Who is Moloch and What is the MetaCrisis?

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A thirteen minute unpack of the metacrisis.

He thinks "Moloch" (a metaphor for the inability of human society to pursue the worldwide common good) can be slain by ... blockchain???

The video you posted is associated with a website called Prometheuns, which describes itself as "Short essays with an animated video simplifying Blockchain, Cryptography and other technologies that are reshaping the world."

Yep - you found the most important part.

I'm sorry, but to me the idea of blockchain as any kind of solution to "the metacrisis" seems just nutty.

For starters, blockchain sure isn't exactly helping humanity cut down on its carbon footprint. The computations done in blockchain are extremely resource hungry.

Yeah, I didn't know I was starting a blockchain thread. I just felt like he summarized Moloch and the Metacrisis in an easy / succinct way. I had to skim through the video for what you're talking about because I had no memory of any significant emphasis on crypto in the video and I saw implied at the end (it really feels like we're shooting the main topic over a minor detail but strangely being on WP long enough I'm learning that's common practice).

All I'll really say about crypto and the metacrisis in this thread - I don't doubt that if the different companies making smart contracts and zero-knowledge proofs on-chain would be cornering an incredibly nice market if they're able to solve coordination problems and find more creative ways to use immutable ledgers and smart contracts. I don't think the idea is crazy necessarily that proofs and smart contracts could force fairer dealing or transparency of public figures and companies, the ingredients for doing that are there and a lot of projects hype that intention to the moon but I think it will be at least five to ten years until we see how much success major crypto projects have with that and what the trade-offs look like. The crypto ecosystem seems to be focusing a lot on layer 2 scaling solutions (using the parent chain or 'layer 1' as a hash verification). Chainlink has recently gotten a lot of acclaim for their CCIP (cross-chain interoperability protocol), they already have contracts with SWIFT and Amazon and it looks like they're getting involved with a lot more banks. It's still more in a scaffolding and investment phase than being a 'matured' market.

Blockchain...ie crypto currency isnt a solution to ANY friggin thing...except maybe as a "solution" to the problem of the individual user escaping detection by the cops for money laundering.

About one minute in the copy writer made a semantic blunder. He talked about ancient times, but then says "moving forward from medieval times to the 1960s". He wasnt talking about medieval times in the first place. So how can he move "forward from" them?

It may seem like a nitpick, but "medieval" and "ancient" are two different things. The word Medieval (ie "of the middle ages") has the word "middle" contained in it. The term means "between ancient and modern (ie the ages in the middle)". And in the middle ages they raised gothic cathedrals in the name of Christ. They did not prey to bull headed Pagan gods. That was what the pre Medieval Pagan cultures did in "ancient" times, or are supposed to have done. I think that the Bible plagarized the Greek myth of the Minotaur to make up the story about "sacreficing children to a bull headed god".

So just that one word choice discredits the creators of the video as being several kinds of illiterate...at least to me. But I soldiered on beyond that point and watched it anyway. They displayed some flaws in logic explaining their Moloch metaphor. In general the vid makes little sense.

I decided to Wiki "Moloch". The Wiki article mentioned the Biblical origins (how the Bible accuses the neighbors of the ancient Hebrews of worshipping the god), and it mentions Dante and Allen Ginsberg using it as a metaphor. It says Maloch is used by these various later day writers as a metaphor for "a force that demands sacrifice". Not quite what the vid talks about.

Both courses of action ...striving for narrow goals, and this communitarian cooperation for "broad goals", demand sacrificing. Moloch turns up either way, but in different ways.

Some of us are concerned about the sources of our information. When I watch a video I almost always check to see who made it and what their general overall perspective is.

Anyhow, if you'd prefer to talk about "Moloch" and the "metacrisis" rather than debate about cryptocurrency, a better source on "Moloch" (in the modern sense) is Meditations On Moloch by Scott Alexander, on the blog Slate Star Codex, July 30, 2014.

For some background on the author, see the Wikipedia article about Slate Star Codex. (See also his Statement on New York Times article.)

It seems to be an attempt by blockchain proponents to win Christian fundies over and convince them that crypto-currency is the only way to go.

Meh, I could be wrong.

^
What aspect of it seemed to you to be targeted at Christian fundies?

Seemed to me to be targeted at an upper-middle-class hippie-remnant blue-state audience, and more specifically targeted at fans of people like Alan Ginsburg and Scott Alexander. "Moloch" is presented as a metaphor, not a literal demon.

But, yes, especially in the context of the YouTube channel as a whole and its associated website, it does seem that the main ultimate point of the video is to push cryptocurrencies.

Oh..yeah. In the last twenty seconds they make a veiled plug for crypto currency.

Missed that.

Fundies?

Moloch, the deity, comes from the Old Testament in the Bible. But besides that there is no special pitch directed to the Bible Belt demographic that I can see. They dont even credit the Bible for being the source of the Moloch meme in the first place. If they were specially targeting Fundies they wouldnt hesitate to quote scripture. And as MP said Fundies are not usually big fans of Jewish gay beatnik poets like Allen Ginsberg.

Yeah, forcing people to read a ten page LessWrong style essay with all kinds of abstractions would have been good for this falling off the front page with zero replies. I've posted plenty of long-form discussions with Daniel Schmachtenberger and Liv Boeree, no one (with notable exceptions like shliafu) would touch those either.

I guess Mona ...broke the topic's leg (by pointing out the video's ulterior motive). So we have no choice now, but to...put a gun to the topic's head and to put it out of it's misery!

Did she?

I'm also not convinced that crying 'crypto!' has any relation to the main topic - ie. Moloch.

I can see why you prefer to post eloquent, concise videos in that case.

However, bear in mind that eloquent, concise videos on any given topic X are, in many cases, likely to be produced by people with some larger agenda Y, and that many viewers (myself included) will be at least as interested in the question of what the producer's larger agenda Y is as we are in what the video has to say about its announced topic X.

Perhaps, to avoid being taken by surprise by such responses, it might help for you to make sure you yourself are aware of the producer's larger agenda, before you post a video. Examine at least the titles of a good sampling of other videos in the producer's YouTube channel. Also, google both the channel's name and the producer's name/handle (if different from the channel's name). If there's an associated website, look at it, too.

Then, when you post the video, perhaps it might be a good idea for you to specifically mention the producer's larger agenda Y (as you did, belatedly, here in another of your video threads) while at the same time stating that your aim isn't to push agenda Y, but just to discuss topic X. If you thus indicate (in your very first post introducing the video) that you are already aware of agenda Y, then I, at least (and I suspect others too), would likely feel less of an urge to point it out.

You might also consider whether some YouTubers have agendas that are so distasteful that it's not a good idea to be posting their videos at all, even just to call attention to the relatively innocuous main topic of some particular video of theirs. For example, in the past, you've occasionally (unknowingly?) posted innocuous-seeming (at first glance) videos made by out-and-out white nationalists and fascists.

In this case, with there only being in the last few seconds of the video 'Oh yeah, blockchain exists' - nah, it really doesn't seem like it's worth the effort even with your deep-dive.

Maybe I'm a bit wrung-out on sensitivity at this point but if someone affiliated with the Church of Scientology makes a really dang good video on how to change a timing belt on a car I'm still sharing it - even if learning how to change a timing belt, specifically from them, worms it's way under their skin enough to the Church of Scientology. They might not say a thing about Scientology during the entire video but you know - subliminal messages, animal magnetism, and such.

Maybe someone really wants to go out and buy a bunch of crypto! If learning about Moloch from this video inspires them to drop a few thousand on some meme coin - that's between them and God, and I kind of don't care if I accidentally booked the appointment.

Last edited by techstepgenr8tion on 06 Oct 2023, 5:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Not necessarily, but, as I mentioned earlier, I would urge anyone interested in learning more about "Moloch" (in the modern metaphorical sense) to read Meditations On Moloch by Scott Alexander, on the blog Slate Star Codex, July 30, 2014.