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Time of India
a day ago
- Business
- Time of India
Curtis Yarvin: 10 things to know about 'mad philosopher' behind Trump 2.0
Once upon a meme, in a faraway land called the Internet, a man named Curtis Yarvin wrote 120,000 words calling for the end of democracy. Most people would've laughed. But billionaires don't laugh—they fund. And now, the man who once described San Francisco's underclass as potential biodiesel is being taken seriously by people who carry nuclear briefcases. Yarvin—formerly Mencius Moldbug, currently the "Dark Elf" of the dissident right—isn't just an edgelord with a blog. He's the house philosopher of Silicon Autocracy. From whispering sweet nothings to Peter Thiel to influencing J.D. Vance's wet dreams of a bureaucracy-free America, Yarvin has become the Rasputin of the red-pilled. If you're still catching up, here are 10 things you need to know before the crown lands on his head. 1. The Blogger Who Would Be King Yarvin's empire began with a blog—and a manifesto longer than War and Peace. Back in 2008, when Obama still symbolised hope and change, Yarvin was quietly uploading screeds under the alias Mencius Moldbug. His pièce de résistance? An Open Letter to Open-Minded Progressives—a 120,000-word hand grenade tossed into the cathedral of liberal consensus. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Esse novo alarme com câmera é quase gratuito em São Paulo (consulte o preço) Alarmes Undo Yarvin argued that democracy was a bug, not a feature; the American Revolution a tragic mistake; and that we'd be better off under a corporate monarchy. His ideal ruler? Not Plato's philosopher-king, but a startup bro with nukes and a board of directors. 2. The Cathedral Must Burn Yarvin's biggest idea is that liberalism is a religion—and Harvard is its Vatican. According to him, America isn't ruled by elected officials. It's ruled by 'The Cathedral'—an unholy alliance of media, academia, and bureaucracy. Not through conspiracy, but through soft consensus. NPR, Yale, the Times, and your HR department are all saying the same thing, because they all worship the same gods: Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion. And like any heretic, Yarvin wants the Cathedral razed, its priests defrocked, and its temples converted into data centres. 3. From Nerd to Neo-Reactionary He was once a liberal coder with a ponytail. Then he took the red pill—and never came back. Yarvin didn't always fantasise about abolishing elections. He started as a leftie tech bro who dropped acid, read Foucault, and dated sex-positive feminists from Craigslist. His pivot to fascist adjacent came post-9/11, post-Iraq, and post-pat-on-the-head career path. Disillusioned with liberal consensus and wired on Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Yarvin stumbled into the Dark Enlightenment—an internet rabbit hole where monarchy, race science, and Austrian economics coexisted peacefully, like tax havens and startup founders. 4. Urbit: Coding the Kingdom He didn't just want to build a regime—he wanted to program one. Literally. Urbit was Yarvin's dream of a digital feudalism: a decentralised computer network where every user owns a 'planet,' governed by a new coding language he invented himself. Investors like Andreessen Horowitz gave him millions. It didn't work. Urbit is now mostly a libertarian Discord with stars and galaxies. But the point wasn't usability—it was theology. Like Yarvin's politics, Urbit is elegant in theory, cultish in practice, and unusable by anyone with a day job. 5. Philosopher to Billionaires Peter Thiel liked what he saw. So did Vance. Now Yarvin's whisper is public policy. Thiel gave Yarvin his nod of approval, Marc Andreessen calls him a friend, and J.D. Vance openly cites him as inspiration. For the first time in modern politics, someone who believes elections should be abolished is influencing people who can abolish them. When DOGE—Trump's Department of Government Efficiency—purged civil servants en masse, it echoed Yarvin's RAGE plan: Retire All Government Employees. When Trump called Gaza 'the Riviera of the Middle East,' it sounded suspiciously like a Yarvin Substack post. 6. The Red-Pilled Rasputin He wants to seduce the elite—one 'high elf' at a time. In Yarvin's Tolkien-infused self-image, he's not a tyrant—he's a Dark Elf, sent to whisper forbidden truths into the ears of beautiful elites. Liberals are 'high elves,' conservatives are 'hobbits,' and he is the enigmatic sage showing them how to burn down Mordor and replace it with a charter city. He doesn't want MAGA rallies. He wants salons with QR-coded footnotes and neoreactionary art hoes sipping biodynamic wine. 7. He Cries at Lunch, But Fantasises About Genocide His affect is fragile intellectual. His policies would give Genghis Khan pause. Yarvin cries. A lot. He cries about Baltimore's homeless, about his kids' future, and sometimes while quoting obscure 18th-century monarchists. But behind the tears lies a worldview in which the state should have the power to exile, isolate, or digitally sedate entire populations. He once suggested putting San Francisco's underclass in solitary VR to avoid 'the moral stigma of genocide.' His ideas are brutalist architecture for the soul: cold, sharp-edged, and antiseptically inhumane. 8. The Style Is the Substance Yarvin isn't read for truth. He's read for transgression. You don't read Yarvin to be convinced. You read him to feel naughty. His prose is baroque, sarcastic, and full of italicised rants that feel like a very smart person talking down to you at a BDSM dinner party. He doesn't argue—he overwhelms. Like a one-man DDOS attack on liberal sensibility. He weaponises footnotes, memes, and 19th-century philosophers to convince a disaffected Zoomer that maybe, just maybe, freedom was a mistake. 9. Courtier to a Counter-Establishment He failed at building a product. So he built a vibe. Urbit flopped. His blog fizzled. But Yarvin thrives in the cultic vibe economy of the dissident right: Dimes Square, Substack, Thiel-funded salons, and MAGA masquerades. He reads poetry at fascist-adjacent film festivals. He writes love letters to crypto-lords. He poses for moody portraits while decrying democracy as 'a lie told by clerics to peasants.' And like any good aristocrat, he never lets anyone forget that he's read more books than you. 10. The Joke's Over. He's in the Room Now. For a while, Yarvin was performance art. Then the performance became policy. In 2008, he was the punchline. In 2025, his ideas echo from the Oval Office to ICE holding cells to Harvard funding withdrawals. Trump's blitzkrieg of civil society, Elon's reign over federal agencies, and Vance's plans to bulldoze the courts all bear his fingerprints. The dissident right no longer needs to form a vanguard. It is the establishment. The Dark Elf got invited into the tower—and now he's rearranging the furniture. Postscript: The Philosopher-King of Nothing Yarvin is a man of ideas with no workable blueprint. His brilliance lies in diagnosing the rot, not fixing the structure. He romanticises kings, cosplays monarchism, and mourns Enlightenment liberalism like an ex-girlfriend he'd still insult in group chats. But give him credit: he saw the appetite for authoritarianism long before the rest of us. And while liberals were busy fact-checking, Yarvin was vibes-crafting. In the age of aesthetics, the crown goes not to the competent—but to the most convincingly unhinged.
Edmonton Journal
2 days ago
- Sport
- Edmonton Journal
Card games and Tolstoy: How the Oilers pass the time in the air
Article content When he's not playing cards or honing his racing skills on Mario Kart, defenceman Darnell Nurse also enjoys reading on the plane. Right now, he's in the midst of Leo Tolstoy's epic, War and Peace. 'I've been working at War and Peace by Tolstoy for, like, a month and a half, two months,' said Nurse. 'So, maybe I can find a way to finish that one.' Poker face And, when it comes to cards, we had to ask: Who has the best poker face on the team? 'Maybe Mattias Janmark, just because he looks the same at all times,' said Kane. And the worst? He won't be playing in the series, but Kane decided to add a little insult to Zach Hyman's injury. 'Maybe Hyms,' said Kane. 'He's not going to be happy I said that. I get a bit of a read on him, sometimes.' While flying between the Miami area and Edmonton is pretty arduous, there are former FC Edmonton players who might be out there reading this article and snickering. When the now-defunct team played in the North American Soccer League, the Eddies would have to make a couple of visits a season to the Caribbean to face the Puerto Rico Islanders. And, unlike the Oilers, FC Edmonton's players and coaches had to fly commercial. The team would often not all fly together. Some players would connect in different airports. But, the best and quickest route would see the team fly to Minneapolis, then to Atlanta, and, finally, to San Juan. There were times that it would take the better part of two days to finish the route, and then the team would have to play in hot, humid, punishing conditions, then get back on a series of flights to return home.
Hans India
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Hans India
The cost of modern warfare goes beyond bullets
War seems to have been an inevitable companion throughout the journey of the human race since evolution. War is normally viewed as a conflict between political groups or countries and is treated as an institution recognised as a law-unto-itself. War has been an important topic for analysts across centuries. Over a period of time it has evolved in many forms – from arrows and spears to bullets, to missiles, to chemical, biological, technological and economic. Whatever is the form, it directly or indirectly results in loss of lives, physical destruction, fall in economic activity and long-term social and economic ramifications. Multiple perspectives on war: Theories of war indicate varying focuses of interests like philosophical, political, economic, sociological and psychological. However, war is an extremely complex phenomenon that can be triggered from any sort of emotional outburst or such factors and not necessarily from any single approach. In the middle of the 17th century, wars were fought to spread religious interests across sovereigns. The French Revolution brought about fundamental changes by broadening the objectives that saw an increase in sizes from small forces to large armed armies. It is apt to recall Leo Tolstoy's 1859 magnum opus 'War and Peace'. It depicts a broad panoramic view of the Russian society during the Napoleonic wars. He is said to have meticulously researched these wars by visiting the battlefields to portray a lucid depiction of human experience and suffering by the society and the people irrespective of their wealth, rank and profile. He is quite articulate while describing the military strategies and the impact of warfare on soldiers, peasants, and the common people as also the elite class. World War I resulted in a massive devastation of people and economies that lasted pretty long to eventually pave the way for a school of thought that equated war as a horrific social disaster that adversely impacted humanity as a whole. By World War II (1939-45) and the subsequent evolution of mass destructive weapons, war became a social phenomenon where the protagonists and all those involved in the conflict had to come clear on what led to the conflict, which were in varying types. There are many schools of thought that tried to analyze the causes for going to war and zeroed in on two broad drivers- innate aggressive behaviour that is caused due to rivalry or intrusion or frustration caused by an activity, and psychological, which makes it difficult to explain the actual cause as people behave differently vis-à-vis social contexts. Price of war: The Kiel Institute for the world Economy- a research institute in Germany for globalization issues investigated the cost of more than 150 wars since 1870. They used historical data to calculate the expected economic damage caused by the Ukraine war, which is estimated to touch a cumulative GDP loss of around $120 billion by 2026. The capital stock of Ukraine would fall by more than $950 billion. For countries that are not directly involved in the war the costs are $250 billion of which $20 billion are attributable to Germany alone and $70 billion to the European Union. Weaponisation in modern era: As Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said this is not the era of war. Modern day wars are fought not just with weapons but with the wallets of economies. For instance, the Russia-Ukraine conflict has created a significant energy crisis, disrupted supply chains leading to inflation and exacerbated economic slowdown. It also increased uncertainty in the global trade and financial markets leading to financial instability. As for Gaza, according to a World Bank report, 35 per cent decline in the real GDP was reported in the first quarter of 2024 for Palestinian territories marking the largest economic contraction and its gap was projected to reach $1.86 billion in 2024 posing risks of systemic failure. The US is waging trade wars with tariff strikes across countries. Although no one has a clue as to what President Donald Trump has gained by striking the tariffs first and pausing them, almost all countries are enormously relieved by this rethink. A good aspect about these trade wars is that not a single life was lost and there were no destructions, whatsoever. It gave a chance to correct the mistakes by reversing decisions. Prices were brought back to stability as both the US and China mellowed from their earlier postures. However, this reversal provides only a temporary relief to markets and consumers. It is not tariffs per se, the actual problem is uncertainty. Businesses need a stable environment to be assured of a steady inflow of investments. However, they caused huge turmoil in the international world economies with supersonic speed. With surging oil prices and soaring food costs, many countries are struggling to contain inflation and protect their broken supply chains. The fact is that these have far-reaching consequences compared to fiercest of wars. Modern warfare is predominantly using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to detect the target and destroy. It looks like we are in the saga of unending conflicts where, 'War is a place where young people who don't know each other and don't hate each other but kill each other, based on decision made by people who know each other and hate each other but don't kill each other' – Paul Valery In these wars nobody actually wins, the losers are the common people and soldiers on both sides. The AI-driven wars and conflicts benefit none other than the defence industry at the cost of finances and loss of human lives. According to sources, the costs in the India-Pakistan conflict translated approximately to Rs. 15, 000 crore for India, while it cost Pakistan around $249.6 million. The modern times have witnessed a shift from conventional physical combat in the battlefield to airspace, cyberspace, financial markets and psychological operations. Today's battlefield is more complex and invisible and can target enemy bases with a surgical precision by the click of a mouse. Nevertheless, it leaves deep scars and cause ecological damage while generations to come will carry psychological trauma of violence, loss and financial instability. Today, the challenge is not just about deliberating how to end wars but understanding their new faces and anticipating its deep destructive effects. Policymakers must not only redefine what victory means in this interconnected world and also remain vigilant and strategically invested in peace. (The writer is Associate Professor in Finance at Christ University)
Scottish Sun
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
James Norton ‘splits from model girlfriend' Charlotte Rose Smith and jumps back into dating game as he signs for app
The star recently addressed claims that he's the next James Bond APPY VALLEY James Norton 'splits from model girlfriend' Charlotte Rose Smith and jumps back into dating game as he signs for app Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) JAMES Norton has 'split from his model girlfriend' Charlotte Rose Smith, and has jumped straight back into the dating game by signing up to a celeb app. The renowned actor, 39, was reported to have grown close to Prada model Charlotte, 25, in November of last year. Sign up for the Entertainment newsletter Sign up 5 James Norton has 'split from his model girlfriend' Charlotte Rose Smith, and has jumped straight back into the dating game by signing up to a celeb app Credit: Getty 5 The renowned actor, 39, was reported to have grown close to Prada model Charlotte, 25, in November of last year Credit: Not known, clear with picture desk 5 Charlotte was James's first public romance since he and Outer Range actress Imogen, 35, ended their six-year romance Credit: Instagram The couple were all smiles as they went public with a day out in North London. And a source said at the time: 'They have been enjoying dates and seem very happy together. 'It has been a year since his relationship with Imogen ended and he appears to get on so well with Charlotte. They make a lovely couple.' But six months later, and it has now been reported that they've called time on their romance. MailOnline reports that James has now been spotted on a high profile dating app named Raya. His profile on the app is reported to feature snaps of the star with a shaved head, which is a new look for his upcoming role in movie Sunny Dancer. The Sun has contacted James' representatives for comment. Charlotte was James's first public romance since he and Outer Range actress Imogen, 35, ended their six-year romance. The pair met in 2017 while appearing in an adaptation of War and Peace and got engaged in February 2022. Happy Valley villain James Norton seen growing close to Prada model Charlotte Rose Smith James and Imogen parted late last year but the split was only made public in February. Opening up about their break up, James said recently: 'Some of the choices recently weren't mine, yet I don't feel begrudging. 'I just mean that you have a certain amount of control over your life and choices you make, and at other times you don't.' Away from his love life, rumours have been swirling around that James will play the next James Bond. But James seems to have put them to bed, and addressing the rumours while at the BAFTAs, he spoke to TV presenter Alex Zane, and said: 'Whoever is deciding on these odds needs to get a new job. It's so weird and bemusing.' Actor James made the comment when told he was the bookies' favourite to take on the role of 007 next. James, 39, continued: 'Yet again it's based on pure speculation. It makes for a good clickbait moment in the media but other than that, it's fun and bemusing I guess." 5 James and ex-fiancee Imogen Credit: Getty - Contributor
The Irish Sun
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Irish Sun
James Norton ‘splits from model girlfriend' Charlotte Rose Smith and jumps back into dating game as he signs for app
JAMES Norton has 'split from his model girlfriend' Charlotte Rose Smith, and has jumped straight back into the dating game by signing up to a celeb app. The renowned actor, 39, was reported to have grown close to Prada model Charlotte, 25, in November of last year. 5 James Norton has 'split from his model girlfriend' Charlotte Rose Smith, and has jumped straight back into the dating game by signing up to a celeb app Credit: Getty 5 The renowned actor, 39, was reported to have grown close to Prada model Charlotte, 25, in November of last year Credit: Not known, clear with picture desk 5 Charlotte was James's first public romance since he and Outer Range actress Imogen, 35, ended their six-year romance Credit: Instagram And a source said at the time: 'They have been enjoying dates and seem very happy together. 'It has been a year since his relationship with Imogen ended and he appears to get on so well with Charlotte. They make a lovely couple.' But six months later, and it has now been reported that they've called time on their romance. Read More on James Norton MailOnline reports that James has now been spotted on a high profile dating app named Raya. His profile on the app is reported to feature snaps of the star with a shaved head, which is a new look for his upcoming role in movie Sunny Dancer. The Sun has contacted James' representatives for comment. Charlotte was James's first public romance since he and Outer Range actress Imogen, 35, ended their six-year romance. Most read in Celebrity The pair met in 2017 while appearing in an adaptation of War and Peace and got engaged in February 2022. Happy Valley villain James Norton seen growing close to Prada model Charlotte Rose Smith James and Opening up about their break up, James said recently: 'Some of the choices recently weren't mine, yet I don't feel begrudging. 'I just mean that you have a certain amount of control over your life and choices you make, and at other times you don't.' Away from his love life, next James Bond. But James seems to have put them to bed, and addressing the rumours while at the BAFTAs , he spoke to TV presenter Alex Zane, and said: 'Whoever is deciding on these odds needs to get a new job. It's so weird and bemusing.' Actor James made the comment when told he was the bookies' favourite to take on the role of 007 next. James, 39, continued: 'Yet again it's based on pure speculation. It makes for a good clickbait moment in the media but other than that, it's fun and bemusing I guess." 5 James and ex-fiancee Imogen Credit: Getty - Contributor 5 James is reportedly on celeb dating app Raya Credit: Getty
