People, ideas machines XI: Leo Strauss, modernity and regime change

And Snippets on: Shor on 2024, AI, rape gangs, why JSOC should bug lawyers' phones in London...

Apr 30, 2025

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We are now brought face to face with a tyranny which holds out the threat of becoming, thanks to “the conquest of nature” and in particular of human nature, what no earlier tyranny ever became: perpetual and universal…

Their [the classical view’s] implicit prophecy that the emancipation of technology, of the arts, from moral and political control would lead to disaster or to the fundamental dehumanisation of man has not yet been refuted.

Leo Strauss

It was the contempt for these permanencies [the permanent characteristics of humanity, e.g the distinction between noble and base] which permitted the most radical historicist in 1933 [Heidegger] to welcome, as a dispensation of fate, the verdict of the least wise and least moderate part of his nation while it was in its least wise and least moderate mood, and at the same time speak of wisdom and moderation.

Leo Strauss

I am perplexed by my own data and my conclusion is in direct contradiction of the original idea from which I start. Starting from unlimited freedom, I arrive at unlimited despotism.

Shigalev, in The Devils

In short, one may say anything about the history of the world - anything that might enter the most disordered imagination. The only thing one cannot say is that it is rational…

And … even if man really were nothing but a piano key, even if this were proved to him by natural science and mathematics, even then he [man] would not become reasonable, but would purposely do something perverse out of sheer ingratitude, simply to have his own way. And if he does not find any means he will devise destruction and chaos, will devise sufferings of all sorts, and will thereby have his own way. He will launch a curse upon the world, and, as only man can curse … then, after all, perhaps only by his curse will he attain his object, that is, really convince himself that he is a man and not a piano key!

If you say that all this, too, can be calculated and tabulated, chaos and darkness and curses, so that the mere possibility of calculating it all beforehand would stop it all, and reason would reassert itself - then man would purposely go mad in order to be rid of reason and have his own way! I believe in that, I vouch for it, because, after all, the whole work of man seems really to consist in nothing but proving to himself continually that he is a man and not an organ stop. It may be at the cost of his skin! But he has proved it...

Notes from the Underground, Dostoyevsky

Thus revolution gave birth to every form of wickedness in Greece. The simplicity which is so large an element in a noble nature was laughed to scorn and disappeared… In general, the dishonest more easily gain credit for cleverness than the simple for goodness.

Thucydides, III.82-84

[UPDATE 24/5: Notes on Introduction to The City and Man, and a summary of the crisis of the West]

[UPDATE 20/5: Notes on On Classical Political Philosophy]

This blog will summarise and consider essays by philosopher Leo Strauss.

Strauss identifies three waves of modernity sparked by (1) Machiavelli, (2) Rousseau and (3) Nietzsche.

The West’s spiritual-philosophical crisis, explored in Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche writing after the 1848 revolutions (see blog on Dostoyevsky), is the deepest cause of the political crisis we see in the crumbling of old ideas, old institutions (domestic and international), old parties and old political regimes.

A fourth wave of modernisation has begun, not driven by traditional philosophers or the universities but mainly by the internet and technology.

Whenever I talk about philosophy my practical allies say, rightly — almost nobody in politics cares about this, they won’t listen, they mostly can’t do simple politics, it’s pointless trying to get them to think about philosophy.

This is true but misses the point. Blogs on philosophy are not for 99.9% of SW1 — they are for the 0.1% and for people outside SW1.

Everybody in politics is pursuing things they were programmed to pursue by dead philosophers. We are all somewhat ‘NPC’. The collapse in standards of elite education means we are less able than many of our ancestors to think for ourselves. The political crisis we’re in requires deep new stories. The old parties’ old stories are deathly stale and is partly why they only mobilise apathy or hate. To develop new stories we need to figure out why the old stories are played out. For this, we must turn to the deepest ideas. The coming discussions over biological engineering and AI demand the same.

I won’t now go into what seems to be coming next. After I’ve reviewed the essays I’ll add something.

At the bottom are SNIPPETS on:

Shor on 2024
Professor Ansell calling ‘peak populism’
Toby Lutke on AI. Shopify must see if an AI can do a job before hiring someone
Karpathy on AI. Unlike previous technologies adopted first by big organisations then normal people, LLMs are the reverse: the big effects are with normal people not big organisations. The future is here and very highly distributed.
Michael Nielsen on AI. Alignment isn’t a solution, it’s a problem.
Askonas on AI.
Drones and AI.
Espionage and AI.
‘Moneyball military’ and AI.
Bioterror and AI.
Deterrence and AI.
AI Scenarios for 2025-7 by Daniel Kokotajlo & Scott Alexander.
Tariffs, containers, logistics

VOTE REFORM TOMORROW

On Thursday, you should vote Reform if you have a local vote, unless you’re voting personally for someone you know about. Why? To signal a desire for big change and strengthen the forces pushing for big change. Voting Tory just encourages the useless gang in charge to think they should carry on what they’re doing which is wasting everyone’s time. Per my previous blog we need to either a) push them in a useful direction (and a necessary condition is retiring KB) or b) close and replace them ASAP. It’s also the best way to spook No10 to abandon some of the dumb things they’re doing — e.g letting the worst elements of the HMT/OBR consensus govern economic policy.

The key period for Reform is from Friday to this time next year and the much bigger elections. Per my previous blog:

Can they hire a great team for research, policy, communication and campaigning? Do they become the only party in Britain actually able to campaign? (Now, no big political organisation in UK can campaign up to the old standards, never mind deal with the new technologies. Campaigns require sustained focus which they can’t do and seldom try.)
Can they set out a story combining candidate selection and a political story, how the people they recruit as candidates reflect their priorities for the country?
Can they figure out how to jiujitsu the weight of the Insider attacks — old parties, old Whitehall, and old media — to their advantage? They threaten the old system. That system will try to destroy them including with use of the deep state to destroy individuals’ reputations. Countering it won’t be trivial.

NB. They do not need to transform to high performance in order to destroy the Tories’ strategic position. They can win 50-150 seats as a one-man band protest party. But they do need to transform to high performance in order to win a majority in 2029 then deliver.

The Tories have done nothing in months except encourage thousands to conclude Britain is knackered and accelerate their plans to leave — a trend that is greatly underrated in super-parochial SW1. As SW1 gets more and more out of touch with anything productive and valuable, and more and more insular, it becomes harder and harder for its NPCs to see even very obvious things. And the flight of money and talent from Europe to America is a big thing. London snaffles some stragglers on their way west, London benefits from being outside the EU’s regulatory self-sabotage on AI, but London is also losing many because of the overall political and economic farce and the manifest determination of the mainstream to carry on with Osborne-Sunak vandalism.

I’ll return to domestic politics shortly. But you can see that LFG and Crush Crime are changing debate so — if you’re NOT leaving and you want to help something that can do things, get in touch with Newport, give them time, money, expertise, connections etc.

(Also have you noticed the NPC Narrative Whiplash on OBR? When people like me said that it was ludicrous for governments to shape policy to influence future OBR forecasts (that are always wrong) — objectively a madhouse way of governing — NPCs denounced it as ‘extremist’, ‘Orbanism’, ‘fascism’ etc. Now that the OBR is seen as blocking more tax and spend for the old system, Narrative Whiplash has kicked in and now it’s ‘mainstream’ and ‘sensible’ to attack the government for its absurd approach and ‘mad’ to do the thing they defined as ‘serious’ until recently.)

GANGS

Yesterday Lawrence Newport and Crush Crime published a Bill for an immediate inquiry on the Gangs. PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BY CLICKING HERE AND ADDING YOUR NAME TO THOSE SUPPORTING.

These gangs are STILL operating.
Both parties have worked with officials to coverup not just the gangs but all the connected nightmares including: police arresting parents trying to save their children, police cooperating with the gangs to return children to them, local councillors clearly working with the gangs, whistleblowers literally murdered and so on and so on.
An Inquiry will come, the sooner the better.
It was in Labour’s interests to do this as soon as possible, blame the Tories for 14 years of coverups, and get the credit for purges and jailings and action. But obviously Starmer has defaulted to his instincts per my previous blog: always defend the old system even when it’s obviously terrible government and politics. Whitehall obviously does NOT want an Inquiry as it will reveal much guilt from officials and document in humiliating detail how Elon was right: multiple national coverups. I know this because I saw this process myself in the DfE (cf. previous blog).
Crush Crime’s Bill would make this Inquiry very unlike others. Time limited. Not a judge but an investigator in charge. Coordinated with a No10 Task Force. RICO powers. Force the courts to publish all transcripts and stop them abandoning centuries of England’s tradition of open justice. And much more. Judges refusing to allow publication of court transcripts because they think public discussion of trials is ‘not in the public interest’ is a perfect example of where ‘the mainstream’ are taking us.
Farage said yesterday that if Labour does NOT u-turn and do it, then the Reform Manifesto will pledge to introduce the Crush Crime Bill in the first month of the next Parliament. This will exert pressure. The Tories will have to promise similar. And Labour MPs will tell No10: you cannot have this as an election issue, neutralise it with our inquiry that also smashes the Tories for failure 2010-24…

Some coverage so far:

Telegraph, MPs try to force grooming gang inquiry

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/04/29/mps-try-to-force-grooming-gang-inquiry/

GB NEWS, Farage teams up with Labour to force Keir Starmer into grooming gangs public inquiry

https://www.gbnews.com/politics/nigel-farage-labour-peer-grooming-gangs-public-inquiry-force-keir-starmer

GB NEWS, Reform makes manifesto commitment to national grooming gangs inquiry in first month

Farage: “If Labour refuses to hold an inquiry, Reform’s manifesto at the next election will commit to legislation for an Inquiry, with statutory powers, into the gangs introduced to Parliament in the first month of the Reform government. This inquiry must happen and will happen.”
https://www.gbnews.com/politics/reform-manifesto-commitment-national-grooming-gangs-inquiry-first-month

GB NEWS

https://x.com/GBNEWS/status/1917169937824571497

GB NEWS, Eamonn Holmes interviews Lawrence Newport

https://www.facebook.com/GBNewsOnline/videos/540216282224939/

Twitter – Crush Crime

Justice should be a matter of PUBLIC RECORD - but the system is so broken that trial transcripts are either DESTROYED or hidden behind massive bureaucratic paywalls.

Interview with Adam Wren about his court transcript campaign

https://x.com/crush_crime/status/1915665077266772169

Twitter – Zia Yusuf (Chairman of Reform UK)

The only way to bring justice to victims of the grooming gangs is a full national, statutory inquiry with the power to compel witnesses.
We will launch this in the first month of a Reform government.

https://x.com/ZiaYusufUK/status/1917181498496569850

LBC – Nick Ferrari

Lawrence Newport interviewed on Nick Ferrari show

https://x.com/crush_crime/status/1917488473201614990

SOME RECENT BLOGS

My recent blog on UK politics

https://dominiccummings.substack.com/p/tsp-5-what-comes-in-2025-6-as-both

Specifically on Whitehall

https://dominiccummings.substack.com/i/152759149/starmer-and-whitehall-who-fires-whom

11/24: Why did Trump win?

The ~50 Year Cycle of Regime Change

https://dominiccummings.substack.com/p/q-and-a?open=false#%C2%A7the-year-cycle-of-regime-change