Bazaar

Below the Earth – Above the Sun: The Fibrillating Heart

The class war is over… we won. ~ Warren Buffett (paraphrased)

This morning, i woke on the heels of a very strange dream. In that spilled neon netherworld between wakefulness and full-bore dreaming, i saw a TV debate of the most grotesque and farcical kind. A clash of larger-than-life personalities that seemed to pulse with the beat of a mournful tune. The exchange left an assembled host slack-jawed and angels reaching for their smelling salts. On one side, Raoul Duke, the fictional alter-ego of Gonzo Journalist, Hunter S. Thompson, a bit disheveled from what looked like a three-week bender in the heart of the American Nightmare. On the other side, Grigori Rasputin, peasant turned confidant to the imperial family of Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia. Basically, an unsanctioned agent from Hell, officious as ever in a full-length black tunic, his beard scraggly, his eyes glittering with infernal amusement.

Duke
Rasputin

The subject of this bizarre cage match? Nothing less than the relative merits of the Beatitudes versus the neo-reactionary agenda of a lavishly funded, high-tech, anti-democratic, ethnonationalist wrecking crew.

Duke, surprisingly, championed the Nazarene’s teachings, albeit with a somewhat impaired countenance suggesting he might have misinterpreted “turn the other cheek” as an invitation to sample every substance in his kit bag. He blathered on about meekness, mercy, and loving your enemy as yourself. His arguments punctuated by tics of paranoia and a banshee howl that rattled the walls.

Rasputin, meanwhile, was in his element, his sardonic wit honed to a razor’s edge. He expounded the neo-reactionary talking points with a gleeful malice, projecting contradictions, absurd fantasies of racist discrimination, and thinly veiled appeals to violence and hatred onto the distracted Duke. With the confidence of an operative well versed in Curtis Yarvin‘s litany of insipid Matrix anecdotes and historical cherry picking. He painted a portrait of red and blue pills, medical experimentalists, and treasonous enemies within, with minds controlled by a monastery of elites indoctrinating youth with a bankrupt philosophy of “the woke.” His heart filled with a venomous envy of anyone with a slightly brighter enlightenment, or an accurate take on Eric Raymond’s thesis of the Cathedral and the Bazaar.

“These libtards,” he sneered, his voice dripping with contempt, “prattle on about the merits of diversity while simultaneously demonstrating their utter intolerance of white male energy. They yearn for a mythical world of brotherly love that could never exist, a paradise of fools and dreamers lost in the mists of their own addled imaginations. The very embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect, their ignorance so profound it renders them incapable of recognizing their own stupidity.”

Duke, roused from his stupor by Rasputin’s shameless belligerence, attempted a rebuttal, but his words were lost in a torrent of incoherent babble. He stumbled over his own feet, his bucket hat askew, his kit bag waving erratically like a train conductor’s lamp gone haywire. Even in this impaired condition, he mocked his interlocuter’s obsession with gender ambiguity and critical history, his ludicrous claims of religious hegemony, and his pathetic attempts to cloak his bigotry in the mantle of patriotism.

Rasputin, sensing the rabble on his side, pressed the attack. “These are not patriots,” he thundered, “but parasites, feeding off the carcass of a once-great nation. They’re the enemies of freedom, foes of common sense, the very antithesis of everything that is good, sweet, and true in the human spirit.”

The debate, if one could call it that, ended in a whimper rather than a bang. Duke, thoroughly distracted and utterly outmatched, collapsed in a heap of red herrings and non-sequiturs. Rasputin, victorious but strangely melancholic, vanished in a puff of brimstone, leaving behind the lingering scent of sulfur and the echo of scathing laughter.

The assembled onlookers, meanwhile, were left to ponder the spectacle they had just witnessed. Had a cartoon character just delivered a wobbly, but eloquent defense of Christian values? Had the wizard of Petersburg just leveled an aggressive defense of neo-fascist philosophy? Had the world gone mad? Or was this just another Tuesday in the heyday of the New Apostolic Reformation?

One thing was certain: the universe has a wicked sense of humor.

Strap in, loopers…
…the ride has just begun.

Below the Earth – Above the Sun: Crossroads

I have to get something off my chest before moving on with Phase II of the Hot Springs or Busk tour. It veers into politics, and though i know it’s more polite to avoid politics and religion in casual conversation, both are on the ballot in the upcoming election. Though i don’t expect to persuade anyone away from their way of thinking, i feel it necessary to call attention to a few areas of personal concern, vis our future as citizens of the UNITED States of America.

First, i can appreciate the IT-system metaphor advanced by MAGA’s current brain trust (Peter Thiel, Steve Bannon, Curtis Yarvin, etc.) for modern governance. Specifically, that we need to shut the current system down and bring it back up. I mean, this (adaptive change) should be the goal of all democratic referenda, right? Strangely, there are powerful voices behind the new-right providing wind beneath MAGA’s wings. They assert (d)emocractic processes aren’t sweeping enough. (or, democracy is incompatible with “freedom”?) They say there’s an entrenched nefarious “deep state” at the root of all U.S. disfunction and the only way to fix it is to burn it all the way down. My problem with their proposed solution is that they would merely replace the existing “administrative state” with their own version. You know, “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”. I’m not persuaded that this will be an improvement for every day working people. Maybe for the billionaire or millionaire class, but not for the folks i know and love. They (new right) don’t want to merely reform the system, they want to scrap democracy (Lincoln’s version) and replace it with a techno-monarchy featuring all-powerful CEOs (like modern corporate governance). No, really. And ya… i’m not persuaded. They say we need to get over our “dictator-phobia”. WTF? We already litigated the divine right of kings, and we’ve also litigated authoritarian fascism. 

Not only no, but HELL to the NO…! 
We aren’t going there, ever again… hello! 

That said, as a former IT professional, i understand the corrosive effects entropy can have on complex adaptive systems such as hardware/software synergies and electoral politics. And so, i’m open to ideas. But, rather than throw the founders’ baby out with the bathwater of institutional corruption (dark money, lobbyist/congress revolving door, etc.), let’s take a look at how our leaders are chosen. Let’s scrap the zero-sum “winner take all” method of the current electoral system and replace it with ranked choice contests, enforcing radical transparency in the funding of campaign messaging. This would force all campaigns to appeal to voters outside of narrow ideological lanes. If nothing else, taking down the temperature of divisive campaign vitriol.

I realize i’m veering off my lane as i’m not a political scientist, but i had to throw a couple pennies in there as the ideas these guys are throwing around, whether simply trolling for reactions, or worse, if they’re serious, have me more than a little concerned. Seriously… melt the underclasses down into bio-fuel? Jack them into “Matrix-like” virtual-world simulations, red pills, blue pills? Is this supposed to be funny? Sorry, i’m not on board. Enjoyed the movie, immensely, not amused by Mr. Yarvin’s analogy. In fact, he’s got it all quite backwards. He calls the administrative state and a collection of elite opinion makers a “cathedral”, but, as a fellow IT maven, he should remember the software development structures described in the early days of the Internet by Eric S. Raymond as the Cathedral and the Bazaar. With mission-aligned engineers developing commercial software being the Cathedral, and the loose confederation of developers contributing to open-source projects being the Bazaar. As i see it, the current loose configuration of influences making up MAGA’s nemesis, the “deep state” operate like Raymond’s description of the Bazaar, and the ideologically-aligned power structure Project 2025 aims to install “on day one” would be closer to Raymond’s description of the Cathedral. Yes… ass backwards. But enough of that digression.

You think i’m joking? Look it up… Curtis Yarvin is admired by Peter Thiel, Steve Bannon, and VP Candidate JD Vance. Project 2025 is the Heritage Foundation’s sanitized version of the brave new world order these radical libertarians have in mind, and they know libertarianism can never take power without totalitarian monarchical rule so, rather than face reality and modify their expectations, they propose we simply scrap democracy and install CEO Tzars…? Seriously… shouldn’t this simply be the end of discussion?

Well it’s not, and the way i see it, we stand at a very important crossroad in our nation’s history. Sure, the current system has major flaws, and corruption seems to have become the norm rather than the exception. So, we should consider seemingly wacky reform ideas and let the best rise to the top for implementation. After all, we still have the Electoral College. A reasonable compromise in the horse and buggy days. And it did serve a noble purpose at one time. Do we really need it now? This should be up for vigorous debate. And the lobbyist/congress-critter revolving door in D.C…? is this the best way to bring citizens in so they can have their say in the way the rest of us are governed? Some might say, “hell no”, but the critters in the revolving door will fight to keep that gravy train a’rollin’.

Thing is… we are still the gold standard City on the Hill. Surely everyone can identify areas of the founders’ brilliant framework that remain relevant, and fill the gaps of, how would Peter Thiel put it, outdated policy “software” in order to go forward in a manner that benefits all citizens, not just the millionaire/billionaire class.

Anyway… we report, you decide, and that’s all i wanna say about that.

Back to the search for the fibrillating heart of our divided nation, the 2024-25 Hot Springs or Busk tour.