Want to dive into Scott Alexander's work and his thousands of blog posts? This fan website lets you sort and do semantic search through the whole codex. Enjoy!

See also Top Posts and All Tags.

Tag: reactionary politics

Minutes:
Pick a custom range (minutes). Leave a field empty for no limit.
Blog:
Year:
2026
2025
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
Tags:
Filter by tag...
Exclude tag...
5249 tags
Links:
Filter by linked site (twitter, substack…)
1 posts found
Compact Mode
Save Reads
Mar 07, 2013
ssc
Read on
26 min 3,942 words 174 comments
Scott argues that even if past cultures were superior, restoring them is impossible because cultures evolve to fit their technological conditions, which have changed dramatically. Longer summary
This post argues against Reactionary ideas, even if one grants their assumptions about the superiority of past cultures. The main points are: 1) Historical changes are driven by technological progress, not individual actors. 2) Cultures evolve to adapt to their technological conditions. 3) Past cultures were adapted to past conditions, not current ones, so restoring them wouldn't work. 4) Many negative aspects of modern society are due to technological changes, not political ones. Scott uses analogies like computer operating systems and puppets to illustrate these ideas. He concludes by outlining possible counterarguments Reactionaries could make to save their position. Shorter summary
Per page:
Showing 1 to 1 of 1 results
Get these search results in an EPUB

Your filters match 1 posts.

Posts to include
Leave empty to keep the defaults. Range cannot exceed 500 posts.
Download now

Generates an EPUB right now and downloads it to your device.

Send to email

Generates an EPUB in the background and emails you a temporary download link.

Your email is not shared with anyone.

Email address

To send to your Kindle, just use this link.