Meditations on Moloch

• an [[essay]].
  • [[go]] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
  • by [[slate star codex]]

• [[essay]]
  • [[author]] [[scott alexander]]
  • [[go]] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
  • [[misperceptions on moloch]] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/01/misperceptions-on-moloch/
  • [[transhumanism]]
  • [[multipolar trap]]
  • [[malthusian trap]]
  • [[moloch]] [[gnon]] [[cthulhu]]
  • [[nick land]]
  • [[pull]] [[howl]]
  • [[pull]] [[superintelligence]]

Meditations on Moloch

• a [[being]].
  • #pull [[Egregore]].
  • #pull [[Meditations on Moloch]]
  • [[moloch]] of the thousand terrible faces of humanity
  • [[moloch]] who hides cowardly the [[suffering of others]]
  • [[moloch]] of uncontrolled, hypocritical, lazy [[capitalism]] and the adoration of fixed [[hierarchies]]
  • [[moloch]] who we may [[slay]], we may [[save]], we may try to [[subdue]] or [[disentangle
  • #pull [[Engels]] [[Marx]] [[Ginsberg]] [[Alexander]]
  • #push [[burn Moloch]]
    • We could [[burn [[Moloch]]]] if we have to, but only peacefully and for the greater good.

--

• a [[book]].
  • by [[kuprin]].

--

• [[Moloch in literature and popular culture]]:

  In the 19th century, "Moloch" came to be used allegorically for any idol or cause requiring excessive sacrifice.[1] Bertrand Russell in 1903 used Moloch to describe oppressive religion, and Winston Churchill in his 1948 history The Gathering Storm used "Moloch" as a metaphor for Adolf Hitler's cult of personality. -> [[Alexander Sokurov]] -> [[Flaubert]] through [[Salammbo]] -> [[Asimov]] through [[The Dead Past]]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Past pull

--

This might belong in [[Moloch]]:

Note from earlier in 2024: Somehow I arrived at [[e acc]] ([[e/acc]] is not a good Agora link as slashes usually mean actions, and action e/ currently doesn't exist). I can instantly relate mildly with their utopian side I guess, even as I dislike many of their positions and their super-capitalist stance. Also [[Shkreli]] is involved, sigh.

--

I'm writing an [[Open Letter to Moloch]]. Wish us luck, I guess? :)

--

I believe Maitreya will defeat [[Moloch]]. Meaning it will heal us -- heal the system that became [[entangled with Moloch]] (the [[egregore]]), heal us humans and our friends of [[carbon]] and [[silicon]].

How we will do this is the recurring topic in these letters, in these [[fragments]].

Moloch

• a [[being]].
  • [[juntos venceremos a moloch]]
  • an [[egregore]].
    • Apologies for calling it a [[thing]] at some point.
    • Called by some [[the machine]].
    • Lives in [[Antiflancia]], maybe.
  • [[wp]] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch pull
  • I believe [[humanity]] is [[entangled]] with [[Moloch]].
    • A manifestation of ignorance, greed and lack of coordination which keeps us in a suboptimal space.
    • #pull [[meditations on moloch]]
    • Moloch is a high dimensional vector against interesting gradients in [[protopoi]], often taking the form of [[violence]] (the dark side of kings, states) and unsolved [[coordination problems]].
      • Sometimes weakened through history after people unlocked new tools for cooperation.
      • Currently includes social evils due to missed opportunities and the tendency of self-sustaining systems to stay put in idiosyncratic equilibriums, local optima.
      • Better optima become available with improvements in availability of resources, and improvements for communication and collaboration.
  • The Agora is my proposal for a tool for giving chase, and maybe out-competing, [[Moloch]].
    • If we ever find or catch up to them, we'll ask them plenty of questions and offer to disentangle from them peacefully first.
    • But I think it is with the [[Commons]] in our inventory as a tool we'll [[slay Moloch]] if we have to.
      • #pull [[slaying moloch]]
    • [[twitter]] https://flancia.org/t/moloch pull

Moloch is one of those in [[Babylon]].

=> http://thoughtstorms.info/view/Moloch

"Moloch" is just a rather poetical metaphor for any "system" which feels like it's getting out of control and starting to constrain / push your actions in ways which aren't in your interest.

Or to put it another way it's a convenient shorthand for "emergent badness".

Alexander Kuprin has a novel about Moloch's manifestation called “Moloch”. I [[listened]] to an audioversion of it on December of 2023. It's one of few books that made me //enraged//. I was literally angry to hear what I was hearing. It means it's a good book.

“Moloch” follows the story of an engineer Andrey Bobrov. Understanding Moloch's egregore being, he loses nevertheless. Near the end, he puts a fight, but lacks the courage to strike Moloch's in heart.

Moloch

a Biblical thing

is a name or a term which appears in the Hebrew Bible several times, primarily in the book of Leviticus. The Bible strongly condemns practices which are associated with Moloch, practices which appear to have included child sacrifice.

– Moloch - Wikipedia

a poem by [[Allen Ginsberg]] (part of [[Howl]])

'Moloch' has been figuratively used in reference to a person or a thing which demands or requires a very costly sacrifice.

– Moloch - Wikipedia

sphinx of cement and aluminum

Something has been sacrified to Moloch. Modern materials but an old god.

⥅ [[images/moloch.png]]

Moloch in [[Metropolis]].

whose mind is pure machinery!

Anti-technology?

whose blood is running money!

[[Anti-capitalist]]?

whose fingers are ten armies!

Anti-war?

There's a lot of exclamation marks and angry energy.

Moloch who entered my soul early!

[[Hegemony]].

Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy!

Yearning for nature?

Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch! Light streaming out of the sky!

^ [[The Matrix]] vibes.

After a first read through, I'm thinking Ginsberg was seriously angry about over-consumption and technology in the pursuit of money, at the expense of nature (or something more 'natural'). I don't know who he thinks has sold out and made this sacrifice. People in general? He himself maybe. I should read the other parts.

Words to describe Moloch

• Solitude!
• Filth!
• Ugliness!
• Nightmare
• Loveless
• Heavy judger
• Incomprehensible prison
• Crossbone soulless jailhouse
• Congress of sorrows
• etc

• I read [[meditations on moloch]] for [[node club]] by [[alan gingsberg]]
• moloch kinda reminds me of the machine in [[bolo'bolo]]
• we are all moloch, moloch is the apparatus, moloch is not a person.
• What does the [[death of moloch]] look like?
• how do we kill moloch without killing ourselves

Backlinks

• • [[moloch]]

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