The most tragic figure of the 21st century
this guy got retro-actively refuted by strauss and voegelin so hard its not even funny. modernity de-telos'd western society, replacing it with nothing but hedonism and scientific-technological advancement. totalitarianism is its fruit body/end which strives to give civilization a new ideological telos and acheivement of the perfect society through unrelenting state terrorism. totalitarianism will return thanks to digital, robotic, and biotech advances that will augment both state power and the human condition towards a post-human level (which fukuyama acknowledged the biotech side of in his post-humanism book). only way out is the magical seizure of power by a divine platonic philsopher king
>>24714573That's what makes him a pitiful person to me. He constantly acknowledges how fragile liberalism is but just keeps holding on to this insane faith that it will win in the political world forever. It's always "of course liberalism might fail and people will go on to other systems but it's still inherently correct"
>>24714573High quality post
>>24714423I have a hypothesis on using the word end. You did kind of imply dialectics weren't needed anymore, I agree no one wants to do it but not needed is well, let's just say you didn't have an absolute. Now I've forgotten what my hypothesis was. At any rate never count Nietzsche out, he may seem like a well meaning idiot but he was exceptionally good at his job. Whatever he decided it was.
>>24714648Take the final paragraph of his introduction to The End of History (apologies if greentext gets fucked up):>This books seeks to address these questions. They arise naturally once we ask whether there is such a thing as progress, and whether we can construct a coherent and directional Universal History of mankind. Totalitarianisms of the Right and Left have kept us too busy to consider the latter question seriously for the better part of this century. But the fading of these totalitarian isms, as the century comes to an end, invites us to raise this old question one more time. His entire work is based upon the assumption that totalitarianism has been vanquished and left in the dust bin of history. Despite this, China's continued existence under the CCP and its economic rise has made Fukuyama step back and remark that it might destroy the prospect of liberalism being the paradigm at the end of history:https://www.asiaglobalinstitute.hku.hk/news-post/china%E2%80%99s-authoritarian-way-can-rival-liberal-democracy-if-it-doesn%E2%80%99t-tear-itself-apart--says-end-of-history-authorWhat irks me most of all in his treatment of the idea of directional history is the notion that it needs to be "progressive," a notion going all the way back to Francis Bacon. This presumes a normative idealism that really doesn't make sense and is being tacked unto the idea that history might have an order-direction to it. If you place modern human history within the larger context of cosmic history, the notion that such a process will bend to such idealism is really rather childish, foolish, and reeks of credulity, and the fact he wrote Posthumanism back in 2001 in response to critics that wagered history cannot end until technological advancement ends (which Strauss argued across several articles/books well over a decade+ before Fukuyama first wrote his thesis) really sends home the ridiculousness that liberalism is to be the paradigm-ideology at the end of history. All liberalism has provided is endless consumeris, corruption, and gay butt sex admist the backdrop of technological advancement. Fukuyama himself acknowledges the "transhumanism" (a misnomer/myth if anything) or posthumanism is the real danger at play here, so I really don't see why he still clings onto liberalism considering everything.
>>24714738Take Voegelin's unintentional refutation of Fukuyama, literally only second page of his New Science of Politics:>In an hour of crisis, when the order of a society flounders and disintegrates, the fundamental problems of political existence in history are more apt to come into view than in periods of comparative stability. Ever since, one may say, the contraction of political science to a description of existing institutions and the apology of their principles, that is, the degradation of political science to a handmaid of the powers that be, has been typical for stable situations, while its expansion to its full grandeur as the science of human existence in society and history, as well as of the principles of order in general, has been typical for the great epochs of a revolutionary and critical nature.Strauss further BTFO'd Fukuyama back in 1964 via his work City and Man:>We may therefore say that Spengler's analysis and prediction is wrong: our highest authority, natural science, considers itself susceptible of infinite progress, and this claim does not make sense, it seems, if the fundamental riddles are solved. If science is susceptible of infinite progress, there cannot be a meaningful end or completion of history; there can only be a brutal stopping of man's onward march through natural forces acting by themselves or directed by human brains and hands.Obviously, Fukuyama was and still is a pontificating handmaiden for liberalism at the end of the cold war who tried to make a normative thesis work despite greater minds before him having ripped the rug out from under it. Meanwhile, we are confronted daily by the prospect of upon waking up that there might be news of an epochal development that will actually touch and change our lives forever, if the lights even turn on, or if we even wake up entirely. We are entering upon a time of global crisis and revolution, and its from here that we can see modernity and the wider trends of history for what they are. We're confronted by the at-best prospect of the world being stratified between the unaugmented and augmented and an entirely new order of advance artificial intelligence that will revolutionize governance and power. Such a development was gleamed by Kissinger right before dying, in that all this will result in a "supreme hegemony," in which a single hegemon will achieve world domination. I would wager such a hegemon (or Singleton, to borrow from Bostrom) will fully take on a totalitarian nature, in that it will indulge in mass murder and terrorism potentially up to an anti-human, omnicidal level. Humanity is marching into a final test of whether or not we will be functionally deemed a failed species within the cosmic scheme of things.
>>24714790Oh, and Strauss's passage is only on the second page of City and Man as well. Goes to show how much Fukuyama didn't do his homework before soothsaying what corrupt liberals and plutocrats wanted to hear.
>>24714790Right now, I think the current world order is led by liberals who are tired of liberalism but unwilling to fully admit it. Trump and his cabal for example don't even hesitate to contradict liberalism and the rule of law. They see it as nothing more than a nuisance. However everything they do is still in the same retarded universalist progressive framework that liberalism is steeped in, this ridiculous narrative of Judeo-Christian values triumphing over the darkness and advancing civilization into new stages that will make the past obsolete. It's illiberal liberalism. I'm just wondering at what point people will stop the charade and drop the liberal act entirely. They already disrespect it and scrutinize it whenever they don't fear monger about their bogeyman enemies like Islam and China, so what's stopping a future U.S. president from going full Franco for example?
>>24714895>so what's stopping a future U.S. president from going full Franco for example?Trump has flirted with this numerous times already but thats even beside the point - technical advance is reaching an apex that is totally and utterly going to upturn absolutely everything. The only thing that can stop it is either total collapse or a spiritual revolution.
>>24714977That's assuming that we can even reach the hypothesized depths of transhumanism to begin with. Right now there is no actual reason to think AGI is even real or that we can prolong all human life for centuries or anything like that. And even if those things are possible the average person has no will to make them real. Very few people today desire something like eternal life, even living for 100 extra years is undesirable. I think people are vastly overestimating this current technological revolution.
>>24715086>And even if those things are possible the average person has no will to make them real. Very few people today desire something like eternal life, even living for 100 extra years is undesirableI think you're under-estimating, as Putin, Xi, and Peter Thiel all beg to differ; it doesn't matter what the average person wants or has the will for, what matters is that fraction of a 1% of the population who does have that will and the power to match it and make it real. And yes, the question on whether or not AGI/ASI will/can happen is always the big one, but even so that is exactly what all sides are gunning for and its going to merge directly with advances in robotics and genetic engineering along the way. Its a matter of breakout whether that be in genetically engineered increased intelligence, strength, and health in humans, or fully automated robotic armies, or an entirely artificial or cyborg super-intelligence that commands entire economies and armies. All of this was just sci-fi hocus pocus but its whats the two global blocs of power are racing towards.
>>24715108Ellison momentarily became the richest person in the world today btwhttps://www.inc.com/chris-morris/larry-ellison-tops-elon-musk-to-become-worlds-richest-person-as-oracle-stock-soars/91238339
>>24715108A few organ transplants will not help you that much in the face of cognitive decline.
>>24715116Not to mention the need for new limbs, new bones, etc.
>>24715116Yeah, and thats where genetic engineering and neuro-therapy comes in. Again, you are under-estimating things, especially when genetic-level eugenic tinkering has already been done in humans.https://www.biotech.senate.gov/final-report/chapters/
>>24715128Even if your brightest predictions are possible, that still leaves the question of a world defined by this technology being properly controlled and utilized being possible. Like you say, it's either collapse or a spiritual revolution, and the latter is utterly impossible with our Enlightenment framework. That leaves the option you or the other anon mentioned earlier, a total epistemic collapse followed by an omnicidal destruction of our modern civilization leaving only a husk of consumption and technology. That kind of suicide seems more likely and liberalism is largely to blame for leading us into it since it's an empty ideology to begin with.
>>24715134This only brings to minds Heidegger's idea of enframing, that nature needs to be isolated, utilized, and put into reserve for technical means. It's entirely value-neutral, and when one applies it to human nature as these technologies are directly being intergraded into, the notion of "control" instantly becomes muddy and blurry as technical advance is a nearly autonomous process itself, or at the very least is a process that insists and demands upon itself for survival amongst human powers. Its a runaway process that will escape to the stars. Sterilization of the earth is preferable.
>>24714423You know, I would sympathize with Fukuyama more if he wasn't a hypocrite. He wants liberalism because he thinks it creates peace and less violence. A noble goal, few wouldn't want that. But he also had no issue lobbying for the Iraq War and giving Israel a free pass or any other imperialist liberal project that spreads wanton destruction around the world. Reading all his new books and articles where he just says "guys please chill out, return to the center and stop hating each other we can still fix things" is genuinely sad. He's a smart guy but way in over his head.
>history is ACTUALLY backAre you fuckers ready? I'm simultaneously nervous and, I have to admit, slightly thrilled. This means a return of Grand Events. Of Great Men and Great Deeds. Wars, speeches, marches, borders changing, empires rising and falling.It might, also, mean the return of Great Art. Maybe that's what we've all been missing. Maybe the reason there are so few great works of literature any more is because you need History to be on the move for them to be produced.
>>24715186Who do you think will be remembered as the Great Man of the early 21st century? I'd put my money on Putin.
>>24715186If good wins out, no matter how horrific things get before then, it will be the most glorious thing ever.
>>24715134>it's either collapse or a spiritual revolution, and the latter is utterly impossible with our Enlightenment framework.Why so?
>>24715134Gee it's a good thing there are a few entities around that have at least somewhat resisted the spiritual and metaphysical framework of the Enlightenment.
>>24715385Pic unrelated, yes?
>>24715385christianity is literally just platonism with a jewish middle man, none of this would have happened if pure divine reason and metaphysics didnt get polluted by actual jewish nonsense that caused "enlightenment" counter-reaction rebellion
>>24715317The Enlightenment framework does not give a solid spiritual foundation.
>>24715385>what was Vatican 2
>>24715432>a jewish middle manI feel like the Resurrection is completely opaque to people like you. Do you really think Christians regard Jesus as just some Jew?
>>24714423>>24715181Is he Star Trek: the man?
>>24716616You think a jewish rabbi came back to death after three days and ascended into the sky to spite the romans and other rabbis, when your whole grip about sin and holiness is a 1:1 copy paste of platonic and Aristotelian virtue ethics. Literal cave-shadow created by hellenized jews 2000 years ago.
>>24716661I believe the Resurrection is true because it is true.And it's what's going to save the world in the end. Ratzinger was right, the Person of Jesus Christ is the antidote to the ills of Modernity.
>>24716663You are a superstitious retard.
>>24716663
>>24714423Have any of you actually read his book?His whole thesis is:>Hegel has perfectly described history and we are still stuck at his stage of descriptionAnd>Nietzsche identified the pathetic Last Man who languishes in this era.Thats it. A couple graphs, historical anecdotes, and name dropping, but thats it.The essay and book has been bastardized to fit the public discourse more closely, but none of it really goes against what this wanna be Hegel fanboy wrote.
>>24716663>the Person of Jesus Christ iKind of the whole problem with this isn't it? kek
>>24714573>>24714648>>24714738>>24714895>>24714977Please check out https://byzantinus.net/ some time, it's a textboard centered around the humanities and you two have an spirit that would very fitting for the site's purpose. It's invite-only but you can get an access code through a faucet right now.
>>24716741>It's invite-only but you can get an access code through a faucet right now.who do you do this and who owns/runs it?
>>24716705That’s not it. His thesis, even if it is just restating Hegel, is the main doctrine guiding the post-Cold War West.
>>24717174>is the main doctrine guiding the post-Cold War West.no its not. thats the low IQ think tank take. history ended in the first half of the 19th century. accept it.
