21 Comments

Iā€™m taking it all quite seriously.

Just this morning I was watching the head of LinkedIn talking about helping the Dems and Kamala out if she gets rid of the head of the (trust busting, and completely fearless and heroic) head of the FTC.

The dude tried to squirm out of a direct linkage but really couldnā€™t explain how being ā€œjust a donorā€ (his preferred self description) is different from his ā€œideaā€ that the FTC head needs to go.

These are all fking fascists and I pray they are busted into 1000s of tiny ATTā€™s for decades to come.

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Thanks. Like you, I've been watching that story & keeping an eye on the pressure bearing down on (the fearless, skilled, FTC (Federal Trace Commission)) Lina Khan. I feel reasonably confident that Biden will back her up through January. I hope that Harris, once elected, will keep her on board too, but who knows?

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I'm pretty sure that if Obama were President, Khan would be long-gone by now. Phew.

Obama was OK in a lot of ways, but he liked being part of the {smart 'progressive' donors with refined tastes set}; he wasn't as working-class-identifying as Biden is.

Biden and, I hope, Harris, have an affinity for the proverbial 'working man & woman.' I hope they are our new champions. We'll see soon enough, I guess.

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She read Googleā€™s beads from way back and is now in a position to seriously mess with them. And sheā€™s doing precisely her job.

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The new fascism is disguised as protectionism and libertarianism. This is one of the advantages of my country: the fascists, nationalists, and ultracatholics won a civil war and ruled for 40 years. Since then, the powers that be are largely the same, inherited from the previous generation. It is really like an obvious mob, a plague that our weak democracy would struggle to get rid of. It is ridiculous how all those worshipers of Franco now adore Trump, Putin, Milei, Le Pen, and so on, while claiming liberty to the four winds.

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Thank you for this insightful comment. You make a key point: The problem now is even more vexing, since not only is fascism springing up everywhere, but also the techno-fascists have incredible tools at their disposal that enables them to collaborate across continents & oceans.

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The world must be made safe for great men with big visions for their nations... one way or another.

Not even for any specific man or nation per se, just so that any such person who has the will also have the space for such possibilities.

Deep down though, they are implicitly begging for someone with guts to put a hard stop to them. Who will give them what they most deeply desire? I certainly can't give them what they really want.

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The Silicon Valley Neoreactionary Cryptofascist Christian Nationalist Movements

ā€œSundman Figures it Outā€ was never a more accurate or prescient description of your blog than it is for this entry. A few thoughts.

First of all, you need not apologize. ā€œActs of the Apostlesā€ was really more of a warning than an endorsement. Kudos!

I also spent about 10 years at Sun Microsystems, and deeply imbibed all of the high tech koolaide that was offered. I also hung out at raves put on by the Mondo 2000 crowd, which was basically looking or the hipster singularity. I talked to Scooter on the elevator on the way to work. I still consider myself lucky to have been there.

Before that, I was a Jesus movement hippie (see the movie ā€œThe Jesus Revolutionā€ - they got it right). But one day, around 1980, my fellow church members starting cutting their hair, putting on ties, and encouraging people to listen to Jerry Falwell and Bill Gothard (the abuser who took the Duggars down). It was too ugly, and I couldnā€™t separate the ugliness from the spiritual reality. I left to be a spiritual tourist of many cultures and traditions, including the ā€œnonesā€.

The attempt to deconstruct my spiritual life as completely as possible, was a necessary cleanse, to show me, what was authentically real in the journey, allowing me to throw out the bathwater without discarding the baby. I lived in an Orthodox monastery, but then came back into the world. Finding faith with seriousness and authenticity, meant that the technophile Koolaide had to be boiled off and filtered as well.

What I think I learned:

1. All real spiritual life happens from the authentic inside-out and not outside-in forms of control, ideology, etc. You bless the world by living it - the only message needed.

2. Real libertarian thought can be boiled down to two principles:

* The non-aggression principle

* The principle of self-ownership

In other words, do no harm, do not enslave, do what you like unless it hurts someone else - same thing my Irish grandfather farmer used to say. The problem comes with ideological extrapolation and abstractions. The ā€œLibertariansā€ who are embracing the dark enlightenment (e.g. neoreactionary movement), are actually embracing the opposite of classical libertarian thought.

JD Vance is attempting to combine things that do not go

* New union ideas (the teamsters at the RNC)

* Free markets like Reagan, but Protectionism, not like Reagan

* Technofetishes like Crypto, the Singularity, and Neoreactionaries

* Rushdoony-like Fundamentalist government (can you say ā€œHandmaidā€™s Taleā€?)

Fascist ā€œSpiritualityā€ from the outside-in, with an authoritarian government, Control of all sexual and reproductive functions, Control of who can go in and out. Unions to protect the workers, until they can be discarded. Spirituality has been replaced by imagined technical transcendence, but they wonā€™t tell the fundies just yet.

You can read it all in Andreessenā€™s Manifesto:

https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/

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John,

Thank you for your thoughtful comment.

I wrote a long, and, I hope, well put-together essay on some of these topics to be published in the 25th anniversary edition of "In Formation". Wish it were out so I could share it with you now.

Kind regards, and thank you in advance for any attention you can bring to this thing. It's kind of existential for me.

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He sure does. I learned so much about the puppet masters who wish to take our country down a very dangerous road. Peter Thiel and his merry band of menaces scare the heck out of me. Big fan of John Sundman who knows so much behind the scenes info and is so smart.

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Thank you. I read both of these essays and enjoyed them. I may cite them in an upcoming SFIO! essay. I've subsrcribed to Lost Tempo. Meanwhile, perhaps you'll enjoy my post on the Andreesen thing: https://johnsundman.substack.com/p/marc-andreesen-was-going-to-debug?r=38b5x As for your recommendation of the Yarvin book, thank you, but I'll pass. I think I know enough about him & that philosophy already.

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Elizabeth Sandifer is a very bitchy and entertaining writer so come for the Yarvin, stay for the omni-directional vitriol.

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Thank you; I will take your suggestion under advisement. Speaking of bitchy and entertaining writers, if I may be so bold: https://johnsundman.substack.com/p/a-chronicler-of-biodigital-technopotheosis?r=38b5x

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Why are deranged lunatics the only people who get to be billionaires?

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I think Erik Prince is a Calvinist not a Catholic. His sister is a Calvinist Iā€™m sure.

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Thank you for your comment, Marg. According to Wikipedia (which doesn't give a source) Prince converted to Catholicism in 1992 and describes himself as a Catholic. You are correct that DeVos is not Catholic & identifies with a Calvinist tradition. She & her husband do, however, hold with views that I consider to be Christian nationalist. I don't believe I mentioned DeVos in the essay(?) I just searched for the name & didn't find it.

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Thank you so much. I didnā€™t know he converted. I just mentioned the sister because I knew more about her. I would call her a Christian nationalist too. Sorry for the waste of your time. Great article

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Not a waste of my time at all. I love getting comments on my posts, so long as they're made in good faith, as yours clearly was. Glad to have you as a subscriber!

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I think itā€™s a chicken or the egg problem.

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