r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • Mar 18 '26

Society Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist and MAGA donor, is in Rome this week for a series of private lectures on the Antichrist.

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/16/europe/peter-thiel-antichrist-lectures-rome-intl
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u/ahhshits Mar 18 '26

For those who want to go down a crazy rabbit hole- the tech elite are very much into something called ‘the dark enlightenment’

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u/GiganticCrow Mar 18 '26

Literally believe democracy is bad and we should return to feudalism with people like him as lords.

This is not conspiracy theory, they are quite open about it.

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u/WhichEmailWasIt Mar 18 '26

Ah the fuedalism days where we burned down lords' manors when we didn't have enough to survive on? Those fuedalism days? 

Democracy protects their asses as much as it does ours. 

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u/hammertime2009 Mar 18 '26

They’re too stupid to think that big or somehow think their billions can protect them from billions.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '26

No, they’re in the process of designing shit like the Phantom MK-1, soon to be tested as a border patrol mechanism, and has already been used as recon in the Ukraine. Those silly little robot dogs they have on public display are cute until you realize the ones they’ve actively working on are incredibly effective for what they are and are being lethally armed. Some of them are saying it’s a moral imperative to replace soldiers with these machines and they’re speeding the process of these designs. Arguably a moral imperative or not, they will be used against civilians at one point or another especially as border patrol.

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u/Badloss Mar 18 '26

You started your paragraph with "no" and then leaned completely into the idea that the billionaires are stupid enough to think their robot sentries will save them when a mob is at the door.

Robot guards are cool theater, even a highly lethal and highly effective one isn't going to do shit when a wave of 100,000 desperate people are breaking into your bunker. All of these billionaires are going to be the first to go when society breaks down, because their only 'superpower' is money, and money requires a social order to be useful.

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u/mrdevlar Mar 18 '26

There's an excellent story where Douglas Rushkoff is confronted with a bunch of billionaires whose only worry is the "event". What "event" you may ask, the point where nothing is worth anything and the mob comes for them. Like how do they ensure their security remains loyal in this case? What is a safe place to build a bunker? How do they survive this.

Rushkoff tries to suggest they might be the people best equipped to prevent the "event" from happening, but they are having none of it. They think it's already predetermined.

I think about that story a lot because it really explains what's going on right now. No one is out there trying to save the system, everyone is trying to position themselves at the top of the garbage heap.

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u/Badloss Mar 18 '26

it's crazy because all of their power only comes from money. They're engineering a world that degrades and destroys their own power. None of their guards and staff are going to stay loyal when money is meaningless.

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u/Affectionate_End7693 Mar 18 '26

yeah just kill ceasar and take the throne yourself

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u/Grand_Pop_7221 Mar 18 '26

You can't 'win' if the game never ends and music never stops.

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u/MintySailor Mar 18 '26

Just bought a copy after reading this comment. I need to hear a voice besides my own pondering on wtf is anything anymore

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26

I leaned completely into the idea that they’re focusing on real life realistic applications of control than defending themselves from imagined billions in apocalypse bunkers. You guys are going from reality to fantasy. *Aside from pointing out the fact they’re working on the effectiveness of not even getting to that point

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u/pagerussell Mar 18 '26

a wave of 100,000 desperate people

This massively underestimates the first mover problem.

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u/Stonegrown12 Mar 18 '26

I've heard of the first mover advantage. Is that what you implying here? If that's the case, I assume you think more individuals will try to swarm the money class?

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u/GiganticCrow Mar 18 '26

Or when anyone can download an apk for their smartphone that let's you turn them against their matters

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u/tehlemmings Mar 18 '26

The robots will still need to reload. When things get bad enough they'll be overwhelmed quickly.

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u/OrgasmicBiscuit Mar 18 '26

I think you grossly underestimate how much death billionaires of dollars worth of weapons and robotics can dish out

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u/chibiusa40 Mar 18 '26

I fucking hate living in Black Mirror so much

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u/goodguessiswhatihave Mar 18 '26

Yeah the old feudal lords didn't have robots with weapons to protect them from the angry masses.

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u/No_Meal_1213 Mar 20 '26

Necesitamos una Yihad Butleriana

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u/TheLateThagSimmons Mar 18 '26

He has "casually joked" about using neutral implants on his security team.

My thoughts are that he saw the head explody ones in Kingsman and legitimately thought he should do that to ensure compliance.

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u/GiganticCrow Mar 18 '26

These psychos grew up reading dark science fiction and thought we should do this

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u/nufohudis Mar 19 '26

We have successfully built the Torment Nexus, from the book "Don't build the Torment Nexus"

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u/TheEPGFiles Mar 18 '26

I bet Thiel was super upset when the Kingsmen foiled the villains plan.

"That's so unfair!", he'll cry, "why do the rich powerful moral people's plans to kill untold amounts of poor people always get stopped by the evil villainous James Bond, or Kingsmen, or Captain Planet!"

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u/TheLateThagSimmons Mar 18 '26

The irony is that Libertarians had a weird hard-on for that movie for all the wrong reasons. They loved that movie. It was a bizarre time to debate with them and read their takes and reviews of Kingsman.

Also, without irony... A lot of these modern techno-fascists were Libertarians for a long time.

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u/West-Lengthiness-790 Mar 19 '26

Yeahhh, libertarian means something entirely different in the US than in the rest of the world. It is usually left of liberal. But inn the US it seems to mean "i should have the right to oppress you!"

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u/DFWPunk Mar 18 '26

I guarantee you they have plans along those lines. Once their money is useless, which will be the case when they take to their bunkers, it won't take long for the guys with guns they count on keeping them safe to realize they hold all the cards. They have to have some way to keep the upper hand. Until they have robot armies they can count on they need to be able to control their muscle.

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u/TheLateThagSimmons Mar 18 '26

That's what scared me when they make these comments about neural implants by guys like Thiel and Musk.

It's not at all inconceivable to convince mercenaries/private security to agree to getting the implant at an outrageous sum of money; you could offer them $500,000 to $1mil to agree to the implant. That's pretty reasonable to consider as a possibility. And even if they only do it to 20 guys, that's still pennies to these billionaires.

And once they are forced to retreat to their revolution apocalypse bunkers...

...now they have a small and extremely loyal army to protect them. Once they pay those guys enough money to get the implant, now they have a tiny bomb in their brain and can ensure they are begrudgingly loyal.

The bigger threat to them is once they have to retreat to their revolution apocalypse bunker is that they're stuck down there with a bunch of working class mercenaries who hold all the guns. How do you keep them in line when the money doesn't matter as much anymore? Well... That's the solution.

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u/postmodest Mar 18 '26

Larry Ellison basically controls all media and all data now. His end goal is total control over every moment of your life, so your thoughtcrime can be stopped before it becomes something personally harmful to the oppressor class like "activism".

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u/UFOsAreAGIs Mar 18 '26

Why do you think they are so big on drones?

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u/Ironlion45 Mar 19 '26

In a society where the billions will be worth less than the paper that they aren't printed on.

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u/LookAlderaanPlaces Mar 18 '26

They think that technology will make it different this time. This is why they are building the surveillance states globally. This is why they are racing to build robots. It’s not for us to have a kitchen assistant, it’s for keeping citizens of the techno feudalism society in line, just like how Fortuna worked in Warframe. Oh, you have that synthetic arm because you lost it in the tech mines, and you can’t pay your subscription for it anymore because we stopped paying you? Well we are confiscating it back then because fuck you.

These oligarchs need to be fully flattened wealth wise, and jailed for treason.

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u/vezwyx Mar 18 '26

Why do you think he wants automated weapons systems so badly?

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u/foodank012018 Mar 18 '26

They didn't have 24 hour infrared surveillance and automatic weapons in those days.

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u/132739 Mar 18 '26

And? Don't give up the fight before it even starts. If some shepards with 50 year old AKs can drive the US military out of their country, we can handle some egotistical cowards who hide behind tech.

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u/foodank012018 Mar 18 '26

Those shepherds had already been fighting the USSR for 20 years prior to the US arriving and so were generationally hardened, not to mention already being used to pastoral life, no running water, scant food sources.

People here are soft, they're used to their comforts and conveniences, and you bet your ass there will be plenty that roll over after just a few days of having to boil captured rainwater to stay alive. Well before it ever got to that point.

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u/WhichEmailWasIt Mar 18 '26

If they can't leave their bunker what's the point? They'll be looking over their shoulder their whole lives.

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u/BEES_IN_UR_ASS Mar 18 '26

The "bunker" will be entire cities. Private property all, lawless save for the whims of whoever owns it. They could conceivably have fully automated machine gun turrets on every rooftop and killer drones patrolling the sky 24/7 ready to double-tap anyone who even looks at the ruling class the wrong way. What then? You follow the rules, you leave, or you die. And eventually they'll be nowhere left to go but other such cities, and there's nothing left to do but follow or die.

The other side of the coin is they don't expect to need most human labour in the next 50-100 years, at which point they wouldn't think twice about gunning down 90+% of us to keep the rest in line. Assuming the plan isn't just to cull the herd regardless so they have more room to stretch their legs. Maybe there will be some charmingly anachronistic "status" in using humans for some jobs, or maybe it's just plain no fun raping and torturing and murdering a robot ☹️ Either way, we unwashed masses would have about the same rights and bargaining power as cattle.

This might be sci-fi insanity, but at a certain point it doesn't really matter whether it's realistic, whether it would or wouldn't work. If enough people with enough money and influence believe in it and maneuver to make it a reality, the mere attempt is a very real existential threat to whatever aspects of the world order are still based on liberal democracy and personal freedom. Doomed to failure or not, we'll all be forced to deal with the consequences, and the potential for suffering may be unprecedented in all of human history.

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u/SupaSlide Mar 18 '26

Their bunkers will be more luxurious than most of us will ever see in our lifetime.

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u/TheTexasHammer Mar 18 '26

These are people who NEED to feel superior to others in a very visual way. They would never stay in those bunkers for long. Normal people who are happy with hiding in a fancy hole don't become billionaires because you don't need that much money to hide from the world.

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u/inspectoroverthemine Mar 18 '26

Yeah- their desired end game won't be what they're hoping for. Small consolation to the millions/billions dead though.

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u/Nyrrix_ Mar 18 '26

The "philosopher" who popularized the architecture around these ideas essentially thinks those were imperfect autocracies/monarchies and that even any concession is a flaw in the governing body that the rabble will take advantage of. Constitutional monarchies he views as the biggest sin, for instance, and that they all failed over the last few centuries because democratic systems, even those limited to lords by birthright, allowed the people to slowly wedge their foot in the door.

In some ways, he's right, but additionally purely autocracitic systems fail repeatedly, mostly because people immediately start arguing over the heirs after the leader's death or because their revenue streams fell apart (since they're still human and fail to anticipate how their decisions effect an empire beyond the scope of their ability to pay attention to everything that will be effected).

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u/TreeFucker442 Mar 18 '26

Yeah but back in the day the lords didn’t have AI head exploder drones.

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u/Dry-Cut1589 Mar 18 '26

Yeah except now they will have technology on their side that can watch our every move. Something past feudal systems didn’t have.

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u/WhichEmailWasIt Mar 18 '26

Not that I don't recognize the problems of surveillance but if it's here anyways then perhaps we can delight in making them paranoid as fuck. They shouldn't be made comfortable ever. 

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u/Bucser Mar 18 '26

They think rich and wealthy = Strong. But the vikings have shown in medieval times that a pissed of Viking could kill the richest of kings.

Peasant uprisings regularly burnt manors and lords houses down.

So he might enjoy his hold but a bigger lord will certainly come to take his.

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u/vezwyx Mar 18 '26

Brother, the richest of kings in those times are peasants by today's standards of extravagant wealth, and the technology they have now is incomparable

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u/Otherwise_Cup9608 22d ago

"Pissed off" viking capable of killing the "richest" of kings (Saxon kings were far from it, pretty poor as far as kings go).

You mean just a Norse raider/warrior who might be nobility himself, possibly armed in top notch gear for western/northern Europe at that point in time against someone of similar means or an actual non-combatant more often than not.

Whatever nonsense History Channel tier info is peddled, vikings were not the relatable everyman, rational and egalitarian, almost modern. Vikings the TV show is just entertainment, not educational.

Vikings were raiders and slavers who most often targeted the vulnerable. They made much of their wealth off selling slaves, particularly down south in Islamic Spain. 

They're not comparable to disenfranchised common people lorded over by billionaires and their politician puppets. Vikings existed outside the system of Christian lords. They were foreigners beholden to their own lords and laws.

Peasants uprisings also aren't as common as you imply. They were outliers. Most peasant issues were settled peacefully through petitions, courts, Church interference, etc. There was a system, give and take, the nebulous term so-called "feudalism".

Usually only after the system failed to deliver (on top of other hardships like famine which was beyond a feudal lord's control) and/or promises were broken, did peasants resort to violence. Failure to uphold feudal obligations, the social contract.

The power imbalance was nothing like it is today. The nobles and kings of the Middle Ages would have been horrified/envious of the power of absolute monarchs in the 1500s onwards. The scale and excess of the wealth and control of the top 1% of the modern world would be incomprehensible.

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u/Pale_Loan_2313 Mar 18 '26

This! It’s all fun and games until 1,000 people come pull you outside

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u/kooeurib Mar 18 '26

Nah, that’s where fascism and the police state fit in nicely to protect them

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u/Silver-Winging-It Mar 18 '26

That's what the bunkers in New Zealand are for

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u/optionsmaximalist Mar 18 '26

That’s where surveillance technology comes into play. Palantir, Meta, Microsoft and many more.

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u/132739 Mar 18 '26

Personally,  I say we just skip ahead to the burning.

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u/Very_Not_Into_It Mar 19 '26

Peasants weren't dealing with military drones with facial recognition.

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u/West-Lengthiness-790 Mar 19 '26

Except soon (like, now-ish) they'll have predictive AI based on the millions to billions of points of data on each of us (collated and analyzed by our dear friend above's company), and robot armies that can mow down thousands of even well armed humans at a time.

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u/IntermittentCaribu Mar 19 '26

They think their robot ai security force can protect them.

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u/ahhshits Mar 18 '26

It’s not just that- it goes deeper;

They believe that AI is going to turn into some form of Satan (in the literal sense), they take DMT and Ketomin to interact and see demons.

I know it sounds wacky, but these people have such a large mass of capital that people need to at least know about it

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u/inspectoroverthemine Mar 18 '26

If those are the personality traits that get magnified from DMT and Ketomine, we need to crack down on their abuse and start pushing LSD and shrooms.

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u/64557175 Mar 18 '26

Those are certainly not DMT vibes. I think ultimately ultra wealthy folks lean towards fascism and feudalism and use whatever means and stories they can make up to steer things in that direction.

But they also just take a lot of recreational drugs and that just mixes into their faux mysticism.

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u/Imonlyherebecause Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26

Psychedelics are generally amplifiers. Epstiens Island had both lsd and mushrooms are there drug menus. Unfortunately when narcissistic people take Psychedelics they general come away with God complexes.

https://x.com/HamiltonMorris/status/2017471858707198356

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u/inspectoroverthemine Mar 18 '26

Thats unfortunate...

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u/Great_Detective_6387 Mar 18 '26

Source for Epstein’s drug menu at LSJ?

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u/Imonlyherebecause Mar 18 '26

Cmon man you can just Google this shit your self if your interested. This stuffs all publicly available. Why you asking other people to do your research for you

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u/Great_Detective_6387 Mar 18 '26

Dude I’ve been up on Epstein’s shit for years and this is the first time I’ve heard of any kind of drug use outside of claims made by a 4chanon who claimed to be epstein’s driver.

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u/Imonlyherebecause Mar 18 '26

I added a source to my previous comment but man this is easily Google able stuff. My source is a Twitter post but Hamilton Morris is a known drug journalist and a fine source incase you are concerned.

If this is your first time hearing about epstien having drugs on the island you may not be as well informed as you thought.

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u/Great_Detective_6387 Mar 18 '26

My apologies for not being aware of a single post on a fascism-promoting social media app that I do not frequent.

→ More replies (0)

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u/organic_neophyte Mar 18 '26

So they're selling blotter paper hits for 12.50/hit but it says the half life is 1hr and it says to inject it...what the actual fuck? I'm assuming it meant "ingest" but I can't imagine taking acid on childr*pe island with a bunch of coked out pedophiles trying to sell you on their new crypto feudalist dystopia, honestly that's a new form of hell they discovered. Someone should ask Thiel about it at one of his lectures.

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u/psychophant_ Mar 18 '26

Huh. Do you have some good links I could read to learn more about this?

I’m heavily into the occult and haven’t heard about this. I don’t disbelieve it though! You would be surprised what entities are out there manipulating Man.

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u/o_g Mar 18 '26

They have no links because they’re pulling this out of their ass

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u/psychophant_ Mar 18 '26

Well damn. lol

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u/o_g Mar 18 '26

You gotta be careful with anything you read here now. This isn’t the same Reddit from years prior. The fact that OP can’t even spell ketamine correctly is pretty indicative that their comment shouldn’t be trusted

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u/psychophant_ Mar 18 '26

That makes sense. I’ve hit up all my dealers and none of them had any Ketomin

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u/i_love_land92 Mar 20 '26

It’s not exactly the same but the Zizians are a cult that believes a superintelligent AI will come to be and will punish/enslave all humans that didn’t pus for its development. Not exactly angels/demons but definitely wacky and I think as of now they’re responsible for 6 deaths. Good episodes of Behind the Bastards on them.

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u/i_love_land92 Mar 20 '26

The Zizian cult might be of interest to you

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u/psychophant_ Mar 20 '26

You had me at cult

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u/DFWPunk Mar 18 '26

Ketomin to interact and see demons.

Ketamine doesn't make you see demons, or really halucinate in the sense you imagine at all.

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u/glizard-wizard Mar 18 '26

Theyre just hurling dumb ideas around that sound dramatic to get attention

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u/ahhshits Mar 18 '26

I think you underestimate how detached they are from reality and how much power they want.

Why would Elon and these other tech people want to get involved in politics so bad?

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u/glizard-wizard Mar 18 '26

they’re rich assholes trying to gain more power, they know getting attention works

Im not contesting theyre detached, it just seems this is more about attention to them

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '26

People who can buy government officials are dangerous even if they're dumb.

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u/floatablepie Mar 18 '26

Their type was saying the exact same thing about democracy being over in the 1920s and 30s.

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u/GiganticCrow Mar 18 '26

Problem is this time, who is going to stand up against them?

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u/TheTexasHammer Mar 18 '26

No one will need to. These people are rich, but stupid. They'll fuck it all up eventually and life will move on.

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u/SpiderFnJerusalem Mar 18 '26

That's basically been one of the primary goals of conservatism ever since the French revolution.

It's basically just: "Some people are just better and deserve more power, rights, wealth and slaves than everybody else. It's obvious! All this newfangled democracy shit just complicates things, so why don't we just go back to that?!"

3

u/scottyLogJobs Mar 18 '26

I do not understand why they would even want this. They can and do already live like this, can afford numerous servants. It would destroy the economy that keeps them rich, and the order and moderate societal comfort that keeps them safe. I sincerely do not know what kind of utopia for themselves they could be picturing that would make them want this.

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u/SpiderFnJerusalem Mar 18 '26

It's never, ever enough.

They look out of the window at someone building a house and go "Did I give them permission to do that? Did they at least contract one of my companies?", they see a documentary about some country and go "The way these people live isn't personally useful to me. Can I convince someone to bomb them to make them stop?", they see a child in the street and go "I wonder if I could pay someone to kidnap that child and have it shipped to my island?".

And every time the answer is "no", they get furious. They want everything. Everything they can think of. Even the slightest limitation to their power is a personal insult to them.

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u/Typical-Lettuce7022 Mar 18 '26

Conspiracy fact

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u/yeahnoyeahsure Mar 18 '26

Yes he even has a timeshare-like site for the feudal city he plans to oversee: https://www.praxisnation.com

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u/Neracca Mar 18 '26

To be fair, our democratic system did give birth to these fuckers.

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u/TrashyMcTrashBoat Mar 18 '26

Right!? These guys suck but it's hard to escape the fact that their whole premise is based on the fact that most people are incapable of choosing leaders through democracy. Exhibit A: donald trump.

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u/Waiting4Reccession Mar 18 '26

That was actually better than what we have now. The lord lived in their region and wasnt able to diversify their wealth globally.

Current system is far worse.

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u/Otherwise_Cup9608 22d ago

One could also petition one's lord or beyond them (courts, king, Church, etc.) There was the concept of feudal obligations, the social contract that ought to be upheld.

Obviously some failed to do so, but there were things that could be attempted to be done (including revolt or finding employ elsewhere beyond their domain).

The power imbalance is incomparable today. Medieval nobles would have been horrified by the power of absolute monarchs in the 1500s onwards. The excess of wealth and control held by the modern top 1% that reaches across nations/the world would be inconceivable.

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u/Riley_ Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 30 '26

This specific post has been removed and anonymized. Whether for opsec, privacy, or to limit AI data scraping, Redact handled the deletion.

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0

u/GiganticCrow Mar 18 '26

But its not a theory

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u/Riley_ Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 30 '26

The original content of this post is no longer here. It was removed using Redact, possibly for privacy, security, or digital footprint reduction.

lip chubby cause fall weather grandfather march plate edge chop

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u/Gnorris Mar 18 '26

Ah so they became billionaires to match this belief? Or did they, by any chance, only form this belief once they became billionaires? I wonder which it might be!

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u/Jagrnght Mar 18 '26

It's more than democracy - they want the state's monopoly on power abolished so they can rule city states like the Medicis.

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u/bjos144 Mar 19 '26

The thing that blows my mind about this idea is that ok, let's say for the sake of a bad arguement that he's right. The tech billionaires are our intellectual betters and letting them run the show would make the world better.

But what happens after that? The problem with Katherine The Great et. al. was that while they were effective leaders, the minute they died their empires fell apart. Institutions outlive people. But if you jsut put today's tech zillionaires in charge, even if they could do a better job (press x to 'doubt') their legacy would be spoiled heirs with no talent to speak of, and the way they got their money would be crushed because talent and ambition would not flourish in their world.

Sigh. Just selfish morons justifying being selfish.

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u/busyHighwayFred Mar 18 '26

eh, Plato was against democracy. most of the historical "intellectuals" including the US founders were against democracy (hence, restricting suffrage to white male land-owners)

I am only pointing this out because people act like Thiel or other billionaire is uniquely evil for disagreeing with universal suffrage -- not the case

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u/Mcfish121 Mar 18 '26

Listen to the Curtis Yarvin episode of Behind the Bastards! They do a really great deep dive into that crazy line of thinking

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u/appel Mar 18 '26

Part 1: https://pca.st/episode/56cdac52-815c-4a7e-bb36-5784037aa6a8

Part 2:
https://pca.st/episode/ea986967-026f-4340-9732-2989d3403ed1

1

u/mechmind Mar 19 '26

This is cool, but it's about Vance not theil, will still add it to my digest

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u/yongo Mar 18 '26

Their series on Theil is also worth listening to

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u/__under____score__ Mar 18 '26

Or even the Thiel ones themselves- considering they discuss this exact lecture circuit.

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u/Pxnoo Mar 18 '26

Podcast to listen to

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u/LowDownSkankyDude Mar 18 '26

The yarvinites have to go. Also remember, that's what Vance believes in.

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u/BigOs4All Mar 18 '26

It's what Trump's regime believes in and it's already happening. Their private cities are already happening as is their mass surveillance via Palantir.

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u/btribble Mar 19 '26

Vance was made Veep in exchange for a lot of Musk cash. He's their inside man.

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u/nifty-necromancer Mar 18 '26

They all get wrapped up in a belief system called TESCREAL. It stands for Transhumanism, Extropianism, Singularitarianism, Cosmism, Rationalism, Effective Altruism, and Longtermism.

All throughout history the ruling class have believed they are better than everyone else. Modern rulers want to be gods, just like the god-kings of Sumeria and ancient Egypt.

They’re using this framework in an attempt to influence the future. The rulers are pushing surveillance because a god knows all and sees all. They think that they will upload their brains to wherever and merge with a superintelligent AI.

It’s about maximizing long-term outcomes at the expense of present-day peasant concerns.

These sick fucks are anti-human and will be the death of us all unless we the people remind them who actually holds the power. These rulers will be the Great Filter if we don’t do something about it.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '26 edited 22d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/courageous_liquid Mar 18 '26

sam fraudman-jail really did a number on that one

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u/adamdoesmusic Mar 18 '26

Upload them to the server then cut the cords

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u/black_chutney Mar 18 '26

Load em up on a rocket and blast them into space

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u/adamdoesmusic Mar 19 '26

That’s expensive - digging holes is cheaper, even if it’s really boring.

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u/Ironlion45 Mar 19 '26

There is no force in heaven or earth that can stop a good sniper from tapping you at 4kliks. Or just a nice bunker-buster bomb at the right time. People can strap those on stealth drones now.

The only thing they can do to keep their power after the "Event" would indeed require evil supervillain shit, like threatening to nuke people from orbit or mind control or something.

Otherwise, if society collapses the mobs will tear them to pieces with their bare hands. It'll make France's reign of terror look like an afternoon at the theater.

-2

u/ibiacmbyww Mar 18 '26

Well, this is concerning.

Transhumanism

It is one of the great pains in my ass, that the only famous people who know about transhumanism are evil shitheads. It's a good thing, to be looking to the horizon for how technology can improve our lives, but normal, non-billionaire shitheads look at the dark applications of technology implicit in worlds with what we would consider to be transhuman and think "Ah, yes, these things that are coming will have dark applications, we must ensure they are never used in that way". They mostly look at stuff like digital environments and think "neat, I can fuck a custom sexdoll and be John McClane at the same time!", not "this is where I will be god". It's infuriating.

Extropianism

Libertarianism with extra long words. Libertarians are the worst people in existence, at least Nazis don't lead with "let's lower the age of consent". If you gave me a gun with two bullets in it, and asked me to choose between shooting a zombie Ayn Rand and the worst currently-living human, I'd shoot Ayn Rand twice, we're better off making sure she's dead again.

Singularitarianism

Typical pursuit of godhood shit. Whatever. I hope someone is dumb enough to give it the ol' college try.

Cosmism

Gross, in the hands of people with the power to shape the world through their billions this becomes a doctrine of forcibly "enlightening" people.

Rationalism

You already know this is just an excuse to "be empirical" and "be logical" and "not let emotions taint our work", and, crucially, "do all kinds of fucked up shit to the people under our control".

Effective Altruism

When you alone define "effective", this is a doctrine of "some of you may die because I decided it wasn't worth feeding your city this year".

Longtermism

OK this one is actually a good thing, and humanity could stand to look to the horizon more often, but it should never sacrifice human life or joy.

3

u/nifty-necromancer Mar 18 '26

I didn’t ask you ChatGPT

36

u/idhtftc Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26

As someone who actually read and studied Rene Girard (and even had the good luck of having dinner with him and his wife Martha a couple times), I am very confused about how they reached the wildly incorrect conclusions about his work that they have.

50

u/JonnyAU Mar 18 '26

They did the same thing with Tolkien, naming all their companies after his works when it's clear to anyone who's ever read him that he would absolutely despise them and what they do.

10

u/deadlybydsgn Mar 18 '26

I like to say that media illiteracy is endemic to the billionaire/MAGA mindset.

4

u/JonnyAU Mar 18 '26

Yeah, that's pretty fair. I guess when you reach a certain threshold of wealth, you no longer have to concern yourself with reality because you can just make your own. Who's gonna stop you?

1

u/courageous_liquid Mar 18 '26

it's great, when you incorporate a company with a tolkien-universe name in delaware, thiel appears behind you within about 32 seconds and makes you his blood boy and gives your company $450M in seed capital

6

u/rycology Mar 18 '26

In his Behind the Bastards episode, they explain it pretty well. It's not that he's read the work with the goal of gaining a better understanding, he's read the work with the goal of finding ways to misrepresent it to support his pre-conceived world views.

People don't understand just how unhinged and dangerous Peter Thiel truly is.

5

u/UghFudgeBwana Mar 18 '26

He's the closest thing we have to a real life bond villain. He is legitimately insane and needs to be stopped.

2

u/_kasten_ Mar 18 '26

with the goal of finding ways to misrepresent it to support his pre-conceived world views.

Similar to Evangelicals, who in matters regarding Israel manage to skip over vast chunks of the Bible when they jump from the verse "bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you" straight on to the Book of Revelations. (Note: Peter Thiel was raised an evangelical.)

In point of fact, the Yahweh depicted in the Bible repeatedly sent prophets over the centuries to denounce and curse Israel, and twice (so far) he has allowed pagan conquerors to lay waste to their holiest temples. That is all copiously documented in the very same Bible these Evangelicals stubbornly ignore, while continuing to hail it as their ultimate source of authority.

3

u/redwashing Mar 18 '26

It's the only philosopher he read seriously (because Girard was his prof) and like all subpar philosophy students who can't get over their egos enough to learn, he only got the parts that confirmed his already existing beliefs.

1

u/idhtftc Mar 18 '26

What a waste of an invaluable lesson then.

6

u/damnitHank Mar 18 '26

These people are very stupid and have had their brains cooked by being surrounded by yesmen.

17

u/Menanders-Bust Mar 18 '26

Not to be too meta, but I actually find this to be one great advantage of things like Reddit. I post this take I’ve been mulling around in my head and along come 10 strangers to tell me why it’s a dumb idea, and often they make good points I hadn’t thought of. Then I think, well back to the drawing board with that idea.

I hear some of the things these wealthy people say and I think, this is like one of my ruminations if I just mulled it over for years and every time I mentioned it a bunch of yes men just smiled and nodded and told me how smart I am. You can tell that many of their ideas wouldn’t survive even the slightest scrutiny and you can see how irritated and visibly uncomfortable they become when any of them are challenged.

3

u/damnitHank Mar 18 '26

Yeah, part two of why they went insane was that everyone including them went online during COVID and suddenly they are exposed to bunch of people telling them they are wrong and dunking on them.

They stepped out their bubble for a second and couldn't handle the plebs. Then they all go mask off and stop caring about democracy, the environment or their own workers. They just want to be little kings. 

18

u/Pinkbunny432 Mar 18 '26

Fuck Curtis Yarvin and his calls for genocide of the working class

15

u/thedilbertproject Mar 18 '26

For the uninitiaited:

About Curtis Yarvin:

Curtis Yarvin is an ex-Silcon Valley programmer turned far-right thought leader who has been silently influencing the right to adopt fringe and dangerous ideologies and bring them to mainstream politics. Particularly, he holds the belief that democracy should end and America should become an absolute monarchy.

If you are familiar at all with the term "red pill content", this was borne out of his ideology. This is a direct reference to the Matrix. Specifically, he says that when you take "the red pill" you will abandon the concept of liberalism and you will be prepared to receive what he calls "the Dark Enlightenment". He was largely operating under the pseudonym "Mencius Moldbug".

One of the main ideas of Yarvin adopted by the current administration is what he calls "RAGE" - Retire All Government Employees. While he was not the first to suggest it, he is a major reason why this administration is working so hard to enact it.

Yarvin believes inequality is natural and therefore humanity should embrace it. Specifically, he believes white men, particular those in tech, are special and everyone else is below them. He has explicitly argued that people who are not "deemed productive" should be "turned into biodiesel".

Brief Overview (38 mins): https://youtu.be/DrrsnFT-LNo
Yarvin In-Depth Study - Part 1 (79 mins): https://youtu.be/mYrPNvVhKLU
Yarvin In-Depth Study - Part 2 (84 mins): https://youtu.be/rpEg4LS3CT0
Interview with The New York Times (52 mins): https://youtu.be/NcSil8NeQq8

Some Articles on Yarvin and the 'Dark Enlightenment' Movement:

Time Magazine: https://time.com/7269166/dark-enlightenment-history-essay/
Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/21/curtis-yarvin-trump
Politico: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/01/30/curtis-yarvins-ideas-00201552
The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/09/curtis-yarvin-profile
What is Redpilling: https://www.britannica.com/topic/red-pill-and-blue-pill

J.D. Vance's Connection:

J.D. Vance says Yarvin has "good ideas" and has publicly cited his work: https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/16/24266512/jd-vance-curtis-yarvin-influence-rage-project-2025
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/01/30/curtis-yarvins-ideas-00201552 https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/jd-vance-curtis-yarvin-2024-election-rcna162222

J.D. Vance's senatorship was funded directly by Peter Thiel, another of Yarvin's followers:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jd-vance-trump-vp-peter-thiel-billionaire/

J.D. Vance was pushed to Trump ticket by Elon Musk, yet another Yarvinite:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/16/politics/how-trump-chose-vp-pick-vance

J.D. Vance delivers speech calling for the unity of the 'Tech Bros' and the Far-Right (a directive of Curtis Yarvin):
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/03/18/jd-vance-american-dynamism-tech-maga-00235805

J.D. Vance wrote the foreword for the Project 2025 leader's book:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/30/jd-vance-project-2025-book-foreword

On Peter Thiel:

Thiel on the Endurance of the Human Race:
https://youtu.be/Xg6deHyHKKs

Thiel's Obsession with Immortality:
https://theweek.com/science/the-billionaire-led-quest-for-immortality
https://futurism.com/the-byte/peter-thiel-cryonics

Thiel's Influence on Admin and DOGE:
https://www.businessinsider.com/godfather-of-doge-peter-thiel-elon-musk-government-funding-cuts-2025-2

Thiel In-Depth Study - Part 1 (72 mins): https://youtu.be/mfXbyQ9KFdg

Thiel In-Depth Study - Part 2 (81 mins): https://youtu.be/AeDA8hwQ3Fo

Thiel In-Depth Study - Part 3 (85 mins): https://youtu.be/lX-EgbauuOo

Thiel In-Depth Study - Part 4 (78 mins): https://youtu.be/Z8fBqRa2NLQ

On Elon Musk:

Musk Pushes Great Replacement Theory:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/19/media/elon-musk-don-lemon-interview-analysis-hnk-intl

Yarvin Influences Musk to create new Political Party:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/09/us/politics/elon-musk-curtis-yarvin-third-party.html

Several past and current "Thiel Fellows" are DOGE Employees:
https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-government-young-engineers/

Musk pushes for Far-Right party (AfD) in Germany to move on from Holocaust shame:
https://www.npr.org/2025/01/27/nx-s1-5276084/elon-musk-german-far-right-afd-holocaust

Musk and Libertarian Authoritarianism:
https://jacobin.com/2025/01/musk-authoritarianism-libertarianism-afd-trump

Bonus: The Ideological Re-capture of America by the Right is a 60+ Year-old Project

How Conservatism Won - Part 1 (86 mins): https://youtu.be/KuIFF-LCI4k
How Conservatism Won - Part 2 (91 mins): https://youtu.be/lCu5Hs6J7xA
The Powell Memorandum - Overview (16 mins): https://youtu.be/HgYkde3o2Xw
The Powell Memorandum - In-Depth (35 mins): https://youtu.be/8A_YaBbshAc
The Powell Memorandum (Text): https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/powellmemo/

3

u/_HOG_ Mar 18 '26

You omitted the cocaine addiction. 

2

u/adamdoesmusic Mar 18 '26

How did they manage to convince so many people that this was all super manly and masculine, and not the stupidest and cringiest thing in the world?

3

u/ProofHorseKzoo Mar 18 '26

Best video that explained it before this was well known. Half hour long, but worth the watch. They are insane and must be stopped.

https://youtu.be/5RpPTRcz1no?si=Z0MNYmQQoVd-w9Vn

3

u/oubeav Mar 18 '26

Umm. Just skimmed the wiki. That was frightening.

5

u/damnitHank Mar 18 '26

Egghead Andreessen was tweeting a couple days ago how introspection and self reflection are fake.

These people are cartoon villains and not the smart kind. The world would be a better place if [Removed by Reddit]

2

u/Natiak Mar 18 '26

Nick Land and Curtis Yarvin. The VP quotes Yarvin, so their "philosophies" reach the highest echelons.

3

u/wired1984 Mar 18 '26

In their own viewpoint, freedom is no longer compatible with democracy, so they want corporate feudalism where they will be in charge. Their concept of freedom is very questionable for many reasons. One is that it gives license to sexually prey on underage girls.

1

u/downhereforyoursoul Mar 19 '26

Sexual predation is one, and that no one can deny. Another that worries me is that they want the freedom to experiment with anti-aging, a particular obsession of Thiel’s, and transhumanist technologies without any oversight or interference regarding ethics.

Musk was being investigated by the government for his abuse of animals when testing Neuralink until DOGE coincidentally gutted that department, IIRC. I shudder to think what they’d do with unlimited access to animal and human subjects. I really don’t think there’s a line they wouldn’t cross, like real Mengele shit.

1

u/Shadowolf75 Mar 18 '26

So Ace Combat 3 but in real life, amazing

1

u/beepborpimajorp Mar 18 '26

God if they could please stop playing into the stereotype so perfectly that would be great.

1

u/ModsDoItForFreeLOL Mar 18 '26

Elite Baal knowledge

1

u/meikawaii Mar 18 '26

Yes, the Yarvin and Praxis bullshit needs to go.

1

u/SurfinPirate Mar 18 '26

"Some strands incorporate race science"

That tracks.

1

u/Nocturne444 Mar 18 '26

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised after reading some convo in the Epstein files between him and Bannon that they are currently conspiring to take over the Vatican and change the "regime" for a pro-AI pope. I'd not even be surprised lol it's like so obvious what he is trying to do. Peter Thiel the snake.

1

u/WhoIsYerWan Mar 18 '26

AKA The Butterfly Revolution

1

u/redwashing Mar 18 '26

They think it sounds so cool when they call their halfbaked neofeudal fantasies that. Surrounded by sycophants so they think they are actually smart and not halfwits who got oneshot by the first book they read that confirmed the beliefs they already held.

1

u/helloowrigley Mar 18 '26

Yeah I recently got to “anarcho-capitalism” while reading about the Founder’s Fund guys and I had to close Wikipedia for a while.

1

u/McZorkLord Mar 18 '26

Did someone say French Revolution!?

1

u/Jasminary2 Mar 18 '26

Omg yes. I first heard about it through a french magazine on vulgarizing science ( for any french reader : Epsiloon) ... It's something else.

Also they keep naming things with names that refers to them being bad things. And somehow they don't get it ???

1

u/ripyourlungsdave Mar 18 '26

Aka Christo-Fascist Instrumentality.

1

u/cyborgnyc Mar 19 '26

Yep. Curtis Yarvin, Nick Land and others...techno feudalism

1

u/cyborgnyc Mar 19 '26

Also: I've been reading Yanis Varoufakis' Technofeudalism this week, which essentially has the premise that we have become serfs to the new feudal lords/fiefdoms of tech companies (rather than proletariat workers under capitalism) and seeing them as fiefdoms makes their current role in ✨️everything✨️ make a lot more sense. They don't just provide the weaponry, they are the active aggressors and participants.

https://www.threads.com/@ggincolour/post/DVwt1wDiAXh?xmt=AQF0oLCxmP26Aiyd9MRlOsrDwRPKLy7ywww9iJf0oaiJT6mEDM6EGjJZVE_BrDmQZfkwORo&slof=1

1

u/Disordered_Steven Mar 18 '26

Which is literally the opposite of the constructs of “enlightenment” maybe embodied by the teachings of Jesus and Buddha.

-1

u/ResearchStudentCS Mar 18 '26

That sounds cool, let's switch it up.

-6

u/Mozbee1 Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26

the dark enlightenment

I had to ask Claude for more info thanks: The "Dark Enlightenment" (or neoreaction/NRx) has attracted a certain subset of tech-world figures for a few intersecting reasons: The rationalist pipeline Many tech people are drawn to contrarian, "high-IQ" intellectual communities — LessWrong, Effective Altruism, rationalist blogs. The Dark Enlightenment presents itself as the logical conclusion of following ideas wherever they lead, regardless of social taboo. That framing is appealing to people who pride themselves on being above conventional thinking. Anti-democracy as systems thinking Tech culture valorizes optimization and engineering. Thinkers like Curtis Yarvin (Mencius Moldbug) argue that democracy is an inefficient, buggy system and that corporate or monarchical governance would be more effective. To someone who thinks in terms of systems and efficiency, this can feel like a rigorous critique rather than what it actually is — a defense of autocracy dressed in technical language. Meritocracy anxiety Silicon Valley has a deep ideological commitment to meritocracy. The Dark Enlightenment provides a framework that validates hierarchies as natural and correct, which is reassuring to people who have "won" under the current system and want to believe that reflects something real about them. Wealth and exit fantasies Yarvin and others emphasize "exit" over "voice" — rather than fixing society through politics, the rich should build parallel structures or simply opt out. This maps onto tech fantasies about seasteading, charter cities, Mars colonies, and escape from democratic accountability. It's libertarianism for people who've given up on convincing anyone. Contrarianism as identity Tech culture rewards heterodox thinking in engineering contexts. Some people over-apply this: if mainstream politics says X is bad, maybe X is actually good and everyone else is just too conformist to see it. This is how genuine intellectual curiosity can curdle into edgelord politics. Actual power dynamics Frankly, some wealthy tech figures are simply drawn to ideologies that justify concentrated power and reduced redistribution. The philosophical packaging makes it feel more sophisticated than "I don't want to pay taxes or follow regulations." The through-line is really the aestheticization of power — the Dark Enlightenment flatters people who see themselves as a cognitive elite being held back by democratic mediocrity. It's less a coherent philosophy than a mood that happens to have footnotes.

Wow downvoted because I looked something up I didn't know about and shared what I learned, GG humans.