You can take a little comfort in that tinfoil hat conspiracies generally sound like, “I x is true, then it must mean y, and if y is true, then it can only mean z,” and so forth, where there are a million reasons x might be true that aren’t y, if it’s actually true at all, and the relationships between the variables are all giant logical leaps with a bunch of smaller uninterrogated assumptions, daisy chained together until you reach a conclusion that allows you to hate people you already don’t like. The conspiracy is a set of theories that only work together if you don’t test any internal assumptions.
Yarvin, however, has been so kind as to explicitly write everything down, and people like JD Vance have been so kind as to explicitly confirm his influence. We don’t need to make crazy leaping assumptions because everyone is pretty transparent about what they’re doing. No nutbaggery needed, just a plain reading of actual words. The conspiracy is not a theory, it’s a bunch of rich people conspiring to do exactly what they are saying they want to do.
I suppose I’d maybe prefer it be a wild conspiracy theory, because then there would be a possibility that it isn’t real.
“JD Vance is influenced by a guy who leads what’s called the Dark Enlightment and wants to replace democracy with a national CEO” sounds like insanity until, like you said, you see it’s true
It is intentional because no one is this incompetent. Not even trump. Therefore, it is a diabolical plot, a planned demolition, so that the centibillionaire anarcho-capitalist powermongers (thiel, musk, et al) can take over and implement their anti-humanist vision. They must be stopped before it is too late.
It does read that way, and if it weren't for the real-life examples of the elements contained within the document, I would probably dismiss it myself.
But it's scary how much it reflects the goings on in America.
Also what a shit world we're in when we have to know the names of these deranged techno-weirdos who learned all the wrong lessons from every dystopian novel every written.
Nice of the Democrats to notice, at last, a threat that people have been warning about for years. But they decided last year the big threat was people asking Israel to stop doing a genocide.
Good to note as this article does that each of these figures—Musk, Yarvin, Thiel, Trump—use philosophies that reimagine society as excuses for pursuing their own interests. They’ve been really organized so far but I think a weakness now is that it’s still really every man for himself in this group. They’ll only support each other and a big picture idea if it keeps helping them, and they’re all power mad. Maybe they can be directed to turn on each other.
"Unfortunately, aside from the suggestion of a popular front against dictatorship, the document is short on solutions. There is one line that promises: “Section III articulates what Congress and other actors can do” to stop Musk. However, the document in its present form does not include a Section 3 or any comprehensive suggestions."
Good lord. This is so emblematic of the situation - we can see the problems clearly but there's no coherent response.
I'm a little shocked that there's any awareness of this among the DNC. Yarvin is an obvious scapegoat, and I hope they don't waste their time talking about him when they should be talking about the spreading ideology (like they did with Trump during the election). We know that fighting back is hard, and I worry that the Democrats are simply unwilling to use the tactics needed to do so, and any chance with succeeding is going to be from a coalition of outside groups with big financial backing. History doesn't give me hope.
No, Yarvin is not a scapegoat. He is seen by acolytes as brilliant and he has shaped Peter Thiel’s actions and JD Vance’s views. The challenge now is there 3 BIG authoritarian streams converging in America: (1) big money masquerading as libertarians; (2) religious cults such as Opus Dei and fundamentalist Christians trying to achieve the return of Jesus; and (3) the PayPal mafia who follow Yarvin’s version of a world run by CEOs. All 3 are bent on destroying democracy and the U.S. constitution to achieve their goals. Don’t be ignorant about any of these 3 forces.
The nomenclature doesn't matter. The point is that there are a group of wealthy, angry white men who now have power and will use it as they see fit. These guys who don't really give a fig about women, people of color ( unless they are also billionaires and stay in their regions), children, the elderly, injured, those with different values or those who work for a living...we are all nonplayer characters ( NPCs) in their global game of remaking the world. They don't care what gets destroyed. The US is only the first battle and it was chosen because of its connection to the rest of the world's democracies.
I'm not saying Yarvin isn't a horrible person. But the purpose of a scapegoat is to draw attention or ire so that the bigger and more systemic issues aren't confronted. I agree with you on the streams you're naming, though I also think there is a strong undercurrent of old racism driving it all too. What I'm saying is that I hope they don't start throwing Yarvin's name everywhere like he's the mastermind of this nebulous cultural thing. That's misleading and will likely be ineffective as an attack strategy.
At some point the TechBros - Religious Cults / 7 mountains & Koch/Libertarians are going to collide. We’ve got to stir the pot ASAP - use dipshit Trump’s vanity/weaknesses to cause issues BEFORE they use the 25th amendment to install Vance
Many GOP members in Congress are also supporting this, thus the insane cabinet approvals and their rotten attitudes. Thiel and Yarvin attended the inauguration and gala and hosted other events, so they are hiding in plain sight.
We need every union in the country on strike immediately, with the rest of us who aren't in unions right behind them. NOW. Or, really, three weeks ago. Every day that we wait and hope for this to settled in Congress, the Senate, and the courts, they gain and we lose.
Yes, I agree with you - especially that racism is at root, with eugenics and white supremacy driving their perverse ideologies. It is a toxic cocktail being shoved down people’s throats and infecting their brains. Too many have become addicted to vengeance against the Left as in league with the devil - literally. Their cultish book - “Unhuman” - should be known by everyone on the Left to understand how much we are seen as the enemy. JD Vance has endorsed this book. Be informed of what we’re dealing with.
The DNC’s internal warnings about neoreactionary influence are too late, too weak, and fundamentally misframed. This isn’t an imminent threat—it’s a fully operational power structure already controlling billions of dollars, reshaping institutions, and tightening its grip on governance. The billionaires, corporate executives, and media power brokers funding state capture have been entrenched for years, and yet the DNC still frames this as an ideological battle instead of what it really is: a hostile takeover of democratic systems through economic force and elite coordination.
The only viable response requires international pressure. The International Criminal Court (ICC) must recognize that the U.S. is experiencing a corporate-led insurgency and extend whistleblower protections to those exposing its inner workings—just as they would in a failing state plagued by systemic corruption. The international community must impose targeted sanctions on the CEOs, board members, and financial architects of anti-democratic movements. The corporate and political elite enabling and profiting from the collapse of governance must be made as uncomfortable as the people suffering under their rule.
Asset forfeiture must become a deterrent. If they make the world unsafe for democracy, the world must make their money and property unsafe. Corporate executives who facilitate authoritarian expansion should find their wealth, business operations, and global mobility severely restricted, just as oligarchs from other destabilized nations have been treated. Treating the U.S. as an island of democratic stability is outdated. Treating it like a captured state, requiring external countermeasures, is the only realistic path forward.
But the DNC won’t do this. They won’t even consider it. Because to act at the necessary scale would require acknowledging that the U.S. is a failing state, and that they helped it fail. The Democratic Party’s own big donors, corporate allies, and neoliberal architects are woven into the same economic and political machinery that brought us to this crisis. Instead of breaking those systems, they will try to ride them to a slightly softer collapse.
They will posture, warn, and campaign—while their opponents play for the end of democracy itself.
You are right that the only way forward is seizure of assets. But that takes people in other democracies deciding that they don't want these crazy billionaires running their countries and that the people are willing to live with tectonic changes to the economic systems. If nothing is done and if we don't give up on the delusion of economic growth ( yes I am old enough to know nothing grows forever and all living things die) we will have chosen autocracy. With AI and robotics, autocracies don't need most of us. We are all non playing characters (NPCs).We have no value, no ability to act or think independently. We are just there for the real players to kill off as they see fit. I would rather take my chances without economic growth and a society that we may need to build and amend. It is time for a new story. Time to take down those rude mediocre men who give all Americans and decent men a bad name.
The new story isn’t just about nations choosing cooperation over competition—it’s about recognizing that the emergence of nationalist superintelligence is an inevitability, and soon.
AI agents of unimaginable power will soon represent nations and megacorporations on the world stage, optimizing geopolitics, economic warfare, and statecraft in ways human institutions are not remotely prepared for. The existing system of nations—already fragile under the weight of oligarchic influence and corporate control—will likely fully collapse under the pressure. Governments that can’t match the scale and speed of AI-driven decision-making will find themselves obsolete, and those that try to resist will be overpowered by entities that operate without human limitations.
If we don’t preempt this shift with a stronger, less competitive international community, then the future will belong to the first powers that fully integrate AI into governance, law, and economic planning. And if that transition is dictated by the same incentives that brought us to this point, it won’t be a new story—it will just be a faster, more efficient version of the same collapse we were already heading toward.
The only alternative is to recognize that this isn’t just about who wields power, but about what power itself becomes when it is no longer human. If nations and institutions don’t align now, they may not have the chance to do so later. The game is about to change permanently, and only those who acknowledge the scale of the shift will have any agency in what comes next.
Actually AI and control is already embedded. The reason that we can all communicate online is because of a small bit of code, AWS ( Amazon webserver) or a similar piece of code for Google, Apple or Automattic. I was a lawyer and not a tech geek. But this piece of code is what allows programs to connect to the cloud and to each other.
Thanks for this Robert... I would ask Robert and the more informed among us, now that we've opened the basement door and can see the boogeyman, what are some actionable steps for everyday folks? Share this to FB and be seen as a lefty Q? fwd this email to family members who won't have context?
Is there a digestible source to get people up to speed so then we may move forward in presenting this as a problem? Also wondering, if lower level Congress people are even aware of these people/issues? One would think?
Someone did mention Yarvin was recently on a NYT pod, but he came across as "normal", it was not an alarming interview (without context and depth).... He is not on most people's radar.
This is the blog of a reporter who has been following these events for a while now, he's made appearances on various podcasts recently: https://www.thenerdreich.com/
John W, i see in you profile you have HCR-LFAA in your inbox. That and JV Civil Discourse have been my sources, as you put it, ‘ a digestible source to get people up to speed so then we may move forward in presenting this as a problem.’
It is beyond frustrating that Evans does a better job of staying on top of the ambitions of the right than democratic insiders. I don’t think it’s crazy to imagine his earlier coverage at least partially inspired the drafting of this document.
In the party? Very. Let's face it, they, too, have been getting rich by going along. We need the Jasmine Crocketts, the Max Frosts, the Bernies (though he is a once in a lifetime), and the Ayanna Presleys. Out with the money-grubbing Pelosis, and the spineless Jeffries types.
Everyone said Twitter was going to crash, and that they’d leave.
But the alternatives were too clunky, and people are still there.
Last I checked, Twitter was doing about the same financially. Which can arguably be interpreted to suggest that they are doing worse, given how many people were fired, but can also be painted as Elon doing the same with less.
As for Tesla, the alternative seems to be mostly Chinese cars, so how long do you think that’ll be an issue, given the current political climate?
How do you recommend us on the ground handle this information? And media?
I head a small volunteer team that focused on hyper local investigative journalism team (originally directed at abuses of power in our community that were too "small" for anyone else to hear victims out). We dropped our current investigation and are retooling to work on community action as well as stories focused on all this fascist shit. Wondering how you'd suggest we do this?
There is a sense, to me, that an undercurrent of NRx revolutionary thinking has been building for quite some time in a manner that has gone largely unnoticed by the public. Spaces like, BtB have covered some of it, and there's some good academic writing on it.
But there seems to be a very integrated revolutionary idea about the end of this existing system that aligns with the profound alienation of many of the average American.
If not conspiracy, then its zeitgeist that brings together a number of these people in the same place right now.
And even in this document, which is a great read and somewhat heartening as you have said. I feel like there is an underestimation of the idea going on here -- and while it may seem stupid to us on the surface, it's being taken seriously by people within NRx who have power to affect change.
All of that said: the reaction of the collation against NRx has to come up with a competing narrative that is powerful and compelling, and is an answer to the alienation people are experiencing. Not sure where that is r/n
Thanks for making this public. Both the doc and the article is an enlightening read
It seems pretty simple to respond to. The narative is that the good life has been stolen from regular working people by these rich narcissistic weirdos and we want it back. Bernie hit on is with the statistic about the $50t wealth transfer to the 1% as well as that chart showing wages vs productivity since 1970. The 99% of this country that actually does the work needs to shut everhting down until these evil men are in jail and the Republic is restored.
For those reading about this plot for the first time, go subscribe to thenerdreich.com. Gil Duran is focused on this group of self described techno “elites”.
I stumbled upon someone mentioning Yarvin in an obscure Reddit page. I have been trying to share with as many like-minded individuals as I can (tricky because I live in a majority conservative state) and have been met with nothing but crickets. I think everyone believes I've lost my mind and my wife is getting tired of me talking about it.
I am an avid listener of Behind The Bastards but I am way back in the catalog so haven't caught up to any episodes he's done. But when I saw this pop up on the Behind the Bastards subreddit I was overwhelmingly relieved. I don't think I am losing my mind after all. I skipped ahead to the Peter Thiel episode and am listening like a rabid dog. Thank you, Robert, for doing this research. I feel like I am getting caught up on all this from a trustworthy source.
I stumbled onto Yarvin and NRx in a similar way. There was an indie game that came out a few years ago that made a small splash in a sort of niche subset of a niche subgenre of games and the developer who made it kept a fairly detailed blog on the development and release that I found interesting, at first because I like seeing sales numbers, but then because he had very specific and concerning ways of talking about the relationship between video game developers and players and power dynamics in general. The more I read the more concerning it got (he talked about devs having "power" and that the more feedback they take from players, the more that power leaks out from them to their players).
Long story short, this kid is deep in the NRx stuff and called out Yarvin specifically in one post. It was a very unpleasant discovery.
Robert, thank you for writing this. I have tried to explain Yarvin and his influence on Vance and I feel like a tinfoil hat nutbag when I do.
You can take a little comfort in that tinfoil hat conspiracies generally sound like, “I x is true, then it must mean y, and if y is true, then it can only mean z,” and so forth, where there are a million reasons x might be true that aren’t y, if it’s actually true at all, and the relationships between the variables are all giant logical leaps with a bunch of smaller uninterrogated assumptions, daisy chained together until you reach a conclusion that allows you to hate people you already don’t like. The conspiracy is a set of theories that only work together if you don’t test any internal assumptions.
Yarvin, however, has been so kind as to explicitly write everything down, and people like JD Vance have been so kind as to explicitly confirm his influence. We don’t need to make crazy leaping assumptions because everyone is pretty transparent about what they’re doing. No nutbaggery needed, just a plain reading of actual words. The conspiracy is not a theory, it’s a bunch of rich people conspiring to do exactly what they are saying they want to do.
I suppose I’d maybe prefer it be a wild conspiracy theory, because then there would be a possibility that it isn’t real.
“JD Vance is influenced by a guy who leads what’s called the Dark Enlightment and wants to replace democracy with a national CEO” sounds like insanity until, like you said, you see it’s true
And actually, now that you mention it, I think "national CEO" even undersells the lunacy of the actual idea a bit.
It is intentional because no one is this incompetent. Not even trump. Therefore, it is a diabolical plot, a planned demolition, so that the centibillionaire anarcho-capitalist powermongers (thiel, musk, et al) can take over and implement their anti-humanist vision. They must be stopped before it is too late.
It does read that way, and if it weren't for the real-life examples of the elements contained within the document, I would probably dismiss it myself.
But it's scary how much it reflects the goings on in America.
Also what a shit world we're in when we have to know the names of these deranged techno-weirdos who learned all the wrong lessons from every dystopian novel every written.
Great analysis, as usual. I do regret reading it right before bed though.
I should have known better than to read this after waking up in the middle of the night. Dammit.
ditto.
Nice of the Democrats to notice, at last, a threat that people have been warning about for years. But they decided last year the big threat was people asking Israel to stop doing a genocide.
Cant wait to hear the "VoTe blUe nO mATteR wHo" people screech about that for years to come
It’s unreal.
Good to note as this article does that each of these figures—Musk, Yarvin, Thiel, Trump—use philosophies that reimagine society as excuses for pursuing their own interests. They’ve been really organized so far but I think a weakness now is that it’s still really every man for himself in this group. They’ll only support each other and a big picture idea if it keeps helping them, and they’re all power mad. Maybe they can be directed to turn on each other.
"Unfortunately, aside from the suggestion of a popular front against dictatorship, the document is short on solutions. There is one line that promises: “Section III articulates what Congress and other actors can do” to stop Musk. However, the document in its present form does not include a Section 3 or any comprehensive suggestions."
Good lord. This is so emblematic of the situation - we can see the problems clearly but there's no coherent response.
I'm a little shocked that there's any awareness of this among the DNC. Yarvin is an obvious scapegoat, and I hope they don't waste their time talking about him when they should be talking about the spreading ideology (like they did with Trump during the election). We know that fighting back is hard, and I worry that the Democrats are simply unwilling to use the tactics needed to do so, and any chance with succeeding is going to be from a coalition of outside groups with big financial backing. History doesn't give me hope.
No, Yarvin is not a scapegoat. He is seen by acolytes as brilliant and he has shaped Peter Thiel’s actions and JD Vance’s views. The challenge now is there 3 BIG authoritarian streams converging in America: (1) big money masquerading as libertarians; (2) religious cults such as Opus Dei and fundamentalist Christians trying to achieve the return of Jesus; and (3) the PayPal mafia who follow Yarvin’s version of a world run by CEOs. All 3 are bent on destroying democracy and the U.S. constitution to achieve their goals. Don’t be ignorant about any of these 3 forces.
The nomenclature doesn't matter. The point is that there are a group of wealthy, angry white men who now have power and will use it as they see fit. These guys who don't really give a fig about women, people of color ( unless they are also billionaires and stay in their regions), children, the elderly, injured, those with different values or those who work for a living...we are all nonplayer characters ( NPCs) in their global game of remaking the world. They don't care what gets destroyed. The US is only the first battle and it was chosen because of its connection to the rest of the world's democracies.
I'm not saying Yarvin isn't a horrible person. But the purpose of a scapegoat is to draw attention or ire so that the bigger and more systemic issues aren't confronted. I agree with you on the streams you're naming, though I also think there is a strong undercurrent of old racism driving it all too. What I'm saying is that I hope they don't start throwing Yarvin's name everywhere like he's the mastermind of this nebulous cultural thing. That's misleading and will likely be ineffective as an attack strategy.
How do we cause the “break-ups” / in-fighting?
At some point the TechBros - Religious Cults / 7 mountains & Koch/Libertarians are going to collide. We’ve got to stir the pot ASAP - use dipshit Trump’s vanity/weaknesses to cause issues BEFORE they use the 25th amendment to install Vance
Many GOP members in Congress are also supporting this, thus the insane cabinet approvals and their rotten attitudes. Thiel and Yarvin attended the inauguration and gala and hosted other events, so they are hiding in plain sight.
We need every union in the country on strike immediately, with the rest of us who aren't in unions right behind them. NOW. Or, really, three weeks ago. Every day that we wait and hope for this to settled in Congress, the Senate, and the courts, they gain and we lose.
Yes, I agree with you - especially that racism is at root, with eugenics and white supremacy driving their perverse ideologies. It is a toxic cocktail being shoved down people’s throats and infecting their brains. Too many have become addicted to vengeance against the Left as in league with the devil - literally. Their cultish book - “Unhuman” - should be known by everyone on the Left to understand how much we are seen as the enemy. JD Vance has endorsed this book. Be informed of what we’re dealing with.
Thank you for sharing this, Robert. I’m very grateful for the work you do. Stay safe.
The DNC’s internal warnings about neoreactionary influence are too late, too weak, and fundamentally misframed. This isn’t an imminent threat—it’s a fully operational power structure already controlling billions of dollars, reshaping institutions, and tightening its grip on governance. The billionaires, corporate executives, and media power brokers funding state capture have been entrenched for years, and yet the DNC still frames this as an ideological battle instead of what it really is: a hostile takeover of democratic systems through economic force and elite coordination.
The only viable response requires international pressure. The International Criminal Court (ICC) must recognize that the U.S. is experiencing a corporate-led insurgency and extend whistleblower protections to those exposing its inner workings—just as they would in a failing state plagued by systemic corruption. The international community must impose targeted sanctions on the CEOs, board members, and financial architects of anti-democratic movements. The corporate and political elite enabling and profiting from the collapse of governance must be made as uncomfortable as the people suffering under their rule.
Asset forfeiture must become a deterrent. If they make the world unsafe for democracy, the world must make their money and property unsafe. Corporate executives who facilitate authoritarian expansion should find their wealth, business operations, and global mobility severely restricted, just as oligarchs from other destabilized nations have been treated. Treating the U.S. as an island of democratic stability is outdated. Treating it like a captured state, requiring external countermeasures, is the only realistic path forward.
But the DNC won’t do this. They won’t even consider it. Because to act at the necessary scale would require acknowledging that the U.S. is a failing state, and that they helped it fail. The Democratic Party’s own big donors, corporate allies, and neoliberal architects are woven into the same economic and political machinery that brought us to this crisis. Instead of breaking those systems, they will try to ride them to a slightly softer collapse.
They will posture, warn, and campaign—while their opponents play for the end of democracy itself.
You are right that the only way forward is seizure of assets. But that takes people in other democracies deciding that they don't want these crazy billionaires running their countries and that the people are willing to live with tectonic changes to the economic systems. If nothing is done and if we don't give up on the delusion of economic growth ( yes I am old enough to know nothing grows forever and all living things die) we will have chosen autocracy. With AI and robotics, autocracies don't need most of us. We are all non playing characters (NPCs).We have no value, no ability to act or think independently. We are just there for the real players to kill off as they see fit. I would rather take my chances without economic growth and a society that we may need to build and amend. It is time for a new story. Time to take down those rude mediocre men who give all Americans and decent men a bad name.
The new story isn’t just about nations choosing cooperation over competition—it’s about recognizing that the emergence of nationalist superintelligence is an inevitability, and soon.
AI agents of unimaginable power will soon represent nations and megacorporations on the world stage, optimizing geopolitics, economic warfare, and statecraft in ways human institutions are not remotely prepared for. The existing system of nations—already fragile under the weight of oligarchic influence and corporate control—will likely fully collapse under the pressure. Governments that can’t match the scale and speed of AI-driven decision-making will find themselves obsolete, and those that try to resist will be overpowered by entities that operate without human limitations.
If we don’t preempt this shift with a stronger, less competitive international community, then the future will belong to the first powers that fully integrate AI into governance, law, and economic planning. And if that transition is dictated by the same incentives that brought us to this point, it won’t be a new story—it will just be a faster, more efficient version of the same collapse we were already heading toward.
The only alternative is to recognize that this isn’t just about who wields power, but about what power itself becomes when it is no longer human. If nations and institutions don’t align now, they may not have the chance to do so later. The game is about to change permanently, and only those who acknowledge the scale of the shift will have any agency in what comes next.
Agreed.
Actually AI and control is already embedded. The reason that we can all communicate online is because of a small bit of code, AWS ( Amazon webserver) or a similar piece of code for Google, Apple or Automattic. I was a lawyer and not a tech geek. But this piece of code is what allows programs to connect to the cloud and to each other.
Thanks for this Robert... I would ask Robert and the more informed among us, now that we've opened the basement door and can see the boogeyman, what are some actionable steps for everyday folks? Share this to FB and be seen as a lefty Q? fwd this email to family members who won't have context?
Is there a digestible source to get people up to speed so then we may move forward in presenting this as a problem? Also wondering, if lower level Congress people are even aware of these people/issues? One would think?
Someone did mention Yarvin was recently on a NYT pod, but he came across as "normal", it was not an alarming interview (without context and depth).... He is not on most people's radar.
This video is a great introduction and summary about this topic: https://youtu.be/5RpPTRcz1no
This is the blog of a reporter who has been following these events for a while now, he's made appearances on various podcasts recently: https://www.thenerdreich.com/
John W, i see in you profile you have HCR-LFAA in your inbox. That and JV Civil Discourse have been my sources, as you put it, ‘ a digestible source to get people up to speed so then we may move forward in presenting this as a problem.’
It is beyond frustrating that Evans does a better job of staying on top of the ambitions of the right than democratic insiders. I don’t think it’s crazy to imagine his earlier coverage at least partially inspired the drafting of this document.
Frustrating how few ideas they have for action and that they are warning about a factor I've know of for...five years? How out of touch is everyone?
In the party? Very. Let's face it, they, too, have been getting rich by going along. We need the Jasmine Crocketts, the Max Frosts, the Bernies (though he is a once in a lifetime), and the Ayanna Presleys. Out with the money-grubbing Pelosis, and the spineless Jeffries types.
My hope is that they’re not allowing section three to be circulated?
He can't even run Twitter, he's going to run the country?
He will run the country as he has run Twitter and Tesla. Into the ground.
Has he?
Everyone said Twitter was going to crash, and that they’d leave.
But the alternatives were too clunky, and people are still there.
Last I checked, Twitter was doing about the same financially. Which can arguably be interpreted to suggest that they are doing worse, given how many people were fired, but can also be painted as Elon doing the same with less.
As for Tesla, the alternative seems to be mostly Chinese cars, so how long do you think that’ll be an issue, given the current political climate?
“But they can just leave!”
The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
How do you recommend us on the ground handle this information? And media?
I head a small volunteer team that focused on hyper local investigative journalism team (originally directed at abuses of power in our community that were too "small" for anyone else to hear victims out). We dropped our current investigation and are retooling to work on community action as well as stories focused on all this fascist shit. Wondering how you'd suggest we do this?
There is a sense, to me, that an undercurrent of NRx revolutionary thinking has been building for quite some time in a manner that has gone largely unnoticed by the public. Spaces like, BtB have covered some of it, and there's some good academic writing on it.
But there seems to be a very integrated revolutionary idea about the end of this existing system that aligns with the profound alienation of many of the average American.
If not conspiracy, then its zeitgeist that brings together a number of these people in the same place right now.
And even in this document, which is a great read and somewhat heartening as you have said. I feel like there is an underestimation of the idea going on here -- and while it may seem stupid to us on the surface, it's being taken seriously by people within NRx who have power to affect change.
All of that said: the reaction of the collation against NRx has to come up with a competing narrative that is powerful and compelling, and is an answer to the alienation people are experiencing. Not sure where that is r/n
Thanks for making this public. Both the doc and the article is an enlightening read
It seems pretty simple to respond to. The narative is that the good life has been stolen from regular working people by these rich narcissistic weirdos and we want it back. Bernie hit on is with the statistic about the $50t wealth transfer to the 1% as well as that chart showing wages vs productivity since 1970. The 99% of this country that actually does the work needs to shut everhting down until these evil men are in jail and the Republic is restored.
For those reading about this plot for the first time, go subscribe to thenerdreich.com. Gil Duran is focused on this group of self described techno “elites”.
Behind the Bastards (podcast, youtube) is good too
No; not sure why you got that. Here it is again. Copy and pasted this time. https://www.thenerdreich.com/
Ah, I see. I left the “the” off the first one. Fixed it ( thanks for enabling Edit Substack!!).
Apologies.
Awesome name, but when I click the link, it goes to a generic domain name registrar holding page. Did this exist, and then lose their domain?
I stumbled upon someone mentioning Yarvin in an obscure Reddit page. I have been trying to share with as many like-minded individuals as I can (tricky because I live in a majority conservative state) and have been met with nothing but crickets. I think everyone believes I've lost my mind and my wife is getting tired of me talking about it.
I am an avid listener of Behind The Bastards but I am way back in the catalog so haven't caught up to any episodes he's done. But when I saw this pop up on the Behind the Bastards subreddit I was overwhelmingly relieved. I don't think I am losing my mind after all. I skipped ahead to the Peter Thiel episode and am listening like a rabid dog. Thank you, Robert, for doing this research. I feel like I am getting caught up on all this from a trustworthy source.
I stumbled onto Yarvin and NRx in a similar way. There was an indie game that came out a few years ago that made a small splash in a sort of niche subset of a niche subgenre of games and the developer who made it kept a fairly detailed blog on the development and release that I found interesting, at first because I like seeing sales numbers, but then because he had very specific and concerning ways of talking about the relationship between video game developers and players and power dynamics in general. The more I read the more concerning it got (he talked about devs having "power" and that the more feedback they take from players, the more that power leaks out from them to their players).
Long story short, this kid is deep in the NRx stuff and called out Yarvin specifically in one post. It was a very unpleasant discovery.