The Meaning of Authoritarianism

People without the ability to carry out orders should not be giving them anyway.

From growth-degrowth tech bros to Mr. and Mrs. Natural Fibres, something about their insistence and rhetoric has been pissing me off lately, and I have come to understand better what it is and what it means for the rest of us on earth. These people are obviously incompetent, but the worse thing is they are totally unbothered by that.

Marc Andreessen wrote a viral post a while back entitled It’s Time to Build, and to date it is the most succinct example I can point to of someone who has no idea what they’re doing beyond running their mouths and writing cheques. Marc is under the impression that money can buy the competency he lacks, but the thinking among us know human intelligence is one of the least fungible things of value around. He is of course totally content to sit in his little bubble of friends ignoring that fact and jerking off whoever is sorry or conniving enough to sit on his lap as if they were the second coming of Steve Jobs.

But this total disregard for action is a problem. How informed is Marc, or Greenpeace for that matter, about what the future should look like? Seriously, how do they know? They will never live most of it, not by a long shot. How could somebody who refuses to walk in 99% of people’s shoes possibly know what is best for them? They cannot.

The right thing for them to do is to swallow their pride and go pick up some bricks and try their hand at creating value that way. It’s not even a difficult challenge for people like them, who have practically zero opportunity cost and unlimited resources as far as any small construction job is concerned, but I can promise you right now they can’t do it. Whatever they do make, if they even follow through with it at all, will be so useless to the rest of society it’s undeniable. And they will have the conceit to stand there and argue with you about how useful it is, like an 8-year-old in the toy aisle. Please.

In any case, the bottom line of action for people like this is really simple: control some key variable of action like money or violence, and bend everyone to your will. Sound familiar?

This is the basic playbook of any authoritarian. Morally speaking, doing it with money is no better than with guns, although it is a lot less bloody and immoral collaterally speaking.

So yeah, as it turns out, that is why these fools have been upsetting me. They have no place to dictate the workings of the world, because they do not make the world work. This behaviour must be shunned and excluded with great expedience, for everyone’s sake. That’s all.