Thank you for this brilliant essay. Thiel, Yarvin & Co. appear to be trying to prevent the decline of the US empire. The solution then is to reformulate government by putting large stakeholders (ie, big Pharma, big defense, AIPAC, etc.) in charge, along with the state. This technocratic public-private partnership model is already being touted by institutions such as the WEF. This model is nearly identical to China's model which is a 24/7 surveillance Communist government that allows private enterprise, but step out of line and you're relegated to a labor camp. And yet, China is in the early stages of its own implosion which is clearly lost on Thiel, Yarvin and Klaus Schwab.
They realize this. When asked what he thinks of Yarvin’s autocratic agenda, Thiel said
“I don’t think it’s going to work. I think it will look like Xi in China or Putin in Russia ultimately . I don’t think it will even be accelerationist on the science and technology side, to say nothing of what it will do for individual rights, civil liberties, things of that sort.”
While seemingly not a fan as is his Straussian way to conceal intentions Thiel likely knows precisely where this is going. And while they may want to prevent the decline of the Empire which provides them great wealth I will argue this is straight out of the Problem-Reaction-Solution playbook. Many of the policies over the last 45 years have been to destroy the real America to benefit the rich and the Empire. Each disaster leads to policies that make the rich richer, and lowers living standards for the “unthinking demos”. This will be just one more step, maybe the last one
While you say China is in the early stages of its own implosion I disagree somewhat. Certainly it looks that way from the viewpoint of the working class who suffer from low wages , high youth unemployment and a poor social safety net (worse than US), but its good times for the CCP Elite and they don’t face anywhere near the debt crisis as in US as most of their debt is internal. Also they don’t need to worry about elections and have have built a strong police state to crush any dissent. Some of their economic issues are a result of US sanctions and trade restrictions.
But yeah, China is the model they want to copy. Eric Schmidt who headed the NSCAI Commission for Trump basically said that in his report. We have to become more like China to compete with them on AI
Thank you for this brilliant essay. Thiel, Yarvin & Co. appear to be trying to prevent the decline of the US empire. The solution then is to reformulate government by putting large stakeholders (ie, big Pharma, big defense, AIPAC, etc.) in charge, along with the state. This technocratic public-private partnership model is already being touted by institutions such as the WEF. This model is nearly identical to China's model which is a 24/7 surveillance Communist government that allows private enterprise, but step out of line and you're relegated to a labor camp. And yet, China is in the early stages of its own implosion which is clearly lost on Thiel, Yarvin and Klaus Schwab.
Thanks
They realize this. When asked what he thinks of Yarvin’s autocratic agenda, Thiel said
“I don’t think it’s going to work. I think it will look like Xi in China or Putin in Russia ultimately . I don’t think it will even be accelerationist on the science and technology side, to say nothing of what it will do for individual rights, civil liberties, things of that sort.”
While seemingly not a fan as is his Straussian way to conceal intentions Thiel likely knows precisely where this is going. And while they may want to prevent the decline of the Empire which provides them great wealth I will argue this is straight out of the Problem-Reaction-Solution playbook. Many of the policies over the last 45 years have been to destroy the real America to benefit the rich and the Empire. Each disaster leads to policies that make the rich richer, and lowers living standards for the “unthinking demos”. This will be just one more step, maybe the last one
While you say China is in the early stages of its own implosion I disagree somewhat. Certainly it looks that way from the viewpoint of the working class who suffer from low wages , high youth unemployment and a poor social safety net (worse than US), but its good times for the CCP Elite and they don’t face anywhere near the debt crisis as in US as most of their debt is internal. Also they don’t need to worry about elections and have have built a strong police state to crush any dissent. Some of their economic issues are a result of US sanctions and trade restrictions.
But yeah, China is the model they want to copy. Eric Schmidt who headed the NSCAI Commission for Trump basically said that in his report. We have to become more like China to compete with them on AI