The Abundance Delusion [Gift Article] Thiel associate rebuttal to the Abundance Agenda

Posted by altacan

26 Comments

  1. A rather incoherent article that seems to attribute a lot more influence amongst the activist left on the Democratic Party than actually exists. Most of his arguments don’t refute abundance proposals but mock how toothless any policy’s would be after going through a legislative committee. And surprise, surprise he’s saying that only a ‘Great Man’ type personality like Robert Moses or FDR would be able to push through such a far fetched agenda.

  2. Damn, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen an article so totally poison the well right off the bat. This article barely had anything to do with abundance as a set of policy positions and is just a lot of whining about the supposed violence of the far left.

  3. Solana’s argument against Abundance is that it requires the socialist left, who will never agree to it. And then he complains a lot about the socialist left. I disagree with his premise, and the rest is just complaining rather than make a convincing argument that trying to appeal to the left is the only tent that you can make to vote in Abundance.

    So in honor of his low-effort opinion piece, here is a quote from the article with a very low-effort (and very ungenerous) ellipsis:

    >Abundance is not a democratic project. Abundance inherently requires … the Holodomor.

  4. this article is atrocious in so many ways but one of the funnier parts is the author thinking robert moses only became controversial very recently lmao

  5. CornstockOfNewJersey on

    “In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony lib’s abundance. But because, I am enlightened by subsidizing demand.” -Nimbchard Dawkins, author of “The Abundance Delusion”

    (I know that’s not what the article is about but I don’t contribute substantively to discussions, not really my thing)

  6. It’s always hilarious when wordcels talk about how useless liberals are at building anything.

    At least Yarvin tried and failed to code something meaningful.

  7. erasmus_phillo on

    A lot of incoherent noise here but if there is one particular criticism that does ring true to me, it’s the idea that many Democratic elected officials think of building infrastructure as, first and foremost, a jobs program… which is why Newsom keeps touting the number of jobs that the HSR program has created even though it’s projected to take decades to build (which should be considered a policy failure)

    this btw is the only good point the guy makes throughout this article imo

  8. mrchristmastime on

    It’s like they’re mad that their opponents might change their minds and/or their approach.

  9. It’s so interesting when someone who is solely known for their tweets tries to write an actual article. Back when I used twitter, I always fucking hated Mike Solana’s tweets for being insipid and bad-faith. It’s somewhat refreshing to see that he’s a dogshit writer who evinces the same brainworms in the long-form.

  10. The abundance delusion is thinking that the abundance of opinions on the book are worth publishing.

  11. I really hate how every ‘rebuttal’ these days is just “this isn’t literally happening right this very moment and is therefore too unrealistic to even consider.”

    If that’s your take DONT CONSIDER IT AND STOP WRITING YOUR ARTICLE.

    (And that’s a charitable take on this garbage piece.)

  12. AnywhereOk1153 on

    lol I wonder why you don’t see Mike Solana talk about how MAGA has the most violent far right extremists as well as

  13. ice_cold_postum on

    I’m coining a new term called “substack-itis”, where the article title promises a grand synthesis of a big problem, and then the article content is just a frantic attempt by the author to digest their own custom social media feed.

  14. Well I’ve been on the fence about keeping my Atlantic subscription but if it’s going to be more and more slop like this I’ll take my money elsewhere. How do people like The New Yorker?

  15. Guys we are winning because ultimately abundance is setting grammar of public policy discussion however memeable the opposition to it is

  16. TLDR: Nimwits on Reddit are bad therefore anything to the left of center is bad therefore abundance and all DEMONRATS are bad.

  17. These people are so pathetic. I never cease to be amazed for what passes for a conservative “intellectual” nowadays. Increasingly often it seems incompatible.

    I think Ben Shapiro is almost certainly intelligent, but its in spite of his conservatism, and when he goes to bat it certainly doesn’t help him come across any better.

  18. I try to take in info from a variety of viewpoints to better inform/defend/steel my own beliefs, but I saw “Thiel associate” here and said fuck giving that a click.

  19. turb0_encapsulator on

    why the fuck did The Atlantic publish this? It just seems like bait and they should be above that.

  20. >Now the most recent incarnation of “techno-utopianism” as imagined by Abundance libs is explicitly a Democratic project. The notion of Thompson and Klein is something like, *Well, we believe the government is broken, but it could and should be used for great things, while Republicans don’t seem to believe in the* concept *of government at all. So we’re appealing to libs rather than right-wingers.* Fair enough. Or, it would be fair enough if we pretended Donald Trump did not exist, and these past eight years of right-wing evolution were just an especially embarrassing daydream. But what I’m saying is, I hear you. I get it. We’re banking on the openly violent left over MAGA moms who voted for Trump because their preschool teacher told little Sally she might be a man. Also, the eggs were *really* expensive.

    I think it’s less “republicans don’t believe in government” and more “Republicans can’t be let in 300 feet of a functioning government”

    The guy’s one understandable point is “the socialists don’t want to cooperate on abundance”, and yet by constantly slinging culture-war feces he inadvertently shows why nobody wants to work with Republicans

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