Silicon Billionaires Prepping for the Apocalypse?

Billionaires anticipating the collapse of democracy and the nation state?  Mark O'Connell writes in a Guardian article (Why Silicon Billionaires are Prepping for the Apocalypse in New Zealand).

O'Connell quotes from a book called The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age.  The title looks harmless enough, but inside it contains the recipe for what feels to me, a kind of nihilism. It preaches:

"1) The democratic nation-state basically operates like a criminal cartel, forcing honest citizens to surrender large portions of their wealth to pay for stuff like roads and hospitals and schools.

2) The rise of the internet, and the advent of cryptocurrencies, will make it impossible for governments to intervene in private transactions and to tax incomes, thereby liberating individuals from the political protection racket of democracy.

3) The state will consequently become obsolete as a political entity. 

4) Out of this wreckage will emerge a new global dispensation, in which a “cognitive elite” will rise to power and influence, as a class of sovereign individuals “commanding vastly greater resources” who will no longer be subject to the power of nation-states and will redesign governments to suit their ends."

I don't know just how much influence these billionaires have, but this book reveals contempt for life as well as a hatred for democracy.   They are claiming that their money and power will help nation states collapse.  

Civil society is threatened by far right hate groups funded by dark money.

Are spills from oil pipelines accidents or intended outcomes from trans national corporations, to further the goal of weakening democracy and centralizing power? Was the postwar push to pave towns and villages with highways created to further our addiction to fossil fuels?

What will save us from this absolute destruction of all things fair and civil? What will keep fascism from destroying Canada in the way Germany was destroyed by Nazi's in the thirties. What will keep Canadians from becoming slaves to megalomaniacs? 

Well there are books like Orwell's 1984, Huxley's Brave New World, Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and Klein's No Is Not Enough, imagining the many dangers of a world without morality, empathy and social responsibility. 

Are all the world's nations being destroyed to clear the way for global fascism? 

We need to be curious enough to ask the most disturbing questions when threatened by highly organized evil minds, and to re-invest in the creative community power we are capable of. 

What You Need to Know about The Anthro-Hyena

The anthro-hyena is a creation of my imagination to explain how political power can be organized to make us, (the general population who breath, bleed, fear), believe what we can or cannot do.

Let us suppose that the anthro-hyena does exist, like satan, or ghosts or highly secret societies.

Let's say the anthro-hyena have been among us since the beginning of organized human societies and they rose to the top initially because of their intellectual abilities. They learned about astronomy, farming, the creation of weapons, the calendar and tracking of the seasons, the running of the state and good orderly direction.

Let's suppose the anthro-hyena is created by design and not born, that he feels no attachment to any tribe or family; his blood is not related to any species because he has no blood. He is the algorithm of greed and self interest developed over centuries of human societies.  The anthro-hyena has triumphed over all addictions except the single-minded determination to be in control. He feels neither love nor hate towards people. His mind is a clean to-do list, quick to strike off whatever has been achieved to get on with the next task.

Let's suppose the anthro-hyena is neither good or evil. Just efficient and willing to win at any cost.

Monarchs, corporations, religions and governments have depended on anthro-hyenas to organize and carry out their campaigns for territory, wealth, and supremacy. But let me be clear. The anthro-hyena is NOT the emperor, king, queen or president of anything or anyone. He is the servant of the corporate board room.

Because of his strategic abilities we cannot live without him. Collectively they are the ether of civilization. They have the focus to create submission and obedience among the masses and then dissemble them. Their art is manipulation and anonymity. They are the shadows without flesh.

Their goal is to cleanse the planet of humanity to reach the pristine view that transcends life - the final solution, a mathematical construct free of any sentimental interference, an everlasting universal peace.

However, you won't find him on the battle field.  You will not hear his voice broadcast from any radio or television. He is the free radical brainwaves that enter the ambitions of men and women. He arouses the desperate, starving, fearful masses to spill blood or build nuclear warheads. He is the quiet dread in our night time dreams.

The ideology of individualism is the work of the anthro-hyena because it interrupts the open communication between men and women. Makes us suspicious of our kin who we dismiss as bogie men in the bushes and beneath our beds.

While we become "experts" on what is wrong with the world, the anthro-hyena becomes embedded in our language.  The strength of words like enemy, discipline, loyalty, masculinity, femininity, white, black, reason, lies, nonsense, infidel, savage, barbaric - attach themselves together to build a wall of silent screams to keep us in and the others out.

Can we save ourselves from the anthro-hyena? Whatever political ideology we create to make a better world will be invaded by memories of the past. History will keep repeating itself because the anthro-hyena will remind us of all that can go wrong, of all who are to blame, and how the shadows grow longer.

When we are in our cups, or vulnerable, in pain, near death, giving birth, or challenging the system - the anthro-hyena will be smiling like Iago as he makes his fool his purse.

The forces that control our world are the call and response between the sponsored message and our fears.

Fantasy Industrial Complex and the Anthro-Hyena

"Here’s a hypothesis, ugly, uncharitable, but given our recent history it begs inquiry: most of the time most Americans don’t know what’s real any more. How else to explain Trump, a billionaire on an ego trip capturing a major party’s nomination for president?" Ben Fountain, The Guardian.

America is not alone in this.  Fantasies or lies have built great civilizations.  Take for example the Doctrine of Discovery where Europeans came to America, killed off the people living here by various means, stuck their flags in the earth and claimed it available for their use. And what about the belief that man was chosen by God to rule over the earth? Centuries keep spinning stories of superiority to disguise the brutality of our greed. All of the problems are caused by the notion that the very best of us rise to the top to rule over the rest, be they kings, emperors, presidents or CEO's.

Which brings me to Trump "the ultimate creature, and indisputable maestro, of the Fantasy Industrial Complex" writes Ben Fountain in The Guardian. Trump was mostly known for "The Apprentice", a reality show based on the fantasy of success, wealth and power.  These being the trinity of ultimate purpose in life, which has been, well interrogated by Eleanor Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and George Carlin.

But most of the oppressed shy away from any news or information about the cause of their oppression. According to one Trump supporter interviewed, there is absolutely no need to read articles or be curious. Now the "proof" of a leader's ability to rule the world is the Nielsen ratings.  The more viewers you attract the better person you are.

Some might point out the lack of intelligence, integrity, good policy, or respect for others, but now none of this matters because the Anthro-Hyena, has succeeded in silencing the human voice of vulnerability for the doctrine that power is the only thing that counts.  And those of us who have come to believe there is no such thing as personal power will unwittingly vote for guns, big mouths and cars, in order to survive.

The sad thing is we won't survive a Trump presidency, and if we do we may wish we hadn't. Then we will know in a very painful way that no matter what poetry, science and our mother's love has taught us, no matter what complex ways we have of fixing problems, no matter how often good people advise us not to support sociopaths - it will be too late to defend our world against the next level of slaughter. The slaughter of any knowledge or memory of truth, compassion or peace, so that we forget who we are. Forever.

The Last Conspiracy Theory

While many hotly debated arguments raise the blood pressure of oppressed citizens, much attention is directed toward the need to get the facts straight. Who is causing what, who is to blame, and how to exterminate them.

All of the previously named culprits – capitalists, communists, patriarchs, narcissists, psychopaths or fascists, are not the cause. They are the carriers of something much more destructive and dangerous.

The Anthro-Hyena!

No you haven’t read about this before. You have never seen it, or heard it, and you won’t. The Anthro-Hyena blends into any group it seeks to dominate and control. It appears like any charismatic professional or business person. It professes an interest in the greater good, single-mindedly through stealth and charm.  The outcome however, to the shock of cohorts and witnesses, is destruction and chaos which occurs long after the Anthro-Hyena has left.

The MO of the Anthro-Hyena, revealed through centuries of revolution, war,  regime and ideology change, is to manipulate humanity by playing on our fears and basic desires. It works like a virus, entering the reptilian brain which then becomes inflamed and puts pressure on the limbic system. Human functions such as reason and language suffocate, unable to work.

Civilizations where people have lived and prospered for centuries endure intermittent episodes of madness and dysfunction where the focus moves away from stewardship to destruction.  This is known as war.

All resources are switched from food, health, community and beauty, to the basic binary of win or lose, kill or be killed, live or die. Civilization itself dissolves into competition, an obsession so ridiculous, mothers enter their babies into beauty contests. Education is rendered down to a series of tests. Infrastructure is neglected for the arms industry. Ruling nations are not progressive, effective or kind,  but simply the ones with the biggest weapons.

While the Anthro-Hyena itself is not limited to the reptilian brain it convinces humanity to discard all other sensibilities learned over centuries, for the bottom line, the lowest common denominator. In spite of the activism and intellect of a few, the Anthro-Hyena has won.

The over-arching narrative has fallen for the sensational siren and shut down public discourse for the masses. Politicians have given up on leadership to appeal to the lowest common denominator, for good reason – the system will sabotage the campaign that is life-affirming, justice-oriented and reasonable. 

Media is hostage to the noise, broadcasting propaganda without analysis. Movies, television shows, rarely play out the cause and evolution of the plot, simply going straight to the effects – explosions, crashing vehicles and pools of blood. Pornography  has trashed love and amputated the limbs of the human body from its final orgasm.

The Anthro-Hyena has corrupted art, beauty, wisdom, love, complexity, democracy and the future.  We are presented with corporate sponsored contempt for life in all its shades and colours. We are the everlasting dementia, looking for the next human sacrifice to be slaughtered for our brief exultation of having won. Replaying our delusional triumph like the circus it is.

Meanwhile the world of human capacities, civil society, literature, compassion and creativity is shrinking. Living communities are replaced with ruins and the continual rain of  bombs for which there is no solution.

No matter how smart, determined, courageous and powerful we may be, no matter how many hearts and minds are destroyed, life is made redundant. No theology, technology or philosophy can stop the fire, the floods and bullets.  The intention is that there be no witness, no argument and no narrative. To put an end to birth. Without birth there is no life, there is no light. Without light all that remains is the singular winner.  The one who destroys any chance of its own death by being the last to survive, by having the last word.

Who benefits from this nihilism? Nothing that breathes or thinks or hopes. There is no benefit other than the ego detached from everything except winning. This is the Anthro-Hyena. The thing that eats into our tender brains as we struggle so hard to conquer the universe, never seeing we have no time to live in it.