Thank you for this terrific and thoughtful essay on a question that has kept me up at night. Antichrist – all of them. Soulless creatures, hollow men--not men really, more like men in arrested development at early adolescence. These are addicts of power. Empty narcissists-nothing, no amount of money, will fill the emptiness in their hearts and souls. The rest of us are suffering and will suffer going forward. Perhaps the current nationwide demonstrations, involving more and more people on every side, will awaken some who are still unaware of this spreading cancer.
This is what they want to do in their very short tenure on this earth.
Manomanoman, but you've stuffed this taco with a whole lotta fixins. Yummy. So, even though I'm way out of my typical depth here, I can't resist a couple of things. But before I do I want to thank you for a big clue as to why Peter Thiel has publically lamented the fact that women ever got the vote. Been wondering about that. So it's not just a desire to keep his claws on the perch he preens on, but a convoluted relationship with the single largest gender category on earth. Maybe his momma was a B--. But that's neither here nor there as his hyper-rational left brain wired lack of empathy would be reason enough to beware of him and his ilk. What I wanted to do was dig a little deeper into your 'why' question by taking a longer look into the nature of addiction and its relationship to the perennial question of what it means to be a fully mature human of either sex. (Actually, the Talmud specifies either 7 or 9 different genders, depending on who you're asking, I've heard.) I worked with addicts in a special program developed by Johns Hopkins and implemented at its East Baltimore campus where I was employed as a counselor. That's just to establish some kind of cred. What's always seemed saddest and most revealing about addiction is that it's ultimately so unsatisfactory to the addict, while at the same time destroying his or her access to other forms of pleasure. And along the way so, so much shit happens, up to and including an extreme form of shriveling, akin to soul death. Which observation can be applied to any form of addiction/insistence upon any particular bright shiny object as well as chemical 'enhancers.' So, take Mr. Bezos. After laboring to develop a new wau to market and retail just about every kind of product available, and losing his shirt for years while trying to establish it, he was first lionized (a heady drug indeed), then enriched (ditto), then idolized and so on, by which time he was a goner in need of endless more fixes of adulation and maybe buying power too. So he's got the trophy fiance and the BIG BIG boat. Now he wants to demolish a historic bridge under which his yacht can't pass on its way to whatever competitive party he's planning to go to that weekend (quaint term, that). And he wants to expand his empire as well as his margins, WITH NO END IN MIND. And there's the lack of satisfaction--the black hole--more and more resulting in less and less satisfaction. I assume Zuckerberg and the others are somewhere on this spectrum as well.
Compare this with a craftsman or artist who also can never ever reach some ultimate perfection in his or her efforts, but who is elevated by the intense joy in the effort to approach it, and then see what comes of that comparison, and what it points toward in terms of human nature, as it is, vs what it's currently advertised to be.
Have you read The Winner Effect? It shows how winning isn’t just an outcome—it chemically rewires the brain (via testosterone, dopamine and cortisol shifts) in ways that increase confidence, focus and risk-taking, making the victor more likely to win again — but also become calamitously hubristic, which can lead to one’s ultimate downfall. The Enron guys were a key example.
I see something quite similar happening now but at a much grander scale. They are playing with a system designed to limit despotic power through checks and balances at the same time as US empire declines, global power shifts and broadens, and exertions the US state could once get away with (e.g, trade wars) are curtailed through mere stonewalling. As they push for their conservative reaction, physics inevitably pushes the pendulum back.
Maybe I’m overly optimistic, but I don’t see this “strategy” working for them. It will be the downfall of many, I’d bet. But I do fear many will suffer in the meantime.
Yes, they are addicts, though this particular non-biological form of addiction seems to me like some kind of demonic possession, like a kind of occult parasite. It is so utterly mindless and irrational - a cancer of the soul. So what do we do in response to it, besides naming it? If this is the work of the "Anti-Christ", then Christ would seem to be the antidote. I am referring to Christ not as a religious figure or personal savior, but as a living, powerful, spiritual presence that is available to be embodied, cultivated, and potentized within the heart of every willing human being. The essence of Christ is love, the name doesn't matter.
I really appreciate that you use the addiction model to explain their behavior. I firmly believe that billionaires are addicted to money and power, and the pursuit of the high they get from windfall profits or manipulating society for their benefit is the best way to explain their motivations.
Also, if you haven't seen this breakdown of all of the anti-Christ prophecies that this administration has fulfilled, you should check it out. Some of these are incredibly specific, like miraculously surviving a head wound or occupying the shores of Palestine. You'd have to think they were using this as a playbook!
Thank you. When you say "addiction," you are definitely onto something. Also, I read a piece several years ago that mentioned Mike Huckabee specifically, positing that MH and his fellow reactionaries all were identifying with the punisher of their childhoods. That is, they were traumatized as children, and, like many if not all of the MAGA heads, they abandoned the "weak" inner child whose "sensitivity" (i.e., awareness) got them into trouble with the authority figures in their lives. So they chose to identify with the toxic masculine aspect of themselves--much safer!--and to band together with others, similarly traumatized. Addiction is a loyalty to the addictive substance (booze, drugs, power, etc.) that will subvert any introspection, which the addicted self sees as a mortal threat. No comapssion for the inner child translates outwardly to no compassion for anyone who demonstrates "weakness" (i.e., sensitivity) of any kind. There's a great guy on Instagram whose handle is hype.r.vigilance .He articulates toxic narcissism very well and connects many vital dots. Check him out! Also, you might want to look into, if you haven't already, Lloyd DeMause's work, His book "Reagan's America" is a prescient look at the propaganda indulged in by Fox News, for instance. Also, that "Anti-Christ" stuff is real. As one of my friends would say, "the biggest lie the devil ever told is that he doesn't exist." or some such. And that would suggest the answer lies in connecting with the Christ energy (also as a commenter suggested). It's like another comment--it's like a mind virus. Makes me think of "The Mind Parasites," by Colin Wilson.(Which I believe the movie Village of the Damned was based on. George Sanders' character: "I must think of a brick wall.") Invasion of the Body Snatchers comes to mind as well. That's all for now!
Great article and thank you for the Palantir video. They used to operate with a bit of a veil of secrecy, but they seem to have no problem now embracing the ethos that anything that is good for protecting America against its enemies (foreign and domestic I would presume) is not just justifiable but necessary. Maureen Dowd did an interview with Karp (in the last year?) that similarly drove home that point. There were a couple of quotes in the clip that stood out to me. “This is a company built for bad times”. “We are very comfortable being unpopular”. It’s hard not to think that in some ways this boils down to the kids who were bullied having a chance to take over the world and have their revenge. So yes, let’s burn the world to the ground and terrify everyone but we will be profiting off of it. But, that does seem rather reductionist. The addiction rhetoric resonates. I think fear might as well. The internet has always had the chance to be the absolute best or the absolute worst thing for humanity. The absolute best thing for humanity is the absolute worst thing for them personally. They could stand to lose their power, their money, their infamy/respect depending on the audience, everything that defines them. And to be honest we’ve seen this kind of dynamic end with “off with their heads” before, so it wouldn’t be the first time.
Halfway through but about to board a plane—have you seen this addiction video? Someone I know who was a meth addict said this was the best depiction of addiction out there. I think you are so right to point to this as a root cause—please watch this video, it’s short and wordless and beautifully done and just kind of unforgettable:
How could we have disrupted this process earlier on? Living in Europe, we are used to seeing the USA’s culture and politics slowly cross the Atlantic to us. So perhaps we have 5-10 years on you?
Amazing article as always; many thanks for your work, Daniel. Would love your opinion on a new paper, 'AI 2027' by Daniel Kokotajlo and others (Back in 2021 Kokotajlo wrote a pretty good prediction of what life in 2025 would be like) - at the heart of the new paper is the idea that AI will be in control of the government by 2027. Would love to hear opinions on it from your and the many other brilliant minds here. I found it sobering and realistic and the opening of this article brought it right back to mind.
Slight complication is a rumor that Hegseth and Gabbard oppose going to war with Iran as Netanyahu is urging, and that’s why the Pentagon’s immune system is trying to reject him. Of course, I have no idea what is “true.”
Daniel, thanks so much for sharing this powerful video about Palantir. It confirms my growing unease—especially after today's news that Palantir is partnering with Elon Musk's xAI.
This partnership deeply troubles me. Both Musk and Palantir have shown they’re comfortable pushing ethical boundaries, centralizing immense power, and operating without meaningful oversight or transparency. The risk of moving toward "governance by algorithm," where AI systems guided by these powerful few could profoundly shape our society and democracy, feels very real—and unsettling.
I wonder if you or others here share similar concerns about the trajectory we're on and what we might do collectively to address it. Grateful to you for initiating this crucial conversation.
I was at a concert last night, the music is fun, danceable, uplifting. The show started with an intense lightning storm, cool. However, the rest of the imagery was all about meshing occult & new age symbols with satanic ones: double inverted crosses, red glowing eggs, a computerized tentacled buddha, bizarre glitchy lab w a lotus, a white horse, emotionless, bloodied or dark eyed masks….hard to describe everything except to say I left early. Not participating in a dark ritual. Good thing I wore my organite lol
Thank you for this terrific and thoughtful essay on a question that has kept me up at night. Antichrist – all of them. Soulless creatures, hollow men--not men really, more like men in arrested development at early adolescence. These are addicts of power. Empty narcissists-nothing, no amount of money, will fill the emptiness in their hearts and souls. The rest of us are suffering and will suffer going forward. Perhaps the current nationwide demonstrations, involving more and more people on every side, will awaken some who are still unaware of this spreading cancer.
This is what they want to do in their very short tenure on this earth.
Well they also believe they will live forever or have a good shot at it!
Manomanoman, but you've stuffed this taco with a whole lotta fixins. Yummy. So, even though I'm way out of my typical depth here, I can't resist a couple of things. But before I do I want to thank you for a big clue as to why Peter Thiel has publically lamented the fact that women ever got the vote. Been wondering about that. So it's not just a desire to keep his claws on the perch he preens on, but a convoluted relationship with the single largest gender category on earth. Maybe his momma was a B--. But that's neither here nor there as his hyper-rational left brain wired lack of empathy would be reason enough to beware of him and his ilk. What I wanted to do was dig a little deeper into your 'why' question by taking a longer look into the nature of addiction and its relationship to the perennial question of what it means to be a fully mature human of either sex. (Actually, the Talmud specifies either 7 or 9 different genders, depending on who you're asking, I've heard.) I worked with addicts in a special program developed by Johns Hopkins and implemented at its East Baltimore campus where I was employed as a counselor. That's just to establish some kind of cred. What's always seemed saddest and most revealing about addiction is that it's ultimately so unsatisfactory to the addict, while at the same time destroying his or her access to other forms of pleasure. And along the way so, so much shit happens, up to and including an extreme form of shriveling, akin to soul death. Which observation can be applied to any form of addiction/insistence upon any particular bright shiny object as well as chemical 'enhancers.' So, take Mr. Bezos. After laboring to develop a new wau to market and retail just about every kind of product available, and losing his shirt for years while trying to establish it, he was first lionized (a heady drug indeed), then enriched (ditto), then idolized and so on, by which time he was a goner in need of endless more fixes of adulation and maybe buying power too. So he's got the trophy fiance and the BIG BIG boat. Now he wants to demolish a historic bridge under which his yacht can't pass on its way to whatever competitive party he's planning to go to that weekend (quaint term, that). And he wants to expand his empire as well as his margins, WITH NO END IN MIND. And there's the lack of satisfaction--the black hole--more and more resulting in less and less satisfaction. I assume Zuckerberg and the others are somewhere on this spectrum as well.
Compare this with a craftsman or artist who also can never ever reach some ultimate perfection in his or her efforts, but who is elevated by the intense joy in the effort to approach it, and then see what comes of that comparison, and what it points toward in terms of human nature, as it is, vs what it's currently advertised to be.
Let’s see- I guess Christ IS the anti christ.
Are we “I AM” and also “I AM NOT” at the same time?
It’s enough to give me a keta headache….
Have you read The Winner Effect? It shows how winning isn’t just an outcome—it chemically rewires the brain (via testosterone, dopamine and cortisol shifts) in ways that increase confidence, focus and risk-taking, making the victor more likely to win again — but also become calamitously hubristic, which can lead to one’s ultimate downfall. The Enron guys were a key example.
I see something quite similar happening now but at a much grander scale. They are playing with a system designed to limit despotic power through checks and balances at the same time as US empire declines, global power shifts and broadens, and exertions the US state could once get away with (e.g, trade wars) are curtailed through mere stonewalling. As they push for their conservative reaction, physics inevitably pushes the pendulum back.
Maybe I’m overly optimistic, but I don’t see this “strategy” working for them. It will be the downfall of many, I’d bet. But I do fear many will suffer in the meantime.
Yes, they are addicts, though this particular non-biological form of addiction seems to me like some kind of demonic possession, like a kind of occult parasite. It is so utterly mindless and irrational - a cancer of the soul. So what do we do in response to it, besides naming it? If this is the work of the "Anti-Christ", then Christ would seem to be the antidote. I am referring to Christ not as a religious figure or personal savior, but as a living, powerful, spiritual presence that is available to be embodied, cultivated, and potentized within the heart of every willing human being. The essence of Christ is love, the name doesn't matter.
I really appreciate that you use the addiction model to explain their behavior. I firmly believe that billionaires are addicted to money and power, and the pursuit of the high they get from windfall profits or manipulating society for their benefit is the best way to explain their motivations.
Also, if you haven't seen this breakdown of all of the anti-Christ prophecies that this administration has fulfilled, you should check it out. Some of these are incredibly specific, like miraculously surviving a head wound or occupying the shores of Palestine. You'd have to think they were using this as a playbook!
https://www.benjaminlcorey.com/could-american-evangelicals-spot-the-antichrist-heres-the-biblical-predictions/#google_vignette
Thank you. When you say "addiction," you are definitely onto something. Also, I read a piece several years ago that mentioned Mike Huckabee specifically, positing that MH and his fellow reactionaries all were identifying with the punisher of their childhoods. That is, they were traumatized as children, and, like many if not all of the MAGA heads, they abandoned the "weak" inner child whose "sensitivity" (i.e., awareness) got them into trouble with the authority figures in their lives. So they chose to identify with the toxic masculine aspect of themselves--much safer!--and to band together with others, similarly traumatized. Addiction is a loyalty to the addictive substance (booze, drugs, power, etc.) that will subvert any introspection, which the addicted self sees as a mortal threat. No comapssion for the inner child translates outwardly to no compassion for anyone who demonstrates "weakness" (i.e., sensitivity) of any kind. There's a great guy on Instagram whose handle is hype.r.vigilance .He articulates toxic narcissism very well and connects many vital dots. Check him out! Also, you might want to look into, if you haven't already, Lloyd DeMause's work, His book "Reagan's America" is a prescient look at the propaganda indulged in by Fox News, for instance. Also, that "Anti-Christ" stuff is real. As one of my friends would say, "the biggest lie the devil ever told is that he doesn't exist." or some such. And that would suggest the answer lies in connecting with the Christ energy (also as a commenter suggested). It's like another comment--it's like a mind virus. Makes me think of "The Mind Parasites," by Colin Wilson.(Which I believe the movie Village of the Damned was based on. George Sanders' character: "I must think of a brick wall.") Invasion of the Body Snatchers comes to mind as well. That's all for now!
Great article and thank you for the Palantir video. They used to operate with a bit of a veil of secrecy, but they seem to have no problem now embracing the ethos that anything that is good for protecting America against its enemies (foreign and domestic I would presume) is not just justifiable but necessary. Maureen Dowd did an interview with Karp (in the last year?) that similarly drove home that point. There were a couple of quotes in the clip that stood out to me. “This is a company built for bad times”. “We are very comfortable being unpopular”. It’s hard not to think that in some ways this boils down to the kids who were bullied having a chance to take over the world and have their revenge. So yes, let’s burn the world to the ground and terrify everyone but we will be profiting off of it. But, that does seem rather reductionist. The addiction rhetoric resonates. I think fear might as well. The internet has always had the chance to be the absolute best or the absolute worst thing for humanity. The absolute best thing for humanity is the absolute worst thing for them personally. They could stand to lose their power, their money, their infamy/respect depending on the audience, everything that defines them. And to be honest we’ve seen this kind of dynamic end with “off with their heads” before, so it wouldn’t be the first time.
Excellent. The word for all this is technocracy. Good point about Musk’s alignment with dark forces.
Halfway through but about to board a plane—have you seen this addiction video? Someone I know who was a meth addict said this was the best depiction of addiction out there. I think you are so right to point to this as a root cause—please watch this video, it’s short and wordless and beautifully done and just kind of unforgettable:
https://youtu.be/HUngLgGRJpo
How could we have disrupted this process earlier on? Living in Europe, we are used to seeing the USA’s culture and politics slowly cross the Atlantic to us. So perhaps we have 5-10 years on you?
Amazing article as always; many thanks for your work, Daniel. Would love your opinion on a new paper, 'AI 2027' by Daniel Kokotajlo and others (Back in 2021 Kokotajlo wrote a pretty good prediction of what life in 2025 would be like) - at the heart of the new paper is the idea that AI will be in control of the government by 2027. Would love to hear opinions on it from your and the many other brilliant minds here. I found it sobering and realistic and the opening of this article brought it right back to mind.
Coincidentally this appeared in my feed today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxsyXc-LpKk
Slight complication is a rumor that Hegseth and Gabbard oppose going to war with Iran as Netanyahu is urging, and that’s why the Pentagon’s immune system is trying to reject him. Of course, I have no idea what is “true.”
Daniel, thanks so much for sharing this powerful video about Palantir. It confirms my growing unease—especially after today's news that Palantir is partnering with Elon Musk's xAI.
This partnership deeply troubles me. Both Musk and Palantir have shown they’re comfortable pushing ethical boundaries, centralizing immense power, and operating without meaningful oversight or transparency. The risk of moving toward "governance by algorithm," where AI systems guided by these powerful few could profoundly shape our society and democracy, feels very real—and unsettling.
I wonder if you or others here share similar concerns about the trajectory we're on and what we might do collectively to address it. Grateful to you for initiating this crucial conversation.
I was at a concert last night, the music is fun, danceable, uplifting. The show started with an intense lightning storm, cool. However, the rest of the imagery was all about meshing occult & new age symbols with satanic ones: double inverted crosses, red glowing eggs, a computerized tentacled buddha, bizarre glitchy lab w a lotus, a white horse, emotionless, bloodied or dark eyed masks….hard to describe everything except to say I left early. Not participating in a dark ritual. Good thing I wore my organite lol