ilzolende asked: deep promethea, show me the forbidden draft of chapter 9 of the book review
What Sandifer pwns himself with is empathy. He is not a person of empathy, he is cheering for Team Empathy against the Hated Enemy.
But empathy is not his basilisk, it is simply the mechanism via which his philosophy inevitably self-destructs. “Let us assume we are fucked”, the exact specifics of “how” don’t matter that much, because the Basilisk is what ultimately causes it.
What is the Basilisk then?
“The world is not fair, deal with it motherfucker” contains it, but the basilisk is none of its parts. Moldbug deals with the unfairness of the world by constructing a system where the unfairness is ultimately fair; he shies away from the basilisk. Land sees the end of the world and embraces the unfairness; he shies away from the basilisk by becoming the unfairness. Sandifer rejects the possibility of unfairness by transforming the world into a fatalistic battlefield of inevitable forces where nothing ultimately can meaningfully change anything.
Indeed, the difference between Sandifer and moldbug is only what they believe, not what they believe. Sandifer’s complete rejection of the possibility of meaningful and fundamental differences between humans, against all the evidence to the contrary, suggests that he believes believing in such differences would obligate him to sacrifice something he believes in. He believes in fairness, and thus is obligated to believe in fairness.
This is not surprising. I’d guess anyone’s first reaction to “deal with it” is to assume that it is implying that the unfairness would in itself be fair. Because Basilisk. But of course the world isn’t fair and that is the entire point.
Sandifer rejects the idea that someone might have a meaningful impact on the world as a “great man theory”, in itself simply a form of signaling that those people who believe in people instead of fatalism are not the cool kids, scorn dem. It would be deeply unfair that someone could change the world and another simply couldn’t.
The world isn’t fair. Deal with it motherfucker.
But how to deal with it?
One needs to reject equality to not be Sandifer.
By rejecting equality one would become Moldbug, as the world ultimately could have a moral hierarchy and everything at its proper place. The fairness simply shifts a level upwards.
One needs to reject morality to not be Moldbug.
By rejecting morality one would become Land, as the world itself, ultimately, in all its cruelty and pointlessness, would still be sacred and inviolable. Gnon is the final god at the end of the universe, the ultimate justice of nature.
One needs to reject justice to not be Land.
Along the way one becomes all the more monstrous. It is natural that the nihilism of Ligotti would become next. The fairness remains. If the universe itself cannot be fair, then there shall be the justice of annihilation.
What one needs to reject to not be Ligotti is not something humanity even has words for. The Basilisk. The universe is not obligated to have such words. The Basilisk.
And by rejecting Ligotti, one becomes once again more monstrous. But this time it is not the monstrosity of a comprehensible horror. It is not the end of the world. It is not the heat death of the universe. It is not the inevitability of a black hole.
It is the monstrosity of escaping a black hole. The least comprehensible and most horrifying of them all.
The world is not fair.
Then shut up and do the impossible.
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