Hi Slick, this is a wonderfully accurate description of the dynamics among a subset of humans, mostly men, whose self-esteem rests upon their sense of control over and influence upon others.
I agree that the accumulation of money serves the drive for interpersonal power. The sense that we can affect others is the basis for the need we all have to feel good about ourselves, to feel like we matter, like we're important.
Beneath the surface of men like the Koch brothers, Trump, Putin, Musk, and bunches of technocrats and autocrats, lies the broken hearts of little boys who were deprived of tenderness in their earliest relationships with mothers, fathers, nannies, etc.
They grew up determined not to care about that and They discovered that they could keep heartache and shame at bay by substituting toughness and an annihilating form of competition as the basis for self-esteem. Western culture has been shaped, for thousands of years, by these dynamics so boys like this step into a long line of autocratic role-models beginning with emotionally distant and insensitive parents, especially fathers, who humiliate and ridicule the inborn sensitivity of their little boys who might otherwise retain their inherent sweetness.
My suggestion is that we, collectively, observe how the taboo on tenderness destroys little boys before the age of three and exposes them to a culture of cruelty in which they must dominate or be humiliatingly dominated for the rest of their lives. Boys and girls absorb the gendered messages the culture, by way of the family first, sends them. As we individually and collectively alter our emotional stance towards our infants and toddlers we alter the character and values of the adults they will become.
Yes. Absolutely. We need the right brain back, and urgently. And that's exactly what's coming next!
Before Stephenson, I'll probably have to get into Heidegger, and try to explain what he *actually* meant by Sein and Gestell.
Right now the colossal misunderstanding of his later thought by Dugin et al. has him rolling in his grave fast enough to power all our AI and data centres...
I am strongly lacking in that kind of knowledge. I have not read anywhere close to that many books. All 20 YEARS preceding now I’ve been flipping through online pages and articles, and I could not memorize that much stuff from those books. Even if aimed “at the right stuff” and the right ideals, that’s where I am at.
Because if I never have even tried to make such a "predictive" article and never have memorized that much stuff in my entire life or been as intentional as I'm *imagining* you've been in studying this for as many years, what does that mean?
(I.e. I imagine you sitting for several hours per day reading books, very carefully, reading the same page 5-6 times, really trying to hammer that shit into your head, writing very careful notes, hammering that shit even when it is the most boring teeth-gnawing thing you can do because you know you gotta HOLD ONTO it and you have to thus not just be chasing novelty all the time like I would [i.e. read a few pages then go to something totally different that looks new shiny and interesting, then rapidly forgetting those few pages in minutes] but rote revisiting "boring familiar stuff" a zillion times, etc. But that's also just imagination, too.)
I don't, quite the opposite, because you just said you read and study and investigate things.
We, and our minds, have different strengths and preferences, I wouldn't judge you for that either.
It's easier for me to remember things I deeply care about, or am very curious about. Writing about it helps as well. I take it as a compliment, but don't take it as a limitation!
I don’t. I mostly scroll social media these days, and have for the past 10 years, but not the kardashian kind of stuff, but the stuff said by people like you, on sites like quora etc. Regardless, much of it just doesn’t stick.
I think a helpful thing to answer would be the following. Take some average sized, say 300 pp., book on some "serious" topic. Now:
1. Do you actively take intentional notes when reading this?
2. If so, what volume would those fill?
3. Do you repeatedly re-read the book or pages several times to make things "stick"?
4. How do you re-use notes and how much do you aim to ensure is retained?
5. 30 days after ending the reading, how much do you think you could write about the book if you were to do so? Like just listing all recallable specific facts (name of person X, date they did Y, what Y was, etc.).
This would at least give me some metrics of what the kind of intellectual competence that seems urgently necessary for this situation and the things I've wanted to do, looks like. For me, the answers are:
1. No, almost never;
2. Very little, by extension;
3. Never, it's way too boring to read the same thing over 6-10 times;
While we're on the subject of affecting the direction the world is being driven in, there's a universe of understanding in the attachment theory of Mary Ainsworth and John Bowlby, that addresses how our earliest sense of emotional security affects us in all subsequent relationships for the rest of our lives.
I very much appreciate the wide and deep perspective you've laid out so thoroughly and clearly for us in this astonishing piece, especially the guide for how we can undermine the pillars of power that support the autocrats. ♥️
Yes - I think Kenneth Rasmussen's substack might be of interest to you as well.
If I can ask for one favour, the most helpful thing right now is to help propagate the seeds of tomorrow. If it feels right, I will be grateful for every share, restack, for every question and suggestion, for everyone who finds this and finds it useful.
Slick, I'm definitely sharing this clearly articulated piece that like the poem about the blind people touching different parts of the elephant, adds dimensions to our understanding of the human dynamics by which we're all being affected. Ok to share on Bluesky?
I'll check out Rasmussen as well...thanks for the suggestion. 🌻
I was able to follow this, and I feel its a remarkable piece and will be rereading and thinking about it. However, like many Americans, I am more of a concrete thinker.
What do the alternatives embedded in this mean in the concrete knowable world in the next few years? I personally have always felt good about the US Constitution, and the way our government was organized. But we have allowed it to be royally screwed up by the lack of concrete guardrails to retain representatives and others in their lanes (and apathy/undereducation).
( my opinion)- Until fairly recently, historically, the US system of government has served most of the people – not always well, but at least an attempt. As greed and ruthlessness has impacted its operation over time (Think lobbyists, citizens united, etc.), using the tools of mis- and disinformation, division, and gross economic disparity, we have not noticed how fast or dangerous the fall has been.
Like many Americans, I wonder what’s next. And I do feel blinkered by my propensity to see things in concrete terms, and visualize what they (could) look like.
I think the answer is found in Heidegger and McGilchrist: bring back the right side of the brain, the meaning and connection.
The left brain has taken over and is attempting remodel the world in its image: separate units, easy to understand and manipulate.
But that's not what humans are.
Humans are not *just* concrete, tangible creatures with simple goals and simple minds. Humans have a soul, emotions, and care about more than their GDP and retirement--not cold, soulless machines in a cold, soulless world...
Fair enough. I should mention that I’m concrete, and also analytical. I don’t disagree even a little bit on the need for regaining more right side of the brain operation in the world.
Having studied attachment theory and child development, I too wholeheartedly believe that one of the keys to peace is to un-brainwash the “male mind”, starting at birth. Keep up the good fight, Dr. Taylor and Stay Slick.
haven't studied any theories but I can say, from personal experience, that in many..what subcultures (?) the females (mom, sisters, aunties) make no excuses for "spoiling" babies and toddlers (and sometimes that goes on too long where it has negative effects) much affection, holding, speaking. while the males err on the side of toughening up the future man for spiritual/physical/psychic slings and arrows of fate. a yin/yang thing, I guess, the sexual binary in full flower. etc etc
Agreed. Generally, that is how it goes. I know maybe I am too much of an optimist at some level, but I feel like we could minimize so many of societal issues, such as violence, greed, oppression, lack of empathy, etc. if we could help men (and boys) figure out how to deal with problems more efficiently. This starts at home. And, the most effective way is for families to practice empathy — with all living and nonliving things. Parents also need to be more educated about (and actively practice) gender equality. We need to teach both boys and girls that feelings and emotions are a powerful part of life, regardless of gender, and how to adequately deal with our feelings. Our children’s inner-worlds should be as important to us as their annual physical check-ups. With unattended emotional support, girls tend to internalize their problems and boys externalize. Here lies the issue, and in my opinion this is why we are in the situation we are in, and always have been. We have work to do.
Kristin, you and I are of the same or similar mind. The taboo on tenderness in the rearing of boys, how they are gutted of their vulnerability and humanity and then stuffed with entitlement and grandiosity, inculcated into a culture of cruelty and competition, has left us in this existential crisis.
Looking forward to more discussion about balancing our human, relational needs. 😊♥️👍
But I disagree with one of the pillars of your conclusion:
"This isn’t just about breaking the Technate. It’s about making sure nothing like it can ever rise again."
This strikes me as ahistorical. Empires and civilizations do collapse, and then what remains is a decentralized patchwork of communities which slowly declines (in harmony with nature locally) until the next incarnation takes over. There are a few historical examples of federal empires or civilizations (ex. SE Asia or the natives of N. America) sustainably existing in a decentralized way, but eventually these fall to their neighboring empires expansion.
Like you I believe the revolution has already occurred and we're now in a transitional phase of consolidation in the illiberal age. And eventually a resistance will emerge and the system will fall apart, or at least cut off parts it can't control, because like you said, it's inevitable.
There are a lot of unknowns though. So I'd say it's unclear where we end up.
Sci-fi world presents us with black swans, and then there's God.
If I were to criticize your essay I'd say the omission of God, faith and meaning or purpose of life, these are going to be relevant going forward. There's also a curious debate about AI and the occult, but this is sci-fi world too.
Oh, that's coming, friend. We need the right brain back, and there's a very meaningful framework for it in an old niche religion.
I'll elaborate in upcoming articles but you can think of the technate as the digital demiurge, of Dugin and 4PT as a colossal misunderstanding of Heidegger, and of both as just an embodiment of the Gestell, not its replacement. Bringing Being into existence isn't a numbers game.
Demiurge is a good one. Egregores and Archons oh my!! AI and the Occult? Are we dealing with a pre-existing machine intelligence masquerading as a higher power through the millennia? Revelation of the Method? Marvel comics and the Power of Myth to program the idea of a powerful AI inhabiting a human supercomputer. I think the technocratic Neo-feudal system depends upon Them propping up the debt-based economy long enough to scale up a new affordable, portable on demand source of energy to run their data centers otherwise they have a number of contingencies to corral the useless eaters. Fabio Vighi is convincing on the topic of going direct bailout to avoid systematic collapse through pandemic simulation. We have the Greater Reset community on one hand to counter the energy and economic reset which appears to further EU Deindustrialization, Involuntary Degrowth and Mass Testing of experimental Gene Therapy and Crowd Control Tech. There are a number of energy skeptics that think the absurd energy, economic, health and social justice moves are a form of "kayfabe" to ward off GFC 2.0 and buy enough to time perfect their digital panopticon to mitigate overshoot and collapse. The decentralization group looks to me like a cross between the Carl Jung inspired AA group conscience with traditions protecting the group with a trusted servants model and Benjamin Franklin's Junto Club. I wrote a grant to the Echoing Green Foundation in the early 2000s for a reliably repeating model for building grassroots community a cross between Americorps, Habitat for Humanity and Intentional Community creating an online portal for creating either a labor credit system or physical "greenstamp" to trade in network earned through unpaid work like volunteer hours and resilience measures.
I prefer "unconcealment" to "revelation," and yes there is much to say about the left brain dominance of modernity as demiurge, AI as oracle, elite spirituality, and the next stage of consciousness. That's coming!
Don't forget the evangelicals that want to steamroll the holy land to jump start the rapture and bring on the 2nd coming. Thank you for writing this. My friends were certain I lost my mind when I started talking about Halderman and Dark Enlightenment. Nobody was listening to me.
It *is* hard to believe. Feels too dark, too negative, almost crackpot theory, if you say things like "Elon's grandpa advocated the ideas he's pushing now" and "being a nazi isn't original in Elon's family".
Hopefully we never get to a point where everyone has to contend with it. Hopefullier (yes I made that up) we contend with it earlier and never have to get there.
Essentially the George Orwell of 1984 fast forward to the 2020’s. Yes, this is exactly where we are. Trump is controlled by Musk and the Russian oligarchy (Putin) who rescued his businesses 15 years ago. Through Trump they are engineering the collapse of the USA. Everything Trump is doing is destroying America - its social safety net, meager as it was, its education system, poor as it was, its health care system, deteriorating as it was. All of these systems will be collapsed into a crumbled civil service and servile armed forces who will meekly submit the west to the technocratic oligarchy that presently controls Russia and thus will control most of the world. The world will be left as a bipolar world with the Russian/US techno/oligarchic regime facing the Chinese Capitalist/Communist Empire. A frightening world created by the dumb MAGA voters who preferred a weak tyrant obviously supported by an oligarchy totally uninterested in the wellbeing of the American citizenry. So here we are facing a tragic future without a clear way of defeating these monsters who we have in fact created because of our slavish desire for ‘things’.
very interesting but not too grounded in reality. with our failing power grid, rising costs of living, a $34+ trillion debt bubble and declining global influence abroad, in the future, these commodities aren’t going to be available for most americans, not even the uber rich ones. nor will the rest of the world be able or as willing to invest in them either. i think when that shift happens, many people in poverty will begin to realize the class struggle and begin to rely on themselves locally for resources and trade, and find new ways to govern themselves. many people have already given up on legacy media, for its fear-mongering, propaganda and toxicity, and i believe social media and AI will be next, given the negative effects it’s had on our society, schools, and attention spans, as well as the fact that it’s produced by the very tech oligarchs sucking the wealth out of our country.
This resonates with what I am sensing as well. Seed Discord amongst them,claim our turf outside of their control, create decentralized networks for caring and sharing and stay weird and unpredictable.
Regroup. Renerate. Throw in some wrenches into their machine.
Quite a few empires to.dismantle to make the "no more crowns" happen.we gonna need a big pirate fleet for that.
Also.gotta support a lot of people into becoming Sovereign to become ungovernable.
Still a lot of folx that cannot handle uncertainty and will.gladly relinquish freedom for.the illusion of order and control.
I think.we basically blowing into the same.horn. @chaos compass
Not all of us, but those who choose not to comply in the new digital overlords fiefdom can make the choice to band together as Pirates or struggle alone for their own survival.
Very interesting read, I will be contemplating it over the weekend. I wish someone in my life (family or friend) would read it and debate it or discuss it with me. Most people just would not belive it, thinking I am a crazy qanon conspiracy theorist. Few around me think about these things.
You just blew my mind! And I’m not sure I like it!
Are these men following a playbook or is it just happening, evolving on its own. Because I don’t think Trump could get through a comic book never mind your letter never mind a book about. He’s too stupid. So who’s in charge?
Interesting that it’s coming from several different factions. I think we always knew and know now that he is a puppet and he’s not really good at it. Whoever is constructing this mess must have been kissing his ass for a very long time. I would love to be able to live another 50 years to read the history of this movement because even tho it’s scary as hell it’s really fascinating. Thanks Slick
You left out that Musk’s grandfather served time in prison for Sedition in the 1930’s in Canada based on this theory. They must be stopped. They were stopped before.
I've read this a few times, and each time I am less terrified. Not that you're not spot on, I think you are, but that we won't cede our power quite so easily.
YES! We MUST end control! Decentralization!!! But, what about commerce? For any economy to work, there must be a standard unit of measure, a currency, money, and how do we decentralize that???
Hi Slick, this is a wonderfully accurate description of the dynamics among a subset of humans, mostly men, whose self-esteem rests upon their sense of control over and influence upon others.
I agree that the accumulation of money serves the drive for interpersonal power. The sense that we can affect others is the basis for the need we all have to feel good about ourselves, to feel like we matter, like we're important.
Beneath the surface of men like the Koch brothers, Trump, Putin, Musk, and bunches of technocrats and autocrats, lies the broken hearts of little boys who were deprived of tenderness in their earliest relationships with mothers, fathers, nannies, etc.
They grew up determined not to care about that and They discovered that they could keep heartache and shame at bay by substituting toughness and an annihilating form of competition as the basis for self-esteem. Western culture has been shaped, for thousands of years, by these dynamics so boys like this step into a long line of autocratic role-models beginning with emotionally distant and insensitive parents, especially fathers, who humiliate and ridicule the inborn sensitivity of their little boys who might otherwise retain their inherent sweetness.
My suggestion is that we, collectively, observe how the taboo on tenderness destroys little boys before the age of three and exposes them to a culture of cruelty in which they must dominate or be humiliatingly dominated for the rest of their lives. Boys and girls absorb the gendered messages the culture, by way of the family first, sends them. As we individually and collectively alter our emotional stance towards our infants and toddlers we alter the character and values of the adults they will become.
Thanks doc!
Yes. Absolutely. We need the right brain back, and urgently. And that's exactly what's coming next!
Before Stephenson, I'll probably have to get into Heidegger, and try to explain what he *actually* meant by Sein and Gestell.
Right now the colossal misunderstanding of his later thought by Dugin et al. has him rolling in his grave fast enough to power all our AI and data centres...
I am strongly lacking in that kind of knowledge. I have not read anywhere close to that many books. All 20 YEARS preceding now I’ve been flipping through online pages and articles, and I could not memorize that much stuff from those books. Even if aimed “at the right stuff” and the right ideals, that’s where I am at.
What does this make me?
A curious mind at the very least, and that's all it takes
So do you judge me as incurious?
Because if I never have even tried to make such a "predictive" article and never have memorized that much stuff in my entire life or been as intentional as I'm *imagining* you've been in studying this for as many years, what does that mean?
(I.e. I imagine you sitting for several hours per day reading books, very carefully, reading the same page 5-6 times, really trying to hammer that shit into your head, writing very careful notes, hammering that shit even when it is the most boring teeth-gnawing thing you can do because you know you gotta HOLD ONTO it and you have to thus not just be chasing novelty all the time like I would [i.e. read a few pages then go to something totally different that looks new shiny and interesting, then rapidly forgetting those few pages in minutes] but rote revisiting "boring familiar stuff" a zillion times, etc. But that's also just imagination, too.)
I don't, quite the opposite, because you just said you read and study and investigate things.
We, and our minds, have different strengths and preferences, I wouldn't judge you for that either.
It's easier for me to remember things I deeply care about, or am very curious about. Writing about it helps as well. I take it as a compliment, but don't take it as a limitation!
I don’t. I mostly scroll social media these days, and have for the past 10 years, but not the kardashian kind of stuff, but the stuff said by people like you, on sites like quora etc. Regardless, much of it just doesn’t stick.
I think a helpful thing to answer would be the following. Take some average sized, say 300 pp., book on some "serious" topic. Now:
1. Do you actively take intentional notes when reading this?
2. If so, what volume would those fill?
3. Do you repeatedly re-read the book or pages several times to make things "stick"?
4. How do you re-use notes and how much do you aim to ensure is retained?
5. 30 days after ending the reading, how much do you think you could write about the book if you were to do so? Like just listing all recallable specific facts (name of person X, date they did Y, what Y was, etc.).
This would at least give me some metrics of what the kind of intellectual competence that seems urgently necessary for this situation and the things I've wanted to do, looks like. For me, the answers are:
1. No, almost never;
2. Very little, by extension;
3. Never, it's way too boring to read the same thing over 6-10 times;
4. Almost never;
5. Probably a few sentences maybe?
Thanks for your response, Slick. 🙏
While we're on the subject of affecting the direction the world is being driven in, there's a universe of understanding in the attachment theory of Mary Ainsworth and John Bowlby, that addresses how our earliest sense of emotional security affects us in all subsequent relationships for the rest of our lives.
I very much appreciate the wide and deep perspective you've laid out so thoroughly and clearly for us in this astonishing piece, especially the guide for how we can undermine the pillars of power that support the autocrats. ♥️
Yes - I think Kenneth Rasmussen's substack might be of interest to you as well.
If I can ask for one favour, the most helpful thing right now is to help propagate the seeds of tomorrow. If it feels right, I will be grateful for every share, restack, for every question and suggestion, for everyone who finds this and finds it useful.
🙏
I’m planning to use this locally, and have re-shared it on other platforms - hopefully that’s OK.
It's appreciated, even!
Slick, I'm definitely sharing this clearly articulated piece that like the poem about the blind people touching different parts of the elephant, adds dimensions to our understanding of the human dynamics by which we're all being affected. Ok to share on Bluesky?
I'll check out Rasmussen as well...thanks for the suggestion. 🌻
Please do!
It's all OK and helpful--the more people see it, the better--and thank you so much!
not only 'shared' but 'saved', this is like el gato malo on kitty steroids
I was able to follow this, and I feel its a remarkable piece and will be rereading and thinking about it. However, like many Americans, I am more of a concrete thinker.
What do the alternatives embedded in this mean in the concrete knowable world in the next few years? I personally have always felt good about the US Constitution, and the way our government was organized. But we have allowed it to be royally screwed up by the lack of concrete guardrails to retain representatives and others in their lanes (and apathy/undereducation).
( my opinion)- Until fairly recently, historically, the US system of government has served most of the people – not always well, but at least an attempt. As greed and ruthlessness has impacted its operation over time (Think lobbyists, citizens united, etc.), using the tools of mis- and disinformation, division, and gross economic disparity, we have not noticed how fast or dangerous the fall has been.
Like many Americans, I wonder what’s next. And I do feel blinkered by my propensity to see things in concrete terms, and visualize what they (could) look like.
I think the answer is found in Heidegger and McGilchrist: bring back the right side of the brain, the meaning and connection.
The left brain has taken over and is attempting remodel the world in its image: separate units, easy to understand and manipulate.
But that's not what humans are.
Humans are not *just* concrete, tangible creatures with simple goals and simple minds. Humans have a soul, emotions, and care about more than their GDP and retirement--not cold, soulless machines in a cold, soulless world...
Fair enough. I should mention that I’m concrete, and also analytical. I don’t disagree even a little bit on the need for regaining more right side of the brain operation in the world.
And I'm far from having all the answers. The conversation is how we get there altogether!
Amazing and upsetting how much memory you have because I am so fucking limited in knowledge by comparison. Upset at me, not you.
Having studied attachment theory and child development, I too wholeheartedly believe that one of the keys to peace is to un-brainwash the “male mind”, starting at birth. Keep up the good fight, Dr. Taylor and Stay Slick.
Wholeheartedly is more than the sociopaths in charge can ever do. Thank you.
haven't studied any theories but I can say, from personal experience, that in many..what subcultures (?) the females (mom, sisters, aunties) make no excuses for "spoiling" babies and toddlers (and sometimes that goes on too long where it has negative effects) much affection, holding, speaking. while the males err on the side of toughening up the future man for spiritual/physical/psychic slings and arrows of fate. a yin/yang thing, I guess, the sexual binary in full flower. etc etc
Agreed. Generally, that is how it goes. I know maybe I am too much of an optimist at some level, but I feel like we could minimize so many of societal issues, such as violence, greed, oppression, lack of empathy, etc. if we could help men (and boys) figure out how to deal with problems more efficiently. This starts at home. And, the most effective way is for families to practice empathy — with all living and nonliving things. Parents also need to be more educated about (and actively practice) gender equality. We need to teach both boys and girls that feelings and emotions are a powerful part of life, regardless of gender, and how to adequately deal with our feelings. Our children’s inner-worlds should be as important to us as their annual physical check-ups. With unattended emotional support, girls tend to internalize their problems and boys externalize. Here lies the issue, and in my opinion this is why we are in the situation we are in, and always have been. We have work to do.
Yes! You will love the next pieces, that's exactly where we're going.
Left and right brain, the integral mind, and escaping the nihilistic entrapment of modernity.
The next evolution isn't just political, it's a way of being.
Really!? That’s very exciting!! I’m looking forward to reading! 🖤
Looking forward to more of this discussion, slick!
🌻😊👍
Kristin, you and I are of the same or similar mind. The taboo on tenderness in the rearing of boys, how they are gutted of their vulnerability and humanity and then stuffed with entitlement and grandiosity, inculcated into a culture of cruelty and competition, has left us in this existential crisis.
Looking forward to more discussion about balancing our human, relational needs. 😊♥️👍
Dr. Taylor, I feel so relieved to read your words. I’m so happy you exist. 🫶🏼
Aw, this is so wholesome! Best comments in the history of Substack
Fantastic read! Awesome! Thanks!
But I disagree with one of the pillars of your conclusion:
"This isn’t just about breaking the Technate. It’s about making sure nothing like it can ever rise again."
This strikes me as ahistorical. Empires and civilizations do collapse, and then what remains is a decentralized patchwork of communities which slowly declines (in harmony with nature locally) until the next incarnation takes over. There are a few historical examples of federal empires or civilizations (ex. SE Asia or the natives of N. America) sustainably existing in a decentralized way, but eventually these fall to their neighboring empires expansion.
Like you I believe the revolution has already occurred and we're now in a transitional phase of consolidation in the illiberal age. And eventually a resistance will emerge and the system will fall apart, or at least cut off parts it can't control, because like you said, it's inevitable.
There are a lot of unknowns though. So I'd say it's unclear where we end up.
Sci-fi world presents us with black swans, and then there's God.
If I were to criticize your essay I'd say the omission of God, faith and meaning or purpose of life, these are going to be relevant going forward. There's also a curious debate about AI and the occult, but this is sci-fi world too.
Oh, that's coming, friend. We need the right brain back, and there's a very meaningful framework for it in an old niche religion.
I'll elaborate in upcoming articles but you can think of the technate as the digital demiurge, of Dugin and 4PT as a colossal misunderstanding of Heidegger, and of both as just an embodiment of the Gestell, not its replacement. Bringing Being into existence isn't a numbers game.
Demiurge is a good one. Egregores and Archons oh my!! AI and the Occult? Are we dealing with a pre-existing machine intelligence masquerading as a higher power through the millennia? Revelation of the Method? Marvel comics and the Power of Myth to program the idea of a powerful AI inhabiting a human supercomputer. I think the technocratic Neo-feudal system depends upon Them propping up the debt-based economy long enough to scale up a new affordable, portable on demand source of energy to run their data centers otherwise they have a number of contingencies to corral the useless eaters. Fabio Vighi is convincing on the topic of going direct bailout to avoid systematic collapse through pandemic simulation. We have the Greater Reset community on one hand to counter the energy and economic reset which appears to further EU Deindustrialization, Involuntary Degrowth and Mass Testing of experimental Gene Therapy and Crowd Control Tech. There are a number of energy skeptics that think the absurd energy, economic, health and social justice moves are a form of "kayfabe" to ward off GFC 2.0 and buy enough to time perfect their digital panopticon to mitigate overshoot and collapse. The decentralization group looks to me like a cross between the Carl Jung inspired AA group conscience with traditions protecting the group with a trusted servants model and Benjamin Franklin's Junto Club. I wrote a grant to the Echoing Green Foundation in the early 2000s for a reliably repeating model for building grassroots community a cross between Americorps, Habitat for Humanity and Intentional Community creating an online portal for creating either a labor credit system or physical "greenstamp" to trade in network earned through unpaid work like volunteer hours and resilience measures.
I prefer "unconcealment" to "revelation," and yes there is much to say about the left brain dominance of modernity as demiurge, AI as oracle, elite spirituality, and the next stage of consciousness. That's coming!
Don't forget the evangelicals that want to steamroll the holy land to jump start the rapture and bring on the 2nd coming. Thank you for writing this. My friends were certain I lost my mind when I started talking about Halderman and Dark Enlightenment. Nobody was listening to me.
It *is* hard to believe. Feels too dark, too negative, almost crackpot theory, if you say things like "Elon's grandpa advocated the ideas he's pushing now" and "being a nazi isn't original in Elon's family".
Hopefully we never get to a point where everyone has to contend with it. Hopefullier (yes I made that up) we contend with it earlier and never have to get there.
Elon’s grandfather served time in prison in Canada for sedition for this, so they can be stopped.
Canada should be proud for jailing Elon's grandpa, 80 years ago!
Essentially the George Orwell of 1984 fast forward to the 2020’s. Yes, this is exactly where we are. Trump is controlled by Musk and the Russian oligarchy (Putin) who rescued his businesses 15 years ago. Through Trump they are engineering the collapse of the USA. Everything Trump is doing is destroying America - its social safety net, meager as it was, its education system, poor as it was, its health care system, deteriorating as it was. All of these systems will be collapsed into a crumbled civil service and servile armed forces who will meekly submit the west to the technocratic oligarchy that presently controls Russia and thus will control most of the world. The world will be left as a bipolar world with the Russian/US techno/oligarchic regime facing the Chinese Capitalist/Communist Empire. A frightening world created by the dumb MAGA voters who preferred a weak tyrant obviously supported by an oligarchy totally uninterested in the wellbeing of the American citizenry. So here we are facing a tragic future without a clear way of defeating these monsters who we have in fact created because of our slavish desire for ‘things’.
I disagree heartily with the last part of your comment.
We are not powerless. And we desire more than things.
Stay tuned, compadre; 1984 wasn't meant as an instruction manual, and it will never work as such for very long.
easy now. pretty soon you'll be acquiescing to anyone's right to dissent
very interesting but not too grounded in reality. with our failing power grid, rising costs of living, a $34+ trillion debt bubble and declining global influence abroad, in the future, these commodities aren’t going to be available for most americans, not even the uber rich ones. nor will the rest of the world be able or as willing to invest in them either. i think when that shift happens, many people in poverty will begin to realize the class struggle and begin to rely on themselves locally for resources and trade, and find new ways to govern themselves. many people have already given up on legacy media, for its fear-mongering, propaganda and toxicity, and i believe social media and AI will be next, given the negative effects it’s had on our society, schools, and attention spans, as well as the fact that it’s produced by the very tech oligarchs sucking the wealth out of our country.
I would love to read your oppositions and critiques. The points you listed don't invalidate the ideology and strategy of the factions in power.
I will never enroll in X. That is such an easy step tonstay a little decentralized. Musk can make it the Everythjng App. More power to him.
Aye, good read.
This resonates with what I am sensing as well. Seed Discord amongst them,claim our turf outside of their control, create decentralized networks for caring and sharing and stay weird and unpredictable.
Regroup. Renerate. Throw in some wrenches into their machine.
Quite a few empires to.dismantle to make the "no more crowns" happen.we gonna need a big pirate fleet for that.
Also.gotta support a lot of people into becoming Sovereign to become ungovernable.
Still a lot of folx that cannot handle uncertainty and will.gladly relinquish freedom for.the illusion of order and control.
I think.we basically blowing into the same.horn. @chaos compass
We all pirates now!
Not all of us, but those who choose not to comply in the new digital overlords fiefdom can make the choice to band together as Pirates or struggle alone for their own survival.
Very interesting read, I will be contemplating it over the weekend. I wish someone in my life (family or friend) would read it and debate it or discuss it with me. Most people just would not belive it, thinking I am a crazy qanon conspiracy theorist. Few around me think about these things.
Thanks for the head spin.
You can share it with them, asking for their take, framing it as "hard-to-believe but..." or whatever feels comfortable.
Nothing qanon here
Wow. OK, mind blown. Mine. I like what you do and how you do it. Shared.
🙏 Spread the word. We win this in the end. Thank you!
You just blew my mind! And I’m not sure I like it!
Are these men following a playbook or is it just happening, evolving on its own. Because I don’t think Trump could get through a comic book never mind your letter never mind a book about. He’s too stupid. So who’s in charge?
It's a bit of both. Several factions, with their own ideas and playbook, united in a marriage of convenience and consolidating power.
Trump is only the face, the puppet, of the real rulers: the oligarch accelerators of the collapse pushing their tech-feudalist fantasies.
But if you're asking who writes the script, I don't know, but they deserve either the boot, or a raise.
you're so offhandedly funny its wonderful. I hope you're not a machine ;-)
Interesting that it’s coming from several different factions. I think we always knew and know now that he is a puppet and he’s not really good at it. Whoever is constructing this mess must have been kissing his ass for a very long time. I would love to be able to live another 50 years to read the history of this movement because even tho it’s scary as hell it’s really fascinating. Thanks Slick
You left out that Musk’s grandfather served time in prison for Sedition in the 1930’s in Canada based on this theory. They must be stopped. They were stopped before.
Hear hear!
I've read this a few times, and each time I am less terrified. Not that you're not spot on, I think you are, but that we won't cede our power quite so easily.
'Become Ungovernable' is an excellent battle cry.
Thank you: your and other's reactions are the best reward for my writing. Whether we like it or not, we are in it, so let's win it!
She who can destroy a thing has the real control of it.
See: “How Wealth Hacked The World.”
YES! We MUST end control! Decentralization!!! But, what about commerce? For any economy to work, there must be a standard unit of measure, a currency, money, and how do we decentralize that???
Why did we ever centralize it?
Arguably we have even more ways of decentralizing now than ever before...
I've heard of this thing called crypto ;-)
This is honestly the most hopeful analysis I've read so far. Thank you for this! I'm all in.
Can we ever come back from this?? Brain thinking out loud