Don't stay in your lane, but do at least signal

Leaving stanky fumes the whole way

I’m hosting an event to poke fun at Karl Popper, Marx, Hegel, and Plato… and to summarize Open Society and Its Enemies, the book I’ve been reading aloud to kindergartne- I mean my friends on Instagram & TikTok for the past few weeks (M-F 11am CT - Join us). The wrap-up celebration will be $10 to attend, but free for paid subscribers of this here newsletter.

You ever noticed how certain writers seem to fixate on a theme and never deviate too far from it? I’m not talking about a topic or staying “in one’s lane”. I’m talking about how great thinkers/writers seem to carry a certain perspective with them no matter what lane they find themselves in. You really get to know someone when you watch them switch lanes - it’s so intimate. You start to learn how well they know themselves, their strengths, weakness, and intent. I’m thinking about this because I just wrote a whole piece about my career trajectory, and I feel like I’ve done this a million times. I don’t want to be that asshole who writes about the same shit all the time, but we all do it to a certain extent explicitly or otherwise infused into whatever new shit we’re exploring.

Regardless of whether we’re the type of thinker who dwells in familiarity or one who switches lanes constantly, the problem is that a lot of us don’t recognize the stank we put on our own thoughts or the reason why we put said stank on - let alone the ability to account for it in our analyses. We leave a trace of ourselves wherever we go. I suppose the proper word to use here is “bias”, but me avoiding the proper terminology is exactly the kind of “stank” I put on everything - a general disdain for overly formalized explanations. While we’re on the topic I might as well attempt to make conscious my bias: I suppose my distaste for formality comes from what I perceive as a lack of interest in connection. The people who come up with theories and ideas have been primarily concerned with expressing those thoughts immediately and accurately, but far less concerned with who is on the receiving end of their thoughts. It becomes the receiver’s responsibility to read between the lines for “biases” or stank, and this naturally leaves many people in the dust struggling to see what the ever-living fuck a person actually means. I seek to understand and connect, which is why I hate writing long-form one-sided bullshit like this. Going on and on seems like a wasted opportunity to check in with you and see if you’re smelling what I’m stepping in.

But alas… a thinker stays stepping in some bullshit. I write about it hoping you’ll see where I was, and maybe you’ll recognize the shit I stepped in and if I’m really lucky - the stank I put on it.

Some of you are familiar with the shit I’m stepping in lately: philosophy of science, specifically that of Karl Popper. He’s a funny little guy, and you know I love a good laugh. He’s a straight-up curmudgeon, and his curmudgeonly nature runs through everything he writes. His curmudgeonly stank is even apparent when he seems unreasonably optimistic. It feels like he is forcing himself to be hopeful because he’s secretly trying to be part of a club that he’s never been let into - namely the Vienna Circle. He falls victim to this scientism-like optimism that you’d expect from people who have no business placing all that hope in a method.

I expect this kind of ridiculous optimism from people like my aunt, for instance, who somehow finagles a dose of antibiotics from her doctor every time she feels ill. I try to explain to her that when antibiotics lose their efficacy, we’re gonna be in the dark ages again, but she argues that she probably has a bacterial infection because the medicine is working (subjectively), until she gives in to my logic, shrugs and says something like, “Oh Well. I’ll be gone by then, you’ll figure it [antibiotic resistance] out.” I mean funny, but not funny ha-ha.

Popper likes to employ the same irrational beliefs as my aunt: LoGic will fix it! He tries to rationalize his way through an irrational world. His “stank” is negation - the line of demarcation between science and nonscience, the negative limit of things - when he’s in his bag, you can’t say shit - he’s on a roll, but at times it seems like he becomes acutely aware of his schtick and starts trying to look for the positive real quick. He chastises historicists like Plato and Hegel numerous times in Open Society saying that we should stop trying to plan a Utopia but instead plan safeguards and failsafe for Hell. But then he’s kinda like, ‘meh, welllllllll we might be able to find Utopia if you all start thinking this way’. You can tell he really wanted the logical positivists to like him - kinda like my aunt really wants me to think she’s brilliant for curing her ailments. But, he’s gone now, and we’re just supposed to figure it out using loGic!

I definitely don’t want to say that Popper should stay in his lane, but maybe exercise caution when changing lanes. Like before entering into politics (like he does in Open Society)… look around, check your blind spot, use a turn signal, and certainly stay in your fuckin’ car, bro! Meaning: don’t present the information you haven’t thought as deeply about as factually as you present your main theses, let everyone know you’re entering a domain that is unfamiliar, and keep that same energy - that same stank you use in your field of science and logic.

For example, Popper is a logician, but politics are not logical. He should make this clear when analyzing political theories, AND if politics is illogical, then approaching it illogically would be the logical thing to do. Keep that stank!

Popper is hops in the metaphysical lane in this whole book trying to employ logic and principles of empiricism in historical analysis and he keeps his universal Logic to Marx’s “method” of science which prophesies that

1. Capitalism tends towards an increase in productivity concentrating wealth in the hands of a few and misery in the majority…so then

2. this will funnel everyone into 2 classes (bourgeoisie and proletariat) and they gonna fight (social revolution) to the death…

3. ...of the class system when one classless society will emerge.

Popper’s stank says that these steps are non-sequiturs: a classless society is a possibility not an eventuality as Marx prophesizes. Ok, logic! Ok… but then…

this mfer goes comes up with his own non-sequiters when addressing power structures and thinks we would notice?

Here’s what he says: Marx believes that power lies (greatest to least) in the 1) machines (the mode of production) 2) the economic system and least of all 3) the legal system. Popper thinks Marx is fatally mistaken for thinking that the state is impotent compared to economic powers. He says that the state has an obligation to protect us according to the paradox of freedom (strongman beats the weak one - so government makes rules) in this case, the rich can enslave the poor. Popper says that the fix is that “The State must see to it that nobody need enter into inequitable arrangement out of fear of starvation, or economic ruin.” BRUH. Every single person on this planet is in an inequitable (metaphysically arguable) arrangement out of fear of starvation or economic ruin. Why the fuck else would people do work that they hate? If the state must fix this, he’s writing checks for the state that their policies can’t cash.

Pops says the state isn’t impotent, but infers that it is omnipotent and must do something? Even if it could do something it does not follow that it must. If we run the state, then the state is not a rational entity. Who’s on some non sequitur bullshit now?!

He goes on:

“…we can make impossible such forms of exploitation as are based upon the helpless economic position of a worker who must yield to anything in order not to starve….when we are able to guarantee a livelihood to everybody willing to work, then the protection of freedom of the citizen from economic fear and intimidation will approach completeness.”

The Fuck? Like obviously Popper hasn’t seen modern-day India, but besides that, he’s making all KINDS of non-sequiturs now. Just because people have jobs does not guarantee a “livelihood”. Clearly, people making $10/hr at the gas station can’t afford a $7 carton of eggs and their rent. Not only that but even if the state could guarantee everyone a livelihood, it doesn’t mean they’re gonna take it! I mean, look at Portland, the Houseless Capital of the US.

Either Popper is being wholly consistent - using logic illogically, or he just wants to play logical positivist and historicist like everyone else gets to do. I mean I get it. It sucks being the safety police. Just ask Elizier Yudkowsky. I just want to connect with Popper, and his logic is very sweet, but he’s like a 120-year-old man driving a Volkswagon Beetle 100 mph on a Florida highway. Not only did he switch into the left lane, but he didn’t even signal that he was merging onto the Interstate of Irrationality.