- Build Trumpâs wall, because itâs a meaningless symbol that will change nothing, but itâll make Republicans like me, and it will make Democrats focus all their energy on criticizing that instead of anything substantive I do.
Maybe absurdist humor is not the right description, but itâs very clearly not meant to be a serious post.
Having now read the whole thing, not just the bit you quoted originally, I think it is sort of a joke but not really: a funny, slightly exaggerated rendering of what his real ideological views actually are, exaggerated a bit for comic effect. I donât think Thorstad was majorly in the wrong here, but maybe he could have flagged this a bit.
Fair enough, this does make me move a bit further in the âoverall a jokeâ direction. But I still think the names basically match his ideological leanings.
Do you mean Bernie Sanders, Peter Thiel, or âAnonymous Mugwumpâ? I canât think of an ideological leaning these three have in common, but I donât know much about Mugwump
Thiel and Sanders donât have much in common, but Scott has stuff in common with Thiel and Sanders. (I.e. he shares broadly pro-market views and skepticism of social justice and feminism with Thiel, and possibly pro HBD views, although I donât know what Thiel thinks about HBD, plus an interest in futurism and progress, and he shares redistributive and anti-blaming the poor for being poor economic views with Sanders.)
My reading of the post (which is contestable) is that he chose the people as a sort of joke about âhere is a controversial or absurdly in-group person I like on this issueâ. I canât prove that reading is correct, but I donât really see another that makes sense of the post. Some of the people are just too boring choices-Yglesias, for the joke to just be that the list is absurd.
I think it, like much of Scottâs work, is written with a âmicro-humorousâ tone but reflect to a significant extent his genuine views â in the case you quoted, I see no reason to itâs not his genuine view that building Trumpâs wall would be a meaningless symbol that would change nothing, with all that implies of scorn toward both #BuildTheWall Republicans and #Resistance Democrats.
Another example, consider these policy proposals:
- Tell Russia that if they can defeat ISIS, they can have as much of Syria as they want, and if they can do it while getting rid of Assad weâll let them have Alaska back too.
- Agree with Russia and Ukraine to partition Ukraine into Pro-Russia Ukraine and Pro-West Ukraine. This would also work with Moldova.
[...]
- Tell Saudi Arabia that weâre sorry for sending mixed messages by allying with them, and actually they are total scum and we hate their guts. Ally with Iran, who are actually really great aside from the whole Islamic theocracy thing. Get Iran to grudgingly tolerate Israel the same way we got Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, etc to grudgingly tolerate Israel, which I assume involves massive amounts of bribery. Form coalition for progress and moderation vs. extremist Sunni Islam throughout Middle East. Nothing can possibly go wrong.
Months later he replied this to an anonymous ask on the subject:
So that was *kind of* joking, and I donât know anything about foreign policy, and this is probably the worst idea ever, but here goes:
Iran is a (partial) democracy with much more liberal values than Saudi Arabia, which is a horrifying authoritarian hellhole. Iran has some level of womenâs rights, some level of free speech, and a real free-ish economy that produces things other than oil. If they werenât a theocracy, it would be hard to tell them apart from an average European state.
In the whole religious war thing, the Iranians are allied with the Shia and the Saudis with the Sunni. Most of our enemies in the Middle East are Sunni. Saddam was Sunni. Al Qaeda is Sunni. ISIS is Sunni. Our Iraqi puppet government is Shia, which is awkward because even though theyâre supposed to be our puppet government they like Iran more than us. Bashar al-Assad is Shia, which is awkward because as horrible as he is he kept the country at peace, plus whenever we give people weapons to overthrow him they turn out to have been Al Qaeda in disguise.
Telling the Saudis to fuck off and allying with Iran would end this awkward problem where our friends are allies with our enemies but hate our other friends. I think it would go something like this:
- We, Russia, and Iran all cooperate to end the Syrian civil war quickly in favor of Assad, then tell Assad to be less of a jerk (which heâll listen to, since being a jerk got him into this mess)
- Iraqâs puppet government doesnât have to keep vacillating between being a puppet of us and being a puppet of Iran. They can just be a full-time puppet of the US-Iranian alliance. Us, Iran, Iraq, and Syria all ally to take out ISIS.
- We give Iran something they want (like maybe not propping up Saudi Arabia) in exchange for them promising to harass Israel through legal means rather than violence. Iran either feels less need to develop nuclear weapons, or else maybe they have nuclear weapons but theyâre on our side now so itâs okay.
- The Saudi king was visibly shaken and dropped his copy of Kitab al-Tawhid. The Arabs applauded and accepted Zoroaster as their lord and savior. A simurgh named âNeo-Achaemenid Empireâ flew into the room and perched atop the Iranian flag. The Behistun Inscription was read several times, and Saoshyant himself showed up and enacted the Charter of Cyrus across the region. The al-Saud family lost their crown and were exiled the next day. They were taken out by Mossad and tossed into the pit of Angra Mainyu for all eternity.
PS: Marg bar shaytân-e bozorg
Do Scott actually believe the Achaemenid Empire should be restored with Zoroastrianism as state religion? No, âthat was *kind of* joking, and [he doesnât] know anything about foreign policy, and this is probably the worst idea everâ. Does this still reflect a coherent set of (politically controversial) beliefs about foreign policy which he clearly actually believe (e.g. that âBashar al-Assad [...] kept the country at peaceâ and Syrian oppositionists were all âAl-Qaeda in disguiseâ), that are also consistent with him picking Tulsi Gabbard as Secretary of State in his âabsurdist humorâ? Yeah, it kinda does. Same applies, I think, to the remainder of his post.
âthe Murray pick was absurdist humorâ What makes you think that? I would feel better if I thought that was true.
Honest question, have you read the linked post?
Maybe absurdist humor is not the right description, but itâs very clearly not meant to be a serious post.
Having now read the whole thing, not just the bit you quoted originally, I think it is sort of a joke but not really: a funny, slightly exaggerated rendering of what his real ideological views actually are, exaggerated a bit for comic effect. I donât think Thorstad was majorly in the wrong here, but maybe he could have flagged this a bit.
Iâll let readers decide, just adding some reactions at the time for more context:
Fair enough, this does make me move a bit further in the âoverall a jokeâ direction. But I still think the names basically match his ideological leanings.
Do you mean Bernie Sanders, Peter Thiel, or âAnonymous Mugwumpâ? I canât think of an ideological leaning these three have in common, but I donât know much about Mugwump
Thiel and Sanders donât have much in common, but Scott has stuff in common with Thiel and Sanders. (I.e. he shares broadly pro-market views and skepticism of social justice and feminism with Thiel, and possibly pro HBD views, although I donât know what Thiel thinks about HBD, plus an interest in futurism and progress, and he shares redistributive and anti-blaming the poor for being poor economic views with Sanders.)
Then Iâm sure he has stuff in common with Mugwump as well (and with you, me, and Thorstad)
My reading of the post (which is contestable) is that he chose the people as a sort of joke about âhere is a controversial or absurdly in-group person I like on this issueâ. I canât prove that reading is correct, but I donât really see another that makes sense of the post. Some of the people are just too boring choices-Yglesias, for the joke to just be that the list is absurd.
I think it, like much of Scottâs work, is written with a âmicro-humorousâ tone but reflect to a significant extent his genuine views â in the case you quoted, I see no reason to itâs not his genuine view that building Trumpâs wall would be a meaningless symbol that would change nothing, with all that implies of scorn toward both #BuildTheWall Republicans and #Resistance Democrats.
Another example, consider these policy proposals:
Months later he replied this to an anonymous ask on the subject:
Do Scott actually believe the Achaemenid Empire should be restored with Zoroastrianism as state religion? No, âthat was *kind of* joking, and [he doesnât] know anything about foreign policy, and this is probably the worst idea everâ. Does this still reflect a coherent set of (politically controversial) beliefs about foreign policy which he clearly actually believe (e.g. that âBashar al-Assad [...] kept the country at peaceâ and Syrian oppositionists were all âAl-Qaeda in disguiseâ), that are also consistent with him picking Tulsi Gabbard as Secretary of State in his âabsurdist humorâ? Yeah, it kinda does. Same applies, I think, to the remainder of his post.