1. Elite suppression of the upper-middle class (upper-middle class pays most of the taxes). Imagine the kind of market competition / wage pressures they'd face if doctors/lawyers/engineers only had to pay the same rates Warren Buffet does.
2. Assault eugenics on the poor (even if they get big refunds in April, they are still subject to withholding on their meager paychecks). More time wrestling with payday lenders and scrambling to get their 39 hours in == less time making more babies.
With all due respect, Konrad can go f himself. Plenty of performant, non-foot-gun, alternatives to C++ these days. The choice of that language, and any abuses of it fall entirely upon Ferguson and his team.
And for this nugget:
“It’s also you, the software engineering community, that has made no effort to warn the non-expert public of the dangers of these tools.”
I say he deserves it without lube. Hardly a day goes by on Lobsters or HN where we (including many C++ devs) don’t complain at great length on what a reeking dumpster fire C++ is.
Feudalism/Democracy/Socialism/Capitalism/etc. ceased to explain reality a long time ago.
Regardless of one’s ideological starting point, the complexities of the modern world will necessitate an org chart which is both very broad and very deep.
A better explanation of what we have—and will continue to have barring some cataclysm—is laid out in Burnham’s “The Managerial Revolution” and Michels’ “Iron Law of Oligarchy.”
Exactly. That's also a big part of why Mao and Stalin had such high body counts--position maintenance.
Even Hitler was not immune. There's a story in Speer's biography where he was lecturing the gauleiters for wasting materials and skilled laborers on their McCastles when the military was in dire need. After the lecture, Speer was warned by Hitler to never do this again. Speer noted that this was the first and only time he had ever seen Hitler visibly afraid and shaken. No one is indispensable.
Similar issues arose in ancien régime Europe for the same reasons (nobles of the robe).
Of course, if we bomb, starve, or plague ourselves back into the stone age, that would definitely flatten the org chart, and forms of government would regain their distinctions.
I think Yarvin's only beef is the same one held by most of our malcontents. They aren't upset because our system is evil (it is). They are upset because they aren't at the top of it.
edit: Will also add that China is perfect example of this. In the first generation, Mao starved the peasants and executed his enemies. Once the patriarch was pushed aside,
the system scaled-up and took control, and now we have a nation which is regularly held up as an example (or even a necessity!) by our own Western elites.
