Curtis Yarvin

Below the Earth – Above the Sun: To Whom it may Concern

06-FridayThe13-2025:

Ok… laundry day in Waldorf, Maryland. A mere 16 miles from DC-Metro’s “Green Line” to the Federal Triangle. Last weekend, i spent 45k steps perusing the triangle, including a walkabout in the Jefferson Library and the Smithsonian “Portrait Studio.” As well, it just so happened to be Pride Fest and that’s the reason i got so many steps. I had to walk AROUND the fenced-in festival area until such time as they accepted revelers. When they started letting people in, they wouldn’t allow my freakin’ backpack, so i had to ditch it for the Sunday visit.

Anyway… this is No Kings weekend, the 250th year anniversary of the Continental Army, and (more importantly) Donald Trump’s birthday. So, in honor of all that (mostly the naked emperor’s birthday), there will be a festive military parade, as if we had something to prove to our nation’s enemies. By the way, what enemies really need to be intimidated?? The DOMESTIC enemy?? That’s right, President Ass-hat has been demonizing his political opposition for nearly a decade, declaring them the “enemy of the people.” He behaves as if he REALLY wants a Civil War redo. He even re-renamed all of those recently renamed Southern military bases after Confederate Generals.

I would say, “can you believe it?” But we’re WAY past that, we can believe it. It’s no longer horrifying, and i fear a climate of having the US executive branch at odds with half the population they are SUPPOSED to be serving is getting normalized. Seriously, what does he think? That he can politically cleanse the nation till only MAGAs remain

Bleep THAT!!

How this shakes out beyond the political black hole’s event horizon is anyone’s guess. Mine is as good as any, so here are a few plausible scenarios:

ONE: Investigators chasing the possibility that Elon and his hacker buccaneers rigged the 2024 election, find a smoking gun that proves Delicate Donny’s posturing about a stolen 2020 Election was merely foreshadowing for everything 2024 and after. Between congressional gerrymandering, the stacking of the courts by McConnel, and Elon’s hacker squad actively changing ballots, we’ll find Harris actually won that election, and the house of cards Delicate Donny built comes crashing down in a whispering whimper.
TWO: The rightward shift of several key demographics was actually a thing. Donny holds on to his Trifecta, and there’s no more democracy. Curtis Yarvin’s wettest of dreams come true, Steve Bannon finally pops like the malignant cyst he is, Stephen Miller laps up the blood, and the upside down is permanently installed until such time as a stout resistance infiltrates the military and stages another coup, setting in motion a constant cycle of banana republic-esque military coup after military coup.
THREE: The mid-term turnout is so overwhelmingly blue that no amount of cheating can stand, and MAGA’s demise is somewhat delayed.
FOUR: California, Washington, Oregon, and the North Eastern New England states secede from the MAGA disunion, join forces with Canada setting off a fierce border war with which Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota desperately lobby Texas, Louisiana, Arizona, and Florida for assistance. A futile effort in the end as Mexico takes advantage of the chaos keeping the southern states too busy to be of much help on the Northern Front.

Yikes…!!

I ask my MAGA friends and neighbors… “is this REALLY what you want? Do you HATE gays, atheists, independent-minded women, brown and trans people so much that you’ll gladly push this formerly respected world power into a zero-sum contest over cultural trivialities?” Seriously, i NEVER got mad at anyone wishing me “Merry Christmas.” In fact, i am prone to throw that greeting around preemptively as a way to bring down the temperature in my ruby red neighborhoods.

As well, i have been propositioned by gay men for what reasons i cannot fathom other than you CAN’T JUDGE a BOOK by the COVER (duh)! Did i get angry?? Of course not. It’s flattering. In one case, i was in a typical top-40 dance band playing a ski-resort gig. Flaming youth! Apparently, i was broadcasting pheromones… it was a compliment. I politely thanked the bar patron for the compliment and let him know i was playing on the hetero team, “straight as an arrow.” He turned his attention elsewhere and that’s that… not rocket science.

At another extreme… in my elementary school days, i was on fire for Jesus and ready for a lifetime of evangelism and missionary wanderings. But something happened as my frontal lobes started developing expanding my worldview past the tip of my nose. I came to understand that all devoted religious followers believe theirs is the best or only path to the divine. Mine also happened to include doctrines about those who do NOT believe, that they would be in for eternal agony if they didn’t, “see the light.” This i simply could not square with what i learned about Jesus’ example, and so i began a spiritual search that ended up somewhere around Tao, Buddhism, QuantumMysteriousness.

Do i now hate those who cling to their exclusionary creeds?? NO… i have Muslim friends, Mennonite friends, Baptist friends, Hindu friends, Catholic friends, Cherokee friends, etc. etc. I tend to regard religion with the same discretion as sexuality, in private, among friendly interlocutors.

Regarding trans people: Do those hopelessly bigoted troglodytes actually believe a person would CHOOSE social ostracization, a lifetime of being regarded as a freak? Anyone who believes a human being (social animals to the core) would CHOOSE exile probably need professional help. I wonder if they’ve ever tried engaging empathetic thought experiments, like walking in the metaphorical shoes of a trans person found in any community. Not in your back yard, you say? Maybe think in terms of bell curves. The numbers may be miniscule but each bell has a tail at the extremes; least and most likely. Can you put yourself in the shoes of the trans person you’ve encountered personally? Did you choose to be that way? Why? Think it through and get back to me won’t you?

Dear MAGA…
Why can’t you be more like Jesus?
Please explain as if speaking to Kindergartners.

If you don’t want to have this discussion in public, please DM me, i will keep your confidence… you have my word.

FINALLY… i’m getting this out in the open because there have been speculations about what may happen to protesters in DC tomorrow. If we have another Kent State or Tiananmen Square and i don’t make it out, i want my MAGA friends to ponder the above questions for my sake. Lastly, i beg you… don’t drag my children into a zero-sum violence choice… Please Please Please??

Cheers and gratitude… Rohlfie

Below the Earth – Above the Sun: Freedom?

Well, well, well… it seems we’ve reached the final stages of a long process dismantling the Rooseveltian status-quo. And with the reinstallation of D.J.T. in the White House, there’s a concerted effort to make these changes as permanent possible, given the constraints of the original constitutional design. With that in mind, and considering the current electorate’s chronic division, this would be a good time to gut-check where our neighbors are coming from. That is, if we care to avoid uncivil conflict.

Now, i think we can agree there are forces benefiting constant news cycle chaos, keeping potential voters focused on differences over commonalities. It keeps their eyes off the various power grabs going on behind the scenes. It keeps the respective tribes feeling threatened and fearful. This works for those who practice the “art of the possible.” I mean, not long ago, the possibility of having an ethically-challenged flim-flam man occupying the White House was patently absurd. I’m not saying the swamp didn’t need some scrubbing bubbles and a stiff brushing, it certainly did, but the intellectual gulf between someone like Gary Hart (a known philanderer) and Donald Trump (even worse) is unfathomably wide. For some reason, our fellow citizens decided expertise and competence was no longer as important as loyalty to their respective “identity” clubs (Ted Coppel summarized it best).

My decision to wade into this toxic pool was motivated by what appears to be an unfortunate side-effect of this “tribal” urge. Specifically, it appears the forces of Christian Nationalism have risen to the top of the power struggle in DC. This is alarming for me as a strong proponent of maintaining the church/state separation. Over the years, i have observed with dismay the rightward creep of our political overton window. I dread the possibility that, when the dust settles on the Trump era, we find ourselves in a totalitarian theocracy, the kind predicted by Frank Zappa in the 1980s. But then reason kicks in, i follow the money and no, i don’t believe the theocrats will end up on top.

That said, what’s coming up behind the theocrats concerns me more. That is the billionaire tech-bro libertarians lapping up Curtis Yarvin‘s notions of “corporate monarchy.” Not that he doesn’t have some interesting ideas, he does. And when he’s riffing at his trolly best, it’s a super entertaining read. However, i’m no historian, but i do pay attention, and it seems pretty clear that we’ve already litigated the divine rights of kings (1776), and we’ve already litigated totalitarian fascism (WWII), we’ve already defeated totalitarian communism (cold war), and we’re currently contending with totalitarian theocracy (global war on terror). Oh… and the planets, including ours, are spherical, not flat (i can’t believe these things have to be said out loud).

Anyway, Mr. Yarvin’s corporate monarchy is a libertarian pipe dream. He says “democracy is incompatible with ‘freedom,'” i say monarchy is… but again, we’ve already litigated this, right? Unfortunately, Mr. Yarvin’s now defunct Unqualified Reservations blog is all the rage with the billionaires backing the MAGA electoral coup. He says things like progressivism is a monolithic cathedral, not a bustling marketplace of ideas, and the Rand-worshiping self-interested billionaire tech titans lap it up like caviar. They know their ideas can’t prevail in the marketplace bazaar, let alone a functioning democracy.

And so… we have to address it. The contrast of Eric Raymond‘s thesis on the Cathedral and the Bazaar, and the reality of the Yarvin-inspired Project 2025, in fact, morphing the US Federal Government into a right-wing, totalitarian dictatorship before our eyes really does feel like a glitch in the Matrix. Will they succeed? Jury’s out, but if it comes down to the federal judiciary, Trump and Mitch McConnell have effectively stacked the deck for the MAGA version.

How will they do it? Well, by now, most of us are savvy to MAGA’s “flood the zone” strategy. That is keeping the press and those that follow along buried in outrage after outrage effectively wearing down resistance due to fatigue. Now, Yarvin’s musings can be seen in a similar light. In that, his “Open Letter to Open Minded Progressives” is 300 pages of cherry-picked history, and troll-speak blather making a scant few interesting points. Who has time to pour over 300 page troll manifestos? For Christ’s sake, get to the point, and move on.

For those unfamiliar, here’s a bare bones outline:

Progressivism is an orthodoxy every bit as monolithic as Catholicism.
He suggests the press and universities are part of this distributed monolith. He calls this monolith the “Cathedral,” a totalitarian society, lacking central coordination.
Conservatives are captive of the Christian Cathedral, and Leftists are captives of the Progressive one.
Progressive-inclined voters are the American equivalent of Brahmans in a class-stratified society (the ruling class).
The doomed are “untouchables” in this metaphor… he offers some provocative ideas on what to do with them… wow.
Conservatives are everyday middle-of-the-road work-a-day citizens… Yarvin calls them, “Townies.”
Yarvin believes the Prog-Con duopoly needs to be smashed in favor of a neo-reactionary monarchical structure (back to the classical future), very much like the modern corporation, leveraging the latest technology replacing human bureaucracy with technology-assisted autocratic rulers (CEOs) answerable to appointed boards of directors.
He says the current system is incompatible with “freedom” and suggests military rule or restricting voting rights as part of the transition from democracy to a more libertarian-friendly patchwork of autonomous city-states.

Yay… no more participatory democracy… no more stupid voting… woohoo!

FREEDOM!

Ok… back to the original purpose of this screed (appreciating our neighbors’ definition of the word, freedom). There’s way too much assuming going on these days. What i mean is, when we hear someone talking about “freedom” whether accompanied with Manosphere chest thumping or NPR-style hushed tones, we are rarely treated to a specific definition of the term.

With that in mind, let’s start with the Oxford English Dictionary (freedom): As you can see, there are many ways to apply this Swiss Army Knife of a word, but i would argue a couple angles are of paramount importance within the context of our current crisis of incivility, 1.) freedom to exploit market opportunities, unhindered by cumbersome regulations (or taxes), 2.) freedom of agency and lifestyle choices unhindered by the dictates of patriarchal culture or the dogmatic demands of a particular religion or ideological concern.

Based on what they take from Yarvin’s Dark Enlightened vision, here’s what i think the MAGA brain trust plans to ram up Red (Con) and Blue (Prog) America’s backside:

1.) All will be free of the maddening obligations of participatory democracy.
2.) All will be free to trust gov-corp to deliver value for the customers (citizens).
3.) They will, because we know customers vote with their feet when they find conditions in their current “patch” (autonomous city-state) unsatisfactory,
4.) All will be free to move to a friendlier patch. One that caters to their particular cultural, legal, tax-code, healthcare, travel, climate, recreation and professional opportunity preferences.

Don’t like it…? lump it…
Are you ok with any of this…?

What are you going to do about it?

Onward through the fog… Rohlfie

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.

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.

Loopcircus