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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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 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.
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.
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.
There is a sense, to me, that an undercurrent of NRx revolutionary thinking has been building for quiet 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
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?
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 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.
Thank you for sharing this, Robert. I’m very grateful for the work you do. Stay safe.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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 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.
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.
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.
Thank you for succinctly summarizing the document. We live in scary times.
There is a sense, to me, that an undercurrent of NRx revolutionary thinking has been building for quiet 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
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?
Yarvin was recently on The Daily, I'd expect that would contribute to the policy set learning about him.