Disregard for Governance and Societal Collapse
A central theme is the perception that the current administration is actively dismantling or undermining essential governmental functions and civil society. This is seen as a destructive force, with users expressing concern over the long-term consequences.
- "The current administration is not merely racists, autocratic, and hell bent on insuring all wealth is held by the oligarch class, it is also engaged in the most venal, short-sighted, and destructive assault on the basic functions of governance and civil society I can imagine." (aaroninsf)
- "I don't care what one's view is on the appropriate scale and role of federal governance, some operations are best and only accomplished at that level, and this short of bullshit is not just a disservice to, it is an attack on the citizenry." (aaroninsf)
- "janice1999: Destroying federal governance seems on point for people who read Yarvin and want to rule feudal micro-states as techno-kings."
- "I just feel extremely sad about the mass quantity of events like this happening right now because they are all aggregate to huge negative effects but the average person knows nothing of it. It feels so unfixable." (archildress)
Ideological Justification for Authoritarianism and Feudalism
Users explore the motivations behind a potential disregard for democratic governance, linking it to desires for authoritarian rule, personal betterment within a hierarchical system, and a rejection of common societal values. The discussion touches upon how individuals might embrace or accept dictatorial systems.
- "You don't have to see yourself as a high officer. You just have to imagine that you will be restored to your deserved state. In that state you are slightly better than average, and only those who are morally defective suffer. (Those are the ones who are now unjustly keeping you from succeeding on your merits.) The high officials are the truly great ones who have restored the natural order. You don't need that. You just require being recognized as somewhat better than most." (jfengel)
- "I fail to understand how someone could read about living in a dictatorship and go "yeah, I would like to live like that"" (amarcheschi)
- "fwiw there are religious people who read about the great kings in the bible and wish they had one of those today, and they vote (not endorsing, just sharing my experience)" (andrekandre)
- "johannes1234321: Democracy is complicated. The world is complex, but you get only a limited set of choices (in some implementation a few more, in others a few less) which means the burden in the end is on you. Now you take the wannabe dictator, which takes that all of you "I'm like your dad and will care about all those problems, so you only have to care about your direct environment, doing your job, taking care of your family, all else will be handled""
- "g-b-r: Partly being submissive, partly betting on being among the rulers, partly distaste for most of the world, and partly just idiocy and insanity"
- "MangoToupe: Wow, that's possibly the bleakest set of opinions I've ever seen detailed. I can't help but think that this is typical self-loathing and ensuing self-destruction turned towards society itself."
Exploitation of Social Divisions and Psychological Manipulation
Several comments highlight how societal divisions, particularly those around race and perceived social status, can be exploited to maintain power and control. The concept of using "enemies" or a sense of superiority to distract from economic or political disenfranchisement is a recurring theme.
- "This is how the entire history of racism worked in the United States. You may be a poor white person, living in a crappy neighborhood, with a crappy job, but atleast you're not black with things like Jim Crow, police, and redlining making sure legally your life is even worse. Plus your boss looks just like you and said you're a cultural fit so you may even be rich like him one day!" (Larrikin)
- "You reminded me of the Lyndon B Johnson quote which seems more relevant that ever. "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."" (janice1999)
- "Evidence suggests ~30% of people are content to be worse off in order to inflict a larger loss upon others. This paper makes for rather grim reading but imho provides a very useful heuristic for understanding the political enfironment in an era of mass communication." (anigbrowl)
Warnings about Information Control and Denial (Climate Change Example)
The discussion points to specific instances where information related to climate change appears to be suppressed, removed, or made inaccessible, leading to fears of deliberate obfuscation and denial by government entities.
- "Is it really that unreasonable to believe that a government run by people who’ve regularly called climate change a hoax and has a history of pulling previously public data is pulling the public data about climate change? I don’t disagree that jumping to conclusions is bad but intentionally discounting prior behavior seems just as reckless to me." (roxolotl)
- "According to someone from NASA, it was in fact shut down. NASA will eventually re-publish the reports. ... " (Glant)
- "mrtksn: Right, nice savings and opportunities for fossil energy industry. Good job."
- "wmoxam: Don't look up!"
- "gmuslera: It´s not so severe, it was just that those servers and the people maintaining them, melt in the latest heatwave. Nothing to worry about."
Concerns about Nuclear Security and State Collapse
A thread emerges concerning the potential for nuclear weapons to fall into the wrong hands during periods of political instability or state collapse, raising anxieties about the security of such arsenals and the motivations of future power brokers.
- "So what is the plan for handling the US nuclear warhead stockpile as the empire crumbles? I'm worried about billionaires with nukes. Maybe not the person directly but people behind all that envision super wealthy city-states and I totally expect those to have nukes." (mrtksn)
- "The nuclear codes won't stop anyone with time and engineers. These are intended for physically arming the strong link in the warhead that is supposed to send the signal to the exclusion zone but someone with unrestricted access should be able to override it and send the signal directly." (mrtksn)
- "KerrAvon: tl;dr: the Soviet state didn't collapse in the manner of a zombie apocalypse or environmental catastrophe, it collapsed politically; there was continuity in command / control until the weapons were all moved back physically into Russia."
- "johannes1234321: By the time you could act it's too late, if you don't want to dismantle the nukes independently. It's a consequence of the existence."
Pessimism and Societal Decline Analogies
A prevailing mood of pessimism and dire analogies color the discussion, with comparisons to historical periods of decline, breakdown, and even societal self-destruction being drawn to characterize the current state of affairs.
- "If the US was a rebellious teenager then they are past their doing coke and doing corn phase and onto their face tattoo and smoking meth phase." (thr0waway001)
- "I can outbleak that! In 2 paragraphs! Although it seems more robust in the long term*, anti-intellectualism probably has a cliff of adaptivity, just like academia, ideology, or indeed any collection of values" (gsf_emergency_2)
- "This guy seems to have built his career off of actively propagating these ideas. If you read about Thiel's upbringing it's entirely unsurprising the two get along so well." (MangoToupe)
Technical Misconfigurations vs. Malicious Intent (DNS Example)
A brief but illustrative sub-theme emerges around a technical issue with a government website, where the cause of its inaccessibility is debated between simple misconfiguration and deliberate action.
- "The problem is that globalchange.gov is failing DNS lookup. The domain is still registered, and the nameservers are supposed to be these: ... Barring any evidence to the contrary, it could simply be a misconfiguration. This kind of stuff does happen, particularly when a government agency is running DNS." (timr)
- "bombcar: If you see your hosts file what the DNS used to show, does the server respond? That’s usually the real test."
- "timr: ...NPR notes that the report is here ..., so [...] if someone is trying to hide it, they're not doing a particularly good job."