This is sadly not surprising. I had concluded much of this myself, but here it is laid out in the starkest terms. I do not think we can afford to overlook the import if this article. Please read it.
Finally, someone else is pointing this out, too! (It has appeared obvious to me from almost the start of Vance’s couchfuckery of the scene.) it’s clear that Vance isn’t running for VP, but the presidency. Trump will quickly die in office, be killed or be Amendment 25’d.
It is no accident that these guys admire Victor Orban, as Hungary is already in “soft fascism”. Curtis Yarvin is scary. He had become a bit of a figure in the Dimes Square scene, a year ago or so. I don’t think that Scott McNealy really belongs in the list. He is just a libertarian capitalist, only supporting Trump for preservation from China.
Half of this scenario looks like “A Handmaid’s Tale”, but it’s hard to see how Christian nationalism will blend with atheistic extropianism. I just REALLY hope you are over reacting, fearful that you are not.
I liked McNealy as head of Sun during most of my almost 9 years there. I had two half-hour one-on-one meetings with him in his office (his 'open door' policy that any employee could get on his calendar), and another time, after I had been at Sun for about 7 years, he liked some of my work & got me invited to the Council of the Wise or whatever it was, the top mucky mucks. I made a short presentation & he chartered me to do a project that I hadn't even asked about & I got a big budget to do it, just like that. He was't the kind of guy I would like to have a proverbial beer with -- a Stanford frat-boy who came from wealth, etc -- but I liked him well enough as a human being. He was OK.
I agree that he's no Peter Thiel or Elon Musk -- or to be more exact, I am aware of no evidence that he is or isn't now one of them. But I think I'll leave his name in my essay anyway because, he's making common cause with the Silcon Valley technofascists, and, yknow, fuck those megarich Silicon Valley assholes willing to destroy the country just so they can make ever more money. Fuck 'em.
The last interaction I had with Scott was about 10 years ago on Twitter. He was ranting, as he did from time to time, about the evils of labor unions. I Replied, "It wasn't labor unions that destroyed Sun, lol. We workers weren't unionized. You guys did that all by yourselves." (Or words to that effect.) I don't think he blocked me, (he might have? I don't remember) but he & I never had any interaction after that.
Exactly this: "Vance is smart, ambitious, and utterly without a moral center. This is exactly why Thiel et al chose him to be their inside man."
Trump was essentially the same but has become less useful with his declining cognition plus all the felony convictions, etc. He's too compromised mentally and legally to be fully useful. Vance is young, corrupt and champing at the bit to do Thiel's bidding. He probably imagines he can outwit Thiel if he ever needs to. He can't.
Thank you! I am certain this was even harder to write than it was to read. Deep inside I have known the gist of this threat for some time now. You have attached new names to the execution of it, but the players and outcomes are the same ones my “hunter” brain (as Thom Hartmann would call it) has been alerting me to for some time now. The lack of reaction in public spaces when Johnson replaced McCarthy, Musk bought Xitter with help from the Saudis & Vance was picked for VP all had the hairs on the back of my neck standing straight up. I screamed into the void. I hope Kamala & Tim are the answer to that primordial scream. I am a nobody from nowhere so why is it that I can see the pieces moving on the chessboard that you see, but not all others do?
It is imperative that we win this election with overwhelming numbers AND a trifecta. Then we must immediately act with all due speed to protect ourselves from the next wave of attack. They may lose, but they will not stop trying. We must force all three pillars of our democracy to change in order to nip this now. We have four years to get heavy duty guardrails in place via reforms, including a regulatory crackdown on social media and other communication sources that spew relentless disinformation. Lies are not free speech.
Scary times, for sure. I just try to take courage from others who have faced similar dangers in times past. I believe that Harris & Walz will win this election if we all do our best to get out the good word. It’s a fine balance — we must focus on the great things we can expect from a Harris presidency but still be very clear about the extreme dangers of a Trump win.
I agree. I am optimistic and doing the work. I am finishing up my 200 postcards for Swing States this week and am signed up to work as a Provisional Ballot Judge in OH on Election Day.
"The lack of reaction in public spaces when Johnson replaced McCarthy, Musk bought Xitter with help from the Saudis & Vance was picked for VP all had the hairs on the back of my neck standing straight up."
One important truth about America at the moment is the fervor for states rights and the arguably secessionist or disunionist impulses in our history. More likely than a fascist takeover under a Vance/Thiel administration would be a period of the separation of states from DC. Richard Kreitner’s Break It Up is a good source for this history. In order to establish some national policies around abortion and more, they’d have to ally a variety pack of military and police organizations — along with the alphabet soup of surveillance and federal policing offices — to put all this in play. I don’t see the 50 states all suddenly agreeing to go along with someone as obviously out of touch as Vance. Hitler and his group got everyone to do jumping jacks, the folks at the Trump rallies prefer lawn chairs.
Well, those are all important considerations. All I say with any confidence is that if Trump is elected, Vance will be President before the end of 2025 and he will be more ruthless and efficient and dangerous than Trump. What would that lead to? How much success might he have? What would happen in the ranks of the Armed Forces if he started giving orders that were unconstitutional? There my crystal ball is extremely murky.
I do agree with your premise that Trump is terminally addled and the Vance is central casting for a techno authoritarian power move. And I enjoy what you are putting together. Seems like the tech titans (modern day Roman gods I think they see themselves) haven’t nearly reached the apex of what they’d like to do with their ever increasing powers. AI being the latest superpower these guys want to wield. But I see a lot of potential infighting with these Big Picture Uber alles dreams. Note the strange and likely unrealistic tech city a bunch of them are trying to build in Solano County which is likely to get bogged down in various political and regulatory issues. Move fast and break things works great in cyberspace (and not so great in politics) but in the non-virtual world you gotta be willing to break some actual bones and I don’t think they have the nerve. Actual violence is not in their wheelhouse. They’re just now figuring out how to get the homeless drug addicts out from underfoot. If Trump wins, look for an increase in entropy, not Hail, Caesar.
They’ve all developed god complexes! Elon for one has made it very clear he despises the safety rules imposed by NASA. His ticket is for deregulation. Rules are for fools. Ironically, another famous entrepreneur had the same arrogance and built something called the Titan submersible. We all know what happened..
Whoah! Thanks for writing down in clear text what my gut has been trying to tell me. Thiel, Musk et al have become "too big to fail" unfortunately. Hopefully SECand DOJ has something up their sleeve re Musk, must be a reason he's been going increasingly loopy lately.
Some think Vance is the heir apparent and will watch follow Trump. I am sure Vance realizes that his personality is not marketable. It’s the 25th Amendment or being anointed. Otherwise he is out of the game and Peter Thiel will lose his major investment.
We should also consider how highly the tech bros think of themselves. Elon wants to populate Mars (perhaps by himself?), and he is putting chips in people’s brains. This is not science fiction, this is now. Elon knows how to spot something revolutionary and the how to market it. These fellows were allowed to accumulate too much wealth—there is such a thing when it comes to national security—and then have been allowed to deploy systems that only the government should have had. I think in particular of Starlink.
I hope they don’t really believe Trump can placate Putin. Trump is a fool with regard to flatterers. Putin poses a clear and present danger to this country militarily. First Ukraine, then the Baltics, Poland , Hungary and onward. Count on it.
I think your nightmare vision is entirely possible. It began dawning on me during Covid that we are all trapped in the cage of technology constructed by these fascist techbros. It is almost impossible to “live” without it now.
To echo some of the other comments many, many of us have arrived at the same conclusions as you. It’s incomprehensible to me that the legacy media are complicit in keeping the public so ignorant. If authoritarianism wins, it seems the NYT and the rest of the elite press won’t fight too hard to fall in line. They’re already doing it.
The left is also hilariously the party of childish “I know you are but what am I” playground insults.
Literally claiming that it is Trump and not the candidate that they voted for that has dementia, and that he is acting on behalf of a global Nazi/Fascist Cabal, when literally their Government colluded with Big Business, Big Tech, and Big Media to misconstrue, slander, and censor facts, ‘fortify’ the election, and subvert the democratic process to execute a coup on the sitting president to install their own puppet candidate. All while the global cabals like the WHO & WEF push for more top-down totalitarian government rule?
Speaking of cabals, how many of those folks do you think are in the Epstein client list? And if you’re truly in your heart of hearts being honest with yourself… you know that if it was a bunch of anti-corruption, anti-globalist, anti-big government types - and not the corrupt cast of characters that we all know are actually on there - that the list would have been “leaked” a long loooong time ago.
The Valley is anywhere between the SoMa neighborhood in The City with flying car startups to Foster City (self driving cars) to Santa Cruz (more flying cars) and everywhere in-between.
The people who actually do the work in the valley are not Christian Wackjobs.
Thiel is a German scumbag lawyer. He's never worked a day in his life touching an actual product's software or hardware.
Nazi Scumbags like Thiel or Musk don't represent 99.9% of The Valley.
This is sadly not surprising. I had concluded much of this myself, but here it is laid out in the starkest terms. I do not think we can afford to overlook the import if this article. Please read it.
Finally, someone else is pointing this out, too! (It has appeared obvious to me from almost the start of Vance’s couchfuckery of the scene.) it’s clear that Vance isn’t running for VP, but the presidency. Trump will quickly die in office, be killed or be Amendment 25’d.
It is no accident that these guys admire Victor Orban, as Hungary is already in “soft fascism”. Curtis Yarvin is scary. He had become a bit of a figure in the Dimes Square scene, a year ago or so. I don’t think that Scott McNealy really belongs in the list. He is just a libertarian capitalist, only supporting Trump for preservation from China.
Half of this scenario looks like “A Handmaid’s Tale”, but it’s hard to see how Christian nationalism will blend with atheistic extropianism. I just REALLY hope you are over reacting, fearful that you are not.
I liked McNealy as head of Sun during most of my almost 9 years there. I had two half-hour one-on-one meetings with him in his office (his 'open door' policy that any employee could get on his calendar), and another time, after I had been at Sun for about 7 years, he liked some of my work & got me invited to the Council of the Wise or whatever it was, the top mucky mucks. I made a short presentation & he chartered me to do a project that I hadn't even asked about & I got a big budget to do it, just like that. He was't the kind of guy I would like to have a proverbial beer with -- a Stanford frat-boy who came from wealth, etc -- but I liked him well enough as a human being. He was OK.
I agree that he's no Peter Thiel or Elon Musk -- or to be more exact, I am aware of no evidence that he is or isn't now one of them. But I think I'll leave his name in my essay anyway because, he's making common cause with the Silcon Valley technofascists, and, yknow, fuck those megarich Silicon Valley assholes willing to destroy the country just so they can make ever more money. Fuck 'em.
The last interaction I had with Scott was about 10 years ago on Twitter. He was ranting, as he did from time to time, about the evils of labor unions. I Replied, "It wasn't labor unions that destroyed Sun, lol. We workers weren't unionized. You guys did that all by yourselves." (Or words to that effect.) I don't think he blocked me, (he might have? I don't remember) but he & I never had any interaction after that.
"To them, Trump’s accelerating descent into dementia is a godsend."
Positively providential.
Exactly this: "Vance is smart, ambitious, and utterly without a moral center. This is exactly why Thiel et al chose him to be their inside man."
Trump was essentially the same but has become less useful with his declining cognition plus all the felony convictions, etc. He's too compromised mentally and legally to be fully useful. Vance is young, corrupt and champing at the bit to do Thiel's bidding. He probably imagines he can outwit Thiel if he ever needs to. He can't.
I agree about Vance being no match for Thiel. Don't fuck around with Nosferatu unless you're a Buffy-certified vampire-killer.
Thank you! I am certain this was even harder to write than it was to read. Deep inside I have known the gist of this threat for some time now. You have attached new names to the execution of it, but the players and outcomes are the same ones my “hunter” brain (as Thom Hartmann would call it) has been alerting me to for some time now. The lack of reaction in public spaces when Johnson replaced McCarthy, Musk bought Xitter with help from the Saudis & Vance was picked for VP all had the hairs on the back of my neck standing straight up. I screamed into the void. I hope Kamala & Tim are the answer to that primordial scream. I am a nobody from nowhere so why is it that I can see the pieces moving on the chessboard that you see, but not all others do?
It is imperative that we win this election with overwhelming numbers AND a trifecta. Then we must immediately act with all due speed to protect ourselves from the next wave of attack. They may lose, but they will not stop trying. We must force all three pillars of our democracy to change in order to nip this now. We have four years to get heavy duty guardrails in place via reforms, including a regulatory crackdown on social media and other communication sources that spew relentless disinformation. Lies are not free speech.
Scary times, for sure. I just try to take courage from others who have faced similar dangers in times past. I believe that Harris & Walz will win this election if we all do our best to get out the good word. It’s a fine balance — we must focus on the great things we can expect from a Harris presidency but still be very clear about the extreme dangers of a Trump win.
I agree. I am optimistic and doing the work. I am finishing up my 200 postcards for Swing States this week and am signed up to work as a Provisional Ballot Judge in OH on Election Day.
Thank you.
Yes!
"The lack of reaction in public spaces when Johnson replaced McCarthy, Musk bought Xitter with help from the Saudis & Vance was picked for VP all had the hairs on the back of my neck standing straight up."
Another nobody from nowhere here who understands what’s going on too. What a world.
One important truth about America at the moment is the fervor for states rights and the arguably secessionist or disunionist impulses in our history. More likely than a fascist takeover under a Vance/Thiel administration would be a period of the separation of states from DC. Richard Kreitner’s Break It Up is a good source for this history. In order to establish some national policies around abortion and more, they’d have to ally a variety pack of military and police organizations — along with the alphabet soup of surveillance and federal policing offices — to put all this in play. I don’t see the 50 states all suddenly agreeing to go along with someone as obviously out of touch as Vance. Hitler and his group got everyone to do jumping jacks, the folks at the Trump rallies prefer lawn chairs.
Well, those are all important considerations. All I say with any confidence is that if Trump is elected, Vance will be President before the end of 2025 and he will be more ruthless and efficient and dangerous than Trump. What would that lead to? How much success might he have? What would happen in the ranks of the Armed Forces if he started giving orders that were unconstitutional? There my crystal ball is extremely murky.
I do agree with your premise that Trump is terminally addled and the Vance is central casting for a techno authoritarian power move. And I enjoy what you are putting together. Seems like the tech titans (modern day Roman gods I think they see themselves) haven’t nearly reached the apex of what they’d like to do with their ever increasing powers. AI being the latest superpower these guys want to wield. But I see a lot of potential infighting with these Big Picture Uber alles dreams. Note the strange and likely unrealistic tech city a bunch of them are trying to build in Solano County which is likely to get bogged down in various political and regulatory issues. Move fast and break things works great in cyberspace (and not so great in politics) but in the non-virtual world you gotta be willing to break some actual bones and I don’t think they have the nerve. Actual violence is not in their wheelhouse. They’re just now figuring out how to get the homeless drug addicts out from underfoot. If Trump wins, look for an increase in entropy, not Hail, Caesar.
They’ve all developed god complexes! Elon for one has made it very clear he despises the safety rules imposed by NASA. His ticket is for deregulation. Rules are for fools. Ironically, another famous entrepreneur had the same arrogance and built something called the Titan submersible. We all know what happened..
Whoah! Thanks for writing down in clear text what my gut has been trying to tell me. Thiel, Musk et al have become "too big to fail" unfortunately. Hopefully SECand DOJ has something up their sleeve re Musk, must be a reason he's been going increasingly loopy lately.
Some think Vance is the heir apparent and will watch follow Trump. I am sure Vance realizes that his personality is not marketable. It’s the 25th Amendment or being anointed. Otherwise he is out of the game and Peter Thiel will lose his major investment.
We should also consider how highly the tech bros think of themselves. Elon wants to populate Mars (perhaps by himself?), and he is putting chips in people’s brains. This is not science fiction, this is now. Elon knows how to spot something revolutionary and the how to market it. These fellows were allowed to accumulate too much wealth—there is such a thing when it comes to national security—and then have been allowed to deploy systems that only the government should have had. I think in particular of Starlink.
I hope they don’t really believe Trump can placate Putin. Trump is a fool with regard to flatterers. Putin poses a clear and present danger to this country militarily. First Ukraine, then the Baltics, Poland , Hungary and onward. Count on it.
I think your nightmare vision is entirely possible. It began dawning on me during Covid that we are all trapped in the cage of technology constructed by these fascist techbros. It is almost impossible to “live” without it now.
Bleak AS and probably true.
Holy mother of based. If only the scenario you laid out was true 🙏
Unfortunately, this world is too fragile for this timeline.
To echo some of the other comments many, many of us have arrived at the same conclusions as you. It’s incomprehensible to me that the legacy media are complicit in keeping the public so ignorant. If authoritarianism wins, it seems the NYT and the rest of the elite press won’t fight too hard to fall in line. They’re already doing it.
The left is also hilariously the party of childish “I know you are but what am I” playground insults.
Literally claiming that it is Trump and not the candidate that they voted for that has dementia, and that he is acting on behalf of a global Nazi/Fascist Cabal, when literally their Government colluded with Big Business, Big Tech, and Big Media to misconstrue, slander, and censor facts, ‘fortify’ the election, and subvert the democratic process to execute a coup on the sitting president to install their own puppet candidate. All while the global cabals like the WHO & WEF push for more top-down totalitarian government rule?
Speaking of cabals, how many of those folks do you think are in the Epstein client list? And if you’re truly in your heart of hearts being honest with yourself… you know that if it was a bunch of anti-corruption, anti-globalist, anti-big government types - and not the corrupt cast of characters that we all know are actually on there - that the list would have been “leaked” a long loooong time ago.
Remember, Hitler was popular.
I've worked in "Silicon Valley" before.
It's not in San Jose anymore.
The Valley is anywhere between the SoMa neighborhood in The City with flying car startups to Foster City (self driving cars) to Santa Cruz (more flying cars) and everywhere in-between.
The people who actually do the work in the valley are not Christian Wackjobs.
Thiel is a German scumbag lawyer. He's never worked a day in his life touching an actual product's software or hardware.
Nazi Scumbags like Thiel or Musk don't represent 99.9% of The Valley.
✅