I've seen this change dramatically in the last few years. The people I knew 10 years ago who were the sortof frighteningly brilliant hackers have almost all become religious (mostly traditional Catholics).
I'm not saying this is an objective truth, just that this has been my experience.
Peter Thiel / Curtis Yarvin adjacent folks have in recent years heavily pushed these kinds of views in certain parts of the tech scene, Hotz tends to quote them frequently. It's not really religious Catholicism as much as an aesthetic for reactionary politics because you're more likely to find many of these newly minted Catholics at an 'Eyes White Shut' party than at mass.
His syncretism of Christianity with Bronze Age Pervert in this very blog post should immediately remind people of Umberto Eco:
"One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements. The most influential theoretical source of the theories of the new Italian right, Julius Evola, merged the Holy Grail with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, alchemy with the Holy Roman and Germanic Empire. The very fact that the Italian right, in order to show its open-mindedness, recently broadened its syllabus to include works by De Maistre, Guenon, and Gramsci, is a blatant proof of syncretism. If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled as New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge — that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism."
Fwiw, Bronze Age Pervert (BAP) is actually a classics scholar named Costin Alamariu, who holds a PhD from Yale and wrote a dissertation on the tyrants of antiquity. He puts on a Slavic accent for his podcast, but he moved to the US as a boy and speaks perfect American English.
BAP wrote a book popular in right-wing circles called Bronze-Age Mindset. In the late teens, it was reviewed in a couple of the usual places by conservative figures. BAP has lost a lot of steam since then, and it doesn't look like he'll lead his group of Frogs and fringe-heads to direct action, even though he fetishizes the warrior class.
BAP and his fellow travelers were early believers in Trump and grew disillusioned. They were consistent champions of Putin as well -- after all, he appeared topless on a horse and learned karate. I can only imagine that Russia's military failures in Ukraine have made them seek other idols.
The good thing about BAP is that he knows his sources. He has mastered political philosophy and read the original texts to a depth and degree that jokers like Yarvin cannot aspire to.
Like Yarvin, BAP wants a strong man. He does not believe in democracy. He does believe in racial superiority and inferiority. While I happen to disagree with him about a lot of issues, including those, for all the usual reasons, if I were to engage him on his own terms, I would simply point out that authoritarian regimes like those he idolizes have really obvious weaknesses.
Those include the inability to maintain high-quality, transparent communication under a punitive regime, and the inability of a kleptocracy to inspire the kind of collection action that wins wars.
What does it even mean to "believe in democracy" and is it a moral failing not to do so? Putin was elected democratically and still has a strong majority supporting him.
Not "believe in democracy" for this political subculture often means endorsing the revival of monarchy, which is what Curtis Yarvin supports. Many adherents have read Hoppe's Democracy: The God That Failed, which is somewhat of a seminal work on that thesis:
"Believing in democracy" means believing that granting real power to all adult citizens through voting and other forms of feedback is a better form of government than those governmental forms that only grant power to a few. Say, to the members of the central committee of the Communist Party, as in China. Or to a tiny group of oligarchs, apparatchiks and propagandists, as in Russia. Or to a royal family and its courtiers, as in pre-revolutionary France.
Democratic leaders can easily fall due to scandal. Authoritarian figures cannot.
China can commit the enormous mistake of its zero-COVID policy precisely because its leaders will never face a reckoning at the ballot box. Russia can stagnate in kleptocracy for the same reason.
Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer, has controlled the Russian Federation for 22 years, starting in 2000. He has signed laws that will allow him to remain in office until 2036, at which point he'll be 84.
His chief opponent, Alex Navalny, is imprisoned in Russia. Navalny's party is not allowed to participate in presidential elections. Navalny survived one attempt to poison him, and another attack in which he lost 80% of the vision of one eye when an assailant sprayed a chemical on his face.
So sure, you can believe that Putin was elected democratically if you want. He'll be elected democratically until he can no longer force Russia to elect him democratically. He resembles an African president-for-life like Mugabe much more than he does a democratically elected leader. If you believe Putin's claims, it would be useless to debate it further.
> "Believing in democracy" means believing that granting real power to all adult citizens through voting and other forms of feedback is a better form of government than those governmental forms that only grant power to a few.
That's a false dichotomy. In a western democracy, do you vote for the things you believe in, or do you vote for one of the few representatives that pretends to approximate your beliefs closely?
> Democratic leaders can easily fall due to scandal. Authoritarian figures cannot.
Is that true? What if the people likes authoritarians? What if it doesn't care about scandals? What if it democratically decides it doesn't want "free and fair elections" anymore? If the majority wants "the wrong things", the outcome will be poor. Democracy is not the distinguishing factor, it's not inherently good or bad, functional or dysfunctional.
> So sure, you can believe that Putin was elected democratically if you want.
The proceedings may be illegitimate, but there's no doubt in my mind that the Russians would have elected Putin over Navalny again. Of course there is an opposition in Russia, but it's not a majority and in any event Navalny isn't all that popular.
> That's a false dichotomy. In a western democracy, do you vote for the things you believe in, or do you vote for one of the few representatives that pretends to approximate your beliefs closely?
No it's not, actually. Democracy devolves power to individual citizens in ways that allow them to impact decisions about collective action. In western democracies, citizens have many ways of impacting collective action, which include speaking out and rallying others to their cause. It is common in places like Russia and China for citizens to be jailed or killed for speaking out about government policy. Therefore, those countries are undemocratic not just in how they approach voting, but about the civil rights they recognize and protect ... or trample.
> Is that true? What if the people likes authoritarians? What if it doesn't care about scandals? What if it democratically decides it doesn't want "free and fair elections" anymore? If the majority wants "the wrong things", the outcome will be poor. Democracy is not the distinguishing factor, it's not inherently good or bad, functional or dysfunctional.
Given that authoritarian figures control the media, information and feedback loops that are available to citizens in their countries, how would you even know what "the people" like? You can't know; you can only speculate. Authoritarian states systematically falsify voting results and other expressions of popular will. They obliterate the feedback loops because they are afraid of what people would say. That's one crucial property of an authoritarian state. To put it bluntly, you have no idea of knowing what people want under authoritarianism, and that should trouble you.
> The proceedings may be illegitimate, but there's no doubt in my mind that the Russians would have elected Putin over Navalny again. Of course there is an opposition in Russia, but it's not a majority and in any event Navalny isn't all that popular.
You have no way of testing this hypothesis. It's an opinion without evidence or the possibility of evidence, and I will treat it as such.
You should ask yourself why Putin is so afraid of running that experiment himself.
A lot of these guys (not Hotz but the Moldbug-adjacent Orthosphere bloggers) were big fans of Eastern Orthodoxy a decade ago, not sure how that trend diminished while tradcath got so big, especially with the current pope being a conciliatory figure.
I think part of that (specifically Catholic) stems from the fact that it's one of the few religions that is compatible with a scientific understanding of the world, where science is seen as a worthwhile study of creation, and not something that's dangerous and evil (like many modern fundamentalist groups seem to think).
The danger IMO comes when people tie their religious belief too strongly to political movements, or think that just because there is doctrine around a certain aspect of human culture/life, there is no questioning it or investigating it further. A healthy skepticism (especially over one's own beliefs) is central to a good life IMO.
> I think part of that (specifically Catholic) stems from the fact that it's one of the few religions that is compatible with a scientific understanding of the world,
I went to Catholic school growing up, and I did not see anything in religion classes that involved updating models of the world that conflicted with data. In fact, it was the exact opposite.
In my experience, "Data" is just a devout reverence for statistics. It claims to be a science but, like other modern belief systems strays into trying to be the "source of truth & the end of truth".
I have not kept up with modern Catholic teachings, but I recall the idea of infallible sources or truths and that conflicts with the scientific process.
A religion compatible with the scientific understanding of the world would be one that is open to amending its assumptions at anytime. At least that is my understanding of science.
Note, though, the prevalence of specifically traditional Catholics. Traditionalists tend to reject in whole or part modern Catholicism's ecumenical angles, and embrace the black and white they perceive Catholicism used to have. It's a curious mixture of using one's own judgement to decide what of the past are worth following, and a steady belief in doing and believing things of the past, whether you understand the reasoning or not.
I've had a similar experience, but rather than a religion they've turned to homesteading and 'near-Amish' living-behavior.
It's kind of fascinating to me; it feels like another fork one can take in response to burnout -- something I know they all ran into at one point or another.
I’ve noticed that almost universally, a smart person embracing religion when they’re an adult, choose a religion which their family followed when they were a child. Also only if religion was a big part of their family’s identity.
My pet theory is that people who exercise enough control over others/their environment get "bored" with it and want to feel like there's something out there bigger than themselves that they don't have dominion over.
Alternately, once you've had your fun with the more-complicated aspects of human technological advancement, you arrive at the gordian knot of religion-- the one construct nobody has managed to truly reverse-engineer. (I think this is what attracts the schizophrenics-- they believe they've succeeded where everyone else fails.)
To your point, Catholicism is very binary (pun intended) in terms of ideology. Little wonder it attracts the computer-minded.
I think it’s a weird counter culture where social conservatives can find refuge. The rationals given for being religious are found post-facto. It’s my opinion that religious elements are being recreated in atheistic society especially in Academia. By keeping religious elements bound to an actual religion, and especially to an old slow moving traditionalist religion, it keeps those elements out of the rest of society. I think not having religion is not an option due to the way some people are wired.
he's a big yarvin (mencius moldbug) guy, he's read entries from the gray mirror (yarvin's substack) on stream. people who were into nrx (neo-reactionary) figures like yarvin and bronze age pervert (see: bronze age mindset quote in the op) pivoted to a religious slant, taking up catholicism or orthodox christianity in the last couple years for what seems to be aesthetic reasons and/or resentment of the general state of things
this is just my perspective as a passive observer trying to be objective as best i can, so take all of this as you will (and at the same time who am i to question their faith? how can i know that george hotz wasn't actively religious prior to recent broader developments?)
Disquieting to hear such a brilliant and promising young engineer is so taken with Yarvin's hokey crap.
Are there are other prominent young tech people who are openly into NRX? I hear about Yarvin and his Thiel funding spreading themselves around, but I haven't any idea if it's actually taking hold in tech circles.
I’m surprised as well. In his SXSW talk a few years ago the conclusion was that he was starting a new religion with the goal of finding exploits in “the simulation” (our universe).
I did not expect to see the bible references here.
Also his presumption that we would think the bible is the closest thing we have to an origin story also suprised me. There are hundreds of origin stories that have been part of the tradition of different cultures throughout the millenia.
Surely this is true for most of modern Western culture, but it seems to hint that he’s gone down the concerning path of seeking mystical metaphors in the bible, to not acknowledge the above in a post otherwise about corporate management.
I don't think this post indicates that he's religious. If you read some of his other stuff, he's clearly a person with philosophical interests. There are lots of people who read the Bible out of a philosophical/mythological/anthropological interest rather than a religious one.
The Bible is the fundamental book by which has driven many human accomplishments and debacles. You don’t need to be religious to understand it's impact in the modern human western society.
These things always move in cycles. Everyone wants to be a contrarian. Back when religion was the norm being an atheist was cool and rebellious. Now it's becoming the opposite. The same logic applies to many other areas.
In my experience it's the opposite, Hotz comes across as someone with high-functioning mental illness (he mentions a manic episode in this post) and this can often include religious belief (along with delusions of grandeur). It's all anecdotal either way, and I'm never really comfortable with dissecting someone's religious beliefs or mental state much beyond a loose concept.
