Technocracists and/or Psychos...

Ever since Spanky mentioned it in 1933, I've wondered about the Technocracy, but never knew until 2025, when it was reanimated. Is it now in resuspended animation?

As I argued in a couple essays, because longtime confidante Philip Low published a long letter breaking down Musk’s character… The other day on CNN, he said: "This was, in my view, part of Elon’s Technate agenda, which will only be relevant now if Trump feels he has to fulfill a ‘promise’ he made after the election. This is good news for Panama and Greenland too though Trump was more strident about them, especially when he mentioned Greenland in his first address to Congress in March.

"This was, in my view, part of Elon's Technate agenda, which will only be relevant now if Trump feels he has to fulfill a 'promise' he made after the election. This is good news for Panama & Greenland, too, though Trump was more strident about them, especially when he mentioned Greenland in his first address to Congress." https://edition.cnn.com/.../carney-canada-51st-state...

These other three essays also reference the post-nation fiefdom plans of Elon et al. https://outofunitedstates.com/p/cold-civil-war-1954-2024, https://outofunitedstates.com/p/the-a-i-of-sauron, https://outofunitedstates.com/.../accelerationism-and-the...

Historian Quinn Slobodian: “We are witnessing the convergence of three strains of politics…the Wall Street–Silicon Valley nexus of distressed debt & startup culture; anti–New Deal conservative think tanks [plus Christian theocrats]; and the online world of anarchocapitalism and right-wing accelerationism. Within the new administration, each strain is striving to realize its desired outcome. The first wants a sleek state that narrowly seeks to maximize returns on investment; the second a shackled state unable to promote social justice; and the third, most dramatically, a shattered state that cedes governing authority to competing projects of decentralized private rule. We are watching how well they can collaborate to reinforce one another.”

The economic crash that’s happening now may well be exactly what they wanted. When Trump said, at his January 20 inauguration, “The golden age of America begins right now,” he was talking about 1% of the population or less. https://outofunitedstates.com/p/the-new-golden-age

"In ancient times (about two years ago), everyone was advising young people to prepare for the job market of the future by learning to code. But then the tech industry coded those jobs into oblivion. The Computer-Science Bubble Is Bursting. 'Artificial intelligence is ideally suited to replacing the very type of person who built it'.As economic hardship deepens, MAGA supporters are likely to double down, blaming scapegoats like immigrants or the “deep state” rather than their leader, a dynamic that mirrors the inward-turning violence of cults like Jonestown.

"The MAGA movement’s millenarian character is further complicated by its alignment with corporate secessionist visions, such as “freedom cities” and “seasteading,” championed by figures like Peter Thiel and Balaji Srinivasan. These high-tech fiefdoms, designed as escape pods for the ultra-wealthy, share the movement’s apocalyptic outlook, envisioning a future of scarcity and collapse. Both the corporate elite and the MAGA base imagine fortified enclaves—whether billionaire city-states or a bunker-like nation—where the elect survive while the unworthy perish. This convergence reflects a broader “end times fascism,” where existential threats like climate change and inequality are not addressed but accelerated, with the faithful awaiting a Rapture-like salvation.

"Traditional millenarian movements often collapse without their prophetic leader, yet Trumpism’s decentralized structure—amplified by social media and Christian Nationalist networks—suggests it could persist or evolve into something more radical. The MAGA base’s embrace of magical thinking, fueled by economic deprivation and apocalyptic rhetoric, renders it functionally indistinguishable from a millenarian cult. As long as the underlying conditions of inequality and disillusionment persist, this movement will likely continue to thrive, reshaping America’s political landscape in its image of a coming reckoning." https://outofunitedstates.com/p/millenarian-totenkult

https://outofunitedstates.com/p/technocracy-re-animator

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Bandy X. Lee, M.D. sez: DJT, like Hitler, is a Psychopath: Many cannot imagine, let alone recognize, the most dangerous disorder known to psychiatry.

The following three statements, sez Dr. Lance Dodes (retired assistant clinical professor at Harvard Medical School and coauthor to our new book, The Much More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump): “Strength lies not in defense but in attack,” “I cannot be mistaken—what I say and do is historical,” and “The masses are more likely to believe a big lie than a little one” were made not by Donald Trump but by Adolf Hitler, yet they uncannily describe Trump’s pathological behavior, thinking, and attitude toward others:… As Trump has shown numerous times when he is questioned, rather than having a rational response, he insults and mocks those who dare to challenge him. He has never acknowledged mistakes; indeed, he has repeatedly described himself as godlike. He has told enormous lies over and over,… with the intention that by repetition, he will fool the people into believing him.

And fool he did, to the point where we handed him the U.S. presidency, a second time. Dodes continues: were made not by Donald Trump but by Adolf Hitler, yet they uncannily describe Trump’s pathological behavior, thinking, and attitude toward others:… As Trump has shown numerous times when he is questioned, rather than having a rational response, he insults and mocks those who dare to challenge him. He has never acknowledged mistakes; indeed, he has repeatedly described himself as godlike. He has told enormous lies over and over,… with the intention that by repetition, he will fool the people into believing him.

In the first edition of [The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump], I wrote a chapter titled, “Sociopathy”, to describe the many reasons Donald Trump fits the definition of a sociopath…. Now, with the evidence of more years of his criminality, his incredible and continuous lying, his absence of empathy (incapacity for concern for anyone but himself), and, currently, his willingness to sacrifice democracy and the freedom of the people for his own benefit, there are enough data to confirm that Trump exhibits the most severe traits associated with Antisocial Personality Disorder—that he is a psychopath. This is by far the most dangerous of all mental disorders, since it is the only psychological condition in which behaving in a morally reprehensible way is an essential part of its nature.

Many are completely unaware of the most dangerous mental disorder known to psychiatry, which is therefore multifold less likely to be prosecuted and multifold more likely to get out of prison early—even though those who have it are far more dangerous and far more likely to repeat their crimes than those without it. The public is therefore maximally vulnerable to individuals with psychopathy, who not only wear a “mask of sanity” but manipulate others into believing that they are the most ideal candidate for any task or job, as they are master con men (sometimes women). It is therefore an important disorder to consider, during this exceptional National Safety Month, as we are facing extraordinary threats to the safety of all humankind.

"Dodes, of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, wrote many academic articles and book chapters on addiction, as well as three books: The Heart of Addiction; Breaking Addiction; and The Sober Truth. He was honored by Harvard Medical School’s Division on Addictions and was elected distinguished fellow of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry. He is an original coauthor of the 2017 Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, explains:

"Psychopaths intentionally create harm to others without guilt or remorse, for personal gain or self-gratification. That gratification often includes the sadistic pleasure of wreaking revenge against imagined enemies. Psychopaths cannot be reasoned out of their beliefs or their behavior, because they are unable to comprehend that others have value, or the concept of questioning themselves. The fact that Donald Trump has this most dangerous form of Antisocial Personality Disorder has two long-term consequences: It means that he is never going to stop intentionally harming others for his personal benefit, and it means that he will become worse over time...

"One of the characteristics of these tyrants is something that distinguishes psychopaths from sociopaths. Beyond lawbreaking, lying, cheating, and the absence of conscience, psychopaths are known for their long-term planning to intentionally harm others. Trump’s conviction on multiple counts of fraud, his inciting violence toward political opponents and officers of the courts, and his plan to violently overthrow the government of the United States on January 6, 2021, show the planned, intentional, criminal nature of his thinking. Like the abhorrent tyrants of the past, he is willing for other people to be denied their rights in order for him to have power, and he is eager to vengefully abuse people when it suits his purposes."

This is one of the reasons why we begin our new book, The Much More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 50 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Warn Anew, with a critical warning of his danger to our nation, which was issued following our National Press Club conference: “The More Dangerous State of the World and the Need for Fit Leadership,” held just weeks before the 2024 presidential election. Ordinary laypersons have difficulty imagining a human being without normal human characteristics, as Dodes explains: Trump’s absence of concern for others, and longstanding efforts to control and sadistically attack others, set him apart from normal human beings. What we often admire about ourselves as a species is our ability to care for and about one another, come to the aid of our fellow human, and join in shared efforts to help all of us…. But the power of conscience-free manipulation, coupled with the Big Lie technique, has, many times in human history, proven to overcome people’s normal self-preservation when practiced by a convincing psychopath. This happened to the people of Germany in the 1930’s when they surrendered a vibrant democracy to the lies and false promises of their psychopath. Now, the people of America are at risk of repeating this tragedy.

Trump’s [psychopathy] is why he threatens, hurts, debases, and attempts to control others for his own benefit, and why he will never change but, instead, will become worse the more power he can seize. Trump is America’s Hitler because Trump and Hitler are not only both psychopaths, but Trump has intentionally followed Hitler’s plan of endless repetition of Big Lies such as that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him. He has repeatedly threatened and criminally acted his way to power through violence and attempts to corrupt the nation’s legal and electoral systems. Like other historic scourges of humanity, Trump has shown that he falls far beneath the hallmark of mutual caring that makes us human.

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Richard David Hames writes: “I have been closely monitoring political and commercial maneuverings in countries like the United States and the UK over a number of years. Putting psychopaths aside for a moment, it's obvious that we're increasingly governed by the whims of those whose psychological moorings have been severed by the very wealth that grants them such unparalleled power. I call this phenomenon "Plutocratic Psychosis". It represents an insidious threat to our collective well-being.

“Consider the evidence: tech moguls obsessed with colonising space while Earth burns; billionaires with bizarre progeny fixations; the ultra-wealthy demanding servants discard plates after a single use or clean their toilets following each flush. These aren't just eccentricities; they're symptoms of unhinged minds, detached from reality, drifting in a rarified atmosphere where normal constraints cease to exist.

“The mechanisms in play are not mysterious. When unlimited resources eliminate the word ‘no’ from one's vocabulary, when armies of assistants orchestrate elaborate ceremonies to accommodate one's neuroses, when every whim can be indulged without consequence—the psychological guardrails that keep most humans tethered to a shared reality simply don't apply.

“Research confirms what observations imply: extreme wealth correlates to diminished empathy, enhanced narcissism, and a distorted perception of others' capacities and needs. The "power paradox" documented by social psychologists reveals how the acquisition of power—financial or otherwise—erodes the very social intelligence that might have enabled its ethical deployment.

“What makes this much more than an academic curiosity is the unparalleled capacity such psychologically compromised individuals possess to reshape society according to their warped dreams. Unlike delusional patients in a psychiatric ward who believe they should redesign global governance, billionaires with similar delusions can actually implement their vision, regardless of its merit or potential damage.

“We face, in essence, a tyranny of the unstable. Our technologies, economies, and increasingly our political systems bend to accommodate the fevered dreams of those least equipped to lead us—individuals whose material circumstances have cultivated psychological profiles that should disqualify them from positions of influence rather than guarantee them.

“The cultural mythology surrounding wealth aggravates this crisis. We've constructed elaborate narratives equating wealth to wisdom, vision, and moral authority. This equation transforms psychological liabilities into a perceived asset, casting the most detached among us as visionaries rather than casualties of a system that rewards oversized egos and pathological acquisition.

You might object that not all wealthy individuals exhibit these tendencies—pointing to philanthropic endeavours as evidence of a more balanced perspective. Yet that misses the point. The issue isn't whether occasional acts of generosity emerge from the billionaire class; it's that no individual—psychologically compromised or otherwise—should wield such disproportionate influence over our collective destiny.

You might protest that correlation doesn't imply causation—perhaps certain personality types simply attract wealth rather than being corrupted by it. Research implies both dynamics operate simultaneously: predispositions toward certain behaviours may facilitate wealth accumulation, but wealth itself then amplifies and distorts these tendencies, creating feedback loops of increasing detachment.

A response of some kind is called for. Structurally, we require robust wealth redistribution mechanisms—progressive taxation, inheritance reforms, and anti-monopoly enforcement—to help dilute concentrated power. Culturally, we must challenge the hero-worship of billionaires and normalise critique of wealth's psychological impacts. And yes, we should possibly advocate for mental health resources for the ultra-wealthy themselves, not merely as individual intervention but as a public safeguard.

Throughout history, we've learned repeatedly that unchecked power corrupts—whether manifested through monarchies, dictatorships, or oligarchies. The modern billionaire class represents merely the latest iteration of this timeless pattern, cloaked in the contemporary garb of disruption.

What makes our present moment uniquely perilous is the convergence of unprecedented wealth with technologies of planetary-scale impact. When individuals whose psyches have been bent by extreme privilege gain the capacity to reshape climate systems, genetic codes, or global information flows, the stakes transcend political preference or economic ideology—they become existential.

The first step toward meaningful change is precisely what we've begun here: naming the phenomenon. "Plutocratic Psychosis" or "Oligarchic Neurosis" provides linguistic leverage to discuss patterns otherwise obscured by individualised narratives of eccentric genius. By naming the condition, we begin to see the systemic rather than anecdotal nature of the predicament.

Our challenge is not just political but philosophical—requiring us to reexamine fundamental assumptions about wealth, authority, and mental health. Particularly in a society that claims to value democracy, how and when did we consent to be ruled by the emotionally compromised? In a society that prioritises mental health, how have we failed to recognize the pathologies endemic to extreme wealth?

The billionaire class will not voluntarily relinquish power nor acknowledge their compromised perspective. That responsibility falls to us—the still-grounded majority—to reclaim our collective agency before the fantasies of the wealthy-yet-unwell become irreversibly encoded in our societies, technologies, and ecosystems.

This is not class warfare; it's psychological self-defense. Our futures are increasingly shaped by minds that have lost touch with the very realities most humans inhabit. Until we address this basic misalignment, we remain captive to a system that elevates the least qualified to positions of greatest influence. The time has come to speak plainly: extreme wealth corrupts the mind, and corrupted minds should not be guiding human destiny.

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In ancient times (about two years ago), everyone was advising young people to prepare for the job market of the future by learning to code. But then the tech industry coded those jobs into oblivion. The Computer-Science Bubble Is Bursting. "Artificial intelligence is ideally suited to replacing the very type of person who built it."

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Dave Pell: "‘World Bank pandemic bonds paid out only after death tolls passed a threshold. They’re part of a booming market where investors turn calamity into capital." The Business of Betting on Catastrophe’. (It's 2025. Bet the over.)”

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Dave Pell: "‘The Trump administration said on Monday that it would open up 58 million acres of back country in national forests to road construction and development, removing protections that had been in place for a quarter century.’ NYT(Gift Article): Trump Administration to End Protections for 58 Million Acres of National Forests. ‘Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the Clinton-era rule barring road construction and logging was outdated and absurd’. (He's not wrong. Nature is becoming outdated...)”

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James Carville: “If Trump sees himself going down, he’s going to try to take the whole country with him. He doesn’t like our laws, he doesn’t like our Constitution, he doesn’t like our people, he calls them fat, he calls them poorly educated slobs, stupid. He is not loyal to the US. He does not like this country. He criticizes it all the time, has an affection for dictators, and has an affection for authoritarianism. We ought to be on high, high alert. I believe the man genuinely, fundamentally wants to hurt this country.”

Meanwhile, as Dave Pell, once again, writes, “After having made the fateful decision to give Donald Trump a second turn in the Oval Office, to most of the world, America’s brand is Trump. From the inside, we see a divided country in a fight for the future (and maybe the survival) of democracy. From the outside, we’re the country that elected Trump again — the Oval Office outbursts and embarrassments, the humiliating interactions with foreign leaders, the abandonment of allies, the siding with dictators, the tariffs, the threats to take over other countries, the constant lies, the authoritarian behaviors, the sending of untried people seeking asylum to foreign gulags…you may hate it all, but it’s our brand now. This is us. And it’s not going to be easy to undo. On the national level, our allies are already looking to make deals that don’t include us. But there’s also the personal level, from Canadian hockey fans booing our national anthem, to a dramatic drop in international travel to the US, to European shoppers deciding they’d rather buy products from non-American brands. The long red tie, the fake hair, the orange makeup — we’re all wearing it, and it’s not a good look.”

Meanwhile, on January 20, 2025 — ironically, Martin Luthor King Jr. Day and the first day of Trump’s second term — he released from prison hundreds of mostly white, male domestic terrorists, effectively a personal militia, whom he had incited to storm the Capitol and assault police officers on January 6, 2021. Now, 100 days into his term, he is defying the United States Supreme Court, and getting away with it. No one is getting fined, and no one is going to jail.

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Meanwhile, tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, aware of a looming polycrisis — resource depletion, food production decline, and population collapse by 2030 — prepare bunkers and space stations as an “exit strategy.” Musk’s X platform amplifies MAGA disinformation, while his Department of Government Efficiency accesses sensitive data, enabling coercion. Thiel’s Palantir profiles migrants, and his neocameralist vision, inspired by Curtis Yarvin, seeks corporate governance over democracy. Their AI optimism, claiming solutions to climate and health crises, masks a speculative bubble. Supporting far-right causes, like Musk’s endorsement of Germany’s AfD and Thiel’s claim that “freedom and democracy are incompatible,” they align with autocrats like Vladimir Putin, who benefits from Trump’s weakening of NATO.

Mass surveillance via Section 702 of FISA and Big Tech’s data collection creates a panopticon stifling dissent, with DOGE’s access to biometric and financial data enabling blackmail akin to China’s Xinjiang model. Social media, particularly X, drowns out truth with bots and algorithms, amplifying disinformation. America’s mental health crisis — rising suicides, anxiety, and isolation — reflects a society failing Maslow’s basic needs, with empty homes — owned by banks and hedge funds — outnumbering the homeless, and an increasing number of people relying on GoFundMe campaigns to secure healthcare. This atomization, worsened by eroded trust, makes the public vulnerable to manipulation.

Climate tipping points are already being crossed, and cascade effects are imminent. Trump’s fossil fuel push, gutting EPA protections and dismissing climate scientists, will accelerate this crisis. Tariffs and deregulation, sold as populist, will spike inflation and tank GDP, hurting the MAGA base most. Fossil fuel depletion threatens industrial and agricultural collapse, while elites exploit shocks to consolidate wealth, as seen during the Covid pandemic. Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation blueprint, advocates a unitary executive in charge of an increasingly theocratic government.

Meanwhile, as reported in The Guardian, “a national network of American neofascist fight clubs is endorsing youth-oriented offshoots aimed at grooming the next generation of racist activists. So-called ‘active clubs’ have proliferated across the US and are a combination of fitness and mixed martial arts groups that often espouse neo-Nazi and fascist ideologies, openly taking their historical cues from the Third Reich’s obsession with machismo and European soccer hooliganism. [They are] perhaps the most dangerous form of far-right political organizing today, with links to other militant organizations, including Patriot Front, layered with ideologies promoting a US race war and using the popularity of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) as a gateway to recruiting.”

Meanwhile, over 75% of President Trump’s $1.69T budget is for the military (60%) and police (16%). As Yuval Noah Harari writes, “Concerns about the stability of the liberal world order mounted after Trump was first elected US president in 2016…we now have a clear picture of the post-liberal world disorder. The liberal vision of the world as a co-operative network is replaced by the vision of the world as a mosaic of fortresses. This is being realized all around us — walls are going up and drawbridges are raised. If this continues to be implemented, the short-term results will be trade wars, arms races and imperial expansion. The ultimate results will be global war, ecological collapse and out-of-control AI…We can be saddened and outraged by these developments and do our best to reverse them, but there is no longer any excuse for being surprised.” https://outofunitedstates.com/p/unholy-alliances

Substack's Phil Rothsko: "The capitalist elite in their hyper-focus on material acquisition promote the soul-defying notion that what a person owns defines one's character... Yet there never seems to be enough material comfort to provide them with a sense of inner peace. To sustain the system by which they are beneficiaries lies of the collective mind must be perpetrated, culture-wide. Towering lies. Built higher and higher with the intent of rendering the realities of the ground, hence themselves, inaccessible. Trump began his odious career by using his millionaire daddy's money to erect skyway-occluding towers to his vanity in Manhattan. His business ventures proved failures but the rigged capitalist system allowed him to fail upward thus he grew bolder and more assured in his mendacity. His life is a rickety carousel of traveling carnival-grade lies. His utterances are a piping calliope of semi-literate palaver. "In short, in the grifters' dystopia of end-stage capitalism, he is their corporate mascot... For a nation raised up on media junk food of the mind, he is a (self-created) Donald McDonald, the cringe-laughter evoking crown prince of bloated imperium. "Now what? -- After his bombing sortie ...It is evident, a US military clown car land invasion of Iran would prove a laugh-devoid disaster. At home, the circus tent would collapse. The carnival run out of town. Empires begin by erecting towers of self-serving lies and end in a circus of catastrophe...”