of “two weeks to flatten the curve” for an exponential curve demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of mathematics [00:53:41]. This led to a “permanent war mentality” regarding COVID-19, where the goal became control rather than eradication or herd immunity, accepting that while not winning, they were at least not losing more [00:54:12].
Historical Comparison: WWII Governance vs. Modern Governance
A stark contrast emerges when comparing modern governance to that of World War II America [00:55:14]. The Manhattan Project, responsible for developing the atomic bomb, exemplifies highly effective governance [00:56:02]. It was run “like a startup,” with “two-in-a-box leadership” (technical and managerial) and a top-down, pyramidal structure [00:59:07]. Researchers like Richard Feynman were directed to work on specific tasks rather than their “personal hobby horses” [00:56:27].
In contrast, a modern approach to a similar problem would involve issuing RFPs and grant proposals, leading to academics repackaging existing research to fit the bomb-building theme, a process that would likely delay results by decades [00:57:22]. The current successor to the Manhattan Project, the Department of Energy, is “notoriously one of the most incompetent departments in Washington,” illustrating the institutional decay [01:01:06].
The effectiveness of the Manhattan Project and other WWII-era initiatives stemmed from the context of a “de facto monarchy” under Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) [01:01:14]. FDR possessed “absolute power or close to it,” with the ability to create and destroy agencies at will, bypassing established “old-line” departments [01:01:48]. While not a strong manager himself, he delegated to “very effective managers” like Harry Hopkins, who “knew how to get shit done” [01:02:51].
FDR’s 1933 inaugural address, a “slightly different kind of political rhetoric,” called for national unity, discipline, and a willingness to “sacrifice for the good of a common discipline” [01:06:02]. He asserted his intent to exercise “broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign enemy” [01:08:41]. This monarchical approach, where an accountable leader dictates action and faces consequences for bad results, stands in stark contrast to today’s “oligarchical” governance, where processes dominate, and accountability is virtually nonexistent [01:04:00]. In modern Washington, no one was fired or suffered for the “series of mistakes” made by the FDA and CDC during the initial phase of COVID-19 [01:04:09].
The historical shift from a more monarchical (FDR’s era) to an oligarchical system (modern day) highlights a fundamental change in the “form of government” itself, despite the U.S. having the “same constitution” [01:04:41]. This change means that expecting modern institutions to achieve results like those of the Manhattan Project is “very implausible” [01:00:16].