Here Come the Broligarchs

The Robber Barons of the Neo-Gilded Age

Protectors of Our Industry, Bernhard Gillam Puck Magazine, 1883 PUBLIC DOMAIN LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

(Note: The original draft of this essay was published here before the election and removed by this writer afterwards. I have since edited and updated it for our current moment. I can’t say it is any less disturbing and for that, I am sorry.)

Hello, Friend,

Diving into the Technocrat’s universe is, to be frank, deeply disturbing. The Broligarchs and the New Right may appear to be aligned with the Mad King, but he’s their (and it seems everyone’s) useful idiot, easily manipulated with and sidelined by flattery, money, attention, and grandiose delusions. He is the means to their dark purposes. You don’t have to dig too deep to see that through the new administration with the help of their hand selected VP JD, they are positioning themselves to implement some incredibly radical and anti-American plans. All of that weird shit Vance says out loud, that’s not accidental. The dystopian future they envision is similar in theme and tone to Project 2025, without the religious elements. One can look to alt-right guru Curtis Yarvin to get a sense of what they seek. You can find Yarvin here on Substack where he pens his dystopian “Techno-Monarchic” Dark Enlightenment NRx fantasies. Breaking it down to the essence, one discovers a call for an end to the world as we know it, replaced by a global network of neo-Fascist corporate fiefdoms (the Patchwork) led by wealthy Tech companies with CEO overlords called Delegates. The wealthiest Tech Bro white men would rule as Delegates, and the rest of us would continue to exist at their discretion. Yarvin has a large and growing following. He is one element of a bigger picture far-right movement that is building momentum through appealing to disenfranchised white (and an increasing number of non-white) men who feel left behind and maligned by the progress of our modern age towards a more equitable future.

No more DEI! They want their UIE: Uniformity, Inequity, and Exclusion to continue ad infinitum, damn it! If you aren’t someone whom they deign to be a useful member of society, productive in a manner they perceive as beneficial for the Technocracy and you lack anyone who is willing to serve as your guardian, you would be designated as a ‘ward’ or non-citizen. After joking that ‘wards’ should be turned into goo to create biodiesel (har di har har), Yarvin suggests imprisoning them in virtual reality, or better yet, bringing back slavery!

“The best humane alternative to genocide I can think of is not to liquidate the wards—either metaphorically or literally—but to virtualize them. A virtualized human is in permanent solitary confinement, waxed like a bee larva into a cell which is sealed except for emergencies. This would drive him insane, except that the cell contains an immersive virtual-reality interface which allows him to experience a rich, fulfilling life in a completely imaginary world.” Mencius Moldbug a.k.a. Curtis Yarvin, Patchwork: A Political System for the 21st Century

It's unclear how many of these ideas are dark fantasy and how many are dead serious. Yarvin and the other architect of the Dark Enlightenment Nick Land appear to be eugenicists and equally disturbing, accelerationists. Are they, though? Are the Tech Bros? How serious are they? What does any of this mean for the future? Do they plan to infect us, eradicate us, enslave us, oppress us, or force us into Metaverse-like virtual prisons? It’s a dystopian fantasy nightmare that appears to be coming to life. Where it might lead is unclear. Though it is clear there is no concern for the future of any of us mere plebians or the planet itself.

We are experiencing the last, painful gasp of the patriarchy. Those who have benefitted the most from the past 50 years of post-Reaganomic fueled wealth inequality and the rise of Big Tech seem incapable of enjoying their riches. No matter how much they have, it is never enough. Musk is the poster boy for the bottomless pit of needy noblesse sans oblige. It boggles the mind how these men, with enough money to change the course of humanity and still savor all of life’s possible pleasures, take no interest in the betterment of mankind. They see no value in lifting others up. They see no value in others. They whine about paying taxes or fair wages or following regulations or investing in their communities. Lines on maps are meaningless to them. They seem themselves as godlike creatures fueled by their ketamine induced hallucinations. They want absolute freedom for them and, it seems, servitude (or worse) for the rest of us. They are slouching ever closer, riding the coattails of the MAGA and Christian Nationalist movements to their own nefarious ends.

It’s a little bit Brave New World, a little bit 1984, a little bit The Matrix, and a whole lot of WTF.

“All residents, even temporary visitors, carry an ID card with RFID response. All are genotyped and iris scanned. Public places and transportation systems track everyone. Security cameras are ubiquitous. Every car knows where it is and who is sitting in it and tells the authorities both. Residents cannot use this data to snoop into each other’s lives, but Friscorp can use it to monitor society at an almost arbitrarily detailed level.” Mencius Moldbug a.k.a. Curtis Yarvin, Patchwork: A Political System for the 21st Century

There are other visionaries informing the philosophies of the technocrats. The Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg, written in 1997, warns of the collapse of society as we know it in the information age when only those with significant means will be able to survive to create a new “Utopian” paradigm. The Tech Bros see this as a visionary roadmap to the future. Peter Thiel recently bought his citizenship in New Zealand, where he has been attempting to build an apocalypse bunker to survive what he sees as the inevitable collapse of society.

There has never been a more tenuous period in my lifetime. The Tech Bros are not the only players in the current political paradigm of co-conspirators, but they are arguably the most powerful. How we navigate that I don’t honestly know. Lest you think my concerns about Yarvin are unfounded, he’s been flitting about D.C. post-election hobnobbing with the shadow Tech Bros like Theil, Sacks, and Andreesson who are manipulating things behind the scenes while P. T. Elon and his hacker entourage dismantle our government infrastructure. Yarvin’s theory of RAGE (Remove All Government Employees) is Musk’s motus operandi. Even if we are somehow able to expel them (and their blatant refusal to follow the rule of law complicates that possibility) their lack of fealty to any individual country means the Tech Bros could move their bases and plans elsewhere (like New Zealand or floating cities protected by the seas) to continue working towards their goal of global domination.

The Neo-Gilded Age is not golden, it is fetid, insidious, and riddled with decay. It is, at this very moment, infiltrating every corner of our society, our government, our treasury, and our autonomy. If you’re still feeding the Tech Bros with your (and your friend’s) data, money, attention, and time, I implore you to scrub your data, delete their apps, stop buying their products, stop using their services, free yourself from the tyranny of Big Tech, and pressure your elected officials to block them from stealing the future.

“…always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”

1984, George Orwell

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