Curtis Yarvin doesn’t want to fix democracy — he wants to kill it, drag the corpse out back, and set it on fire. In its place, he envisions a cold, ruthless world where billionaires sit on thrones, governments operate like customer service hotlines, and power belongs exclusively to those with the deepest pockets. It’s not a conspiracy theory — it’s a blueprint, and many of Silicon Valley’s richest men seem more than willing to help turn this vision into a reality.

Welcome to the warped mind of Curtis Yarvin.

Yarvin, a self-styled philosopher and software engineer turned political theorist, is the intellectual architect of the Dark Enlightenment. A philosophy that doesn't just critique democracy — it wants to obliterate it. In its place? A world of authoritarian city-states where the rich and powerful control everything and the rest of us are left to fend for ourselves. Call it corporate feudalism, if you will.
And somehow, Yarvin has managed to worm his way into the hearts and minds of Silicon Valley's biggest names — Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Donald Trump. You know, the guys who don’t believe in coincidence. It's a match made in a dystopian hellscape, and it’s becoming more influential by the day.

FROM "MENCUS MOLDBUG" TO CREATING A NEW WORLD ORDER
Before he was spouting authoritarian fantasies to anyone who'd listen, Curtis Yarvin went by the pen name Mencius Moldbug. Yeah, we’re already deep in the weeds, but let’s walk you through this.
Moldbug started with a critique of the progressive Left, the "Cathedral" as he calls it — a nebulous and insidious force he believes controls all intellectual and political discourse. It’s not just the universities, the media, or the government. No, Yarvin’s grand conspiracy theory takes the whole damn system and wraps it in a neat bow of elitism, accusing it of brainwashing the masses into accepting democracy.

And this is where it gets really ugly. Yarvin doesn't just criticize liberal democracy — he outright rejects it. He suggests that modern democracy is a farce, a hideous mess of bureaucracy, inequality, and inefficiency. In its place, he envisions a system where government is privatized, where citizens aren’t “represented” by elected officials but rather by faceless, corporate-run bureaucracies — "gov-corps," as Yarvin likes to call them.

And just to make sure you know where this leads, let's quote his vision directly: “If gov-corp doesn’t deliver acceptable value for its taxes (sovereign rent), [citizens] can notify its customer service function, and if necessary take their custom elsewhere.”

Sounds like something out of a tech giant’s quarterly earnings report, doesn’t it? But Yarvin isn’t just talking about service metrics for internet providers — he’s talking about the governing of entire nations. Imagine living in a world where your “government” is as disposable as a subscription to Netflix. If you don’t like the way things are running, you can just cancel it and hop over to the next one.

This utopian nightmare, painted with words as cold and transactional as an Amazon return policy, is what Yarvin sees as the future. But here’s the thing — it's not about freedom. It's about control. It's about the power to dictate society from the top down.

THE DANGEROUS ALLIANCE: YARVIN, THIEL, AND THE AGE OF TECHOLIGARCHY
Now, let’s talk about how Yarvin's ideas have spread, like a toxic virus, through Silicon Valley. Peter Thiel, the billionaire libertarian, is one of Yarvin’s loudest supporters. Thiel, who has openly lamented that "freedom and democracy are incompatible," has praised Yarvin’s work as his "most important connection." Let that sink in for a moment. The man behind PayPal, Facebook’s earliest backers, and the creator of Palantir — a company that collects and stores data on people’s every move — is deeply in love with the idea of running society like a corporate enterprise.

When Thiel was asked about the role of democracy in society, he didn't just shrug it off; he proudly proclaimed his desire to “govern” rather than just “live in.” This is no mere critique of the system — this is a declaration that democracy is obsolete and that what we need instead are the cold, hard mechanisms of power wielded by those who know how to make money and control information. And Yarvin’s ideas are right up Thiel’s alley.

But wait, there's more! In this cozy little cabal, you’ve got none other than Donald Trump, the embodiment of populist authoritarianism, rubbing elbows with these tech overlords. Yes, Yarvin’s work has seeped into the Trumpian right as well. The Trump administration's political strategy, to some degree, mirrors Yarvin's vision of dismantling democratic structures in favor of centralized control and unaccountable power.

Yarvin has even appeared on Fox News, as a guest of honor at Trump’s inaugural gala, and remains an informal advisor to people at the highest echelons of American power. The connections are chilling — not just in the abstract, but in the sheer influence these figures have over shaping policy and thought in the modern age.

A MONARCHY OF THE RICH
Yarvin’s pitch to the masses is simple — and profoundly dangerous. What if, instead of the ever-increasing chaos of democracy, we just cut through all the noise and let the best people rule? No more voting. No more checks and balances. No more messy democratic processes.
Just rich, powerful, and “efficient” elites running the show.

Yarvin’s solution, as bizarre as it sounds, is called "neocameralism" — a system in which government is essentially privatized and runs like a corporation. And the head of that corporation? A monarch, of sorts, who holds all the power, all the control. Picture Jeff Bezos, but instead of running Amazon, he’s running a nation. It's not a fantasy; Yarvin wants to make it real.
The idea sounds like a throwback to monarchies or perhaps medieval city-states, but it’s packaged in the shiny veneer of modern-day libertarianism and Silicon Valley lingo. It's like trying to sell a fascist state in a tuxedo. Don’t be fooled by the corporate jargon and libertarian “free market” talk — this is nothing more than an attempt to replace one kind of totalitarianism with another.

THE GHOST OF FASCISM PAST
While Yarvin denies any direct connection to fascism, there’s a certain beauty to the paradox he presents: a libertarian advocating for authoritarian rule. It's the ideological equivalent of trying to sell you a "freedom pill" that will turn you into a puppet. It’s a thinly veiled attempt to turn back the clock on democracy — but with modern technology to accelerate the process.

This is where things get truly unsettling. Yarvin's work isn't just theoretical. He’s actively influencing today’s political landscape. It’s a quiet, insidious march toward a world where corporate oligarchs have more power than elected officials, where political debate is reduced to tech moguls deciding what’s best for the people — whether we like it or not.

And let's not forget the far-right groups who have picked up Yarvin’s ideas and used them to justify a more authoritarian, anti-democratic agenda. The Dark Enlightenment and its offshoots have become synonymous with the alt-right, and Yarvin's influence has seeped into the rhetoric of those pushing for a new wave of fascism masked as "reform."

WHY WE SHOULD ALL BE TERRIFIED
Curtis Yarvin is not some fringe thinker. His ideas are gaining traction in elite circles, and the Silicon Valley billionaires who back him have the resources to make them a reality. It's no longer just an abstract theory found in obscure corners of the internet. These are ideas being championed by people with the means to enact them — people with the power to shape the future of our society.
Yarvin and his followers are pushing for a future that looks less like democracy and more like a dystopian nightmare where the powerful few control everything. If we’re not careful, this ideology could creep into mainstream politics and corporate governance in ways that are not only undemocratic but downright dangerous.

So, the next time you hear someone mention Yarvin's ideas, don't let it slide. Understand what it means when billionaires like Thiel, Musk, and Trump are endorsing a vision of the world where democracy is a relic of the past, and corporate-run authoritarian states are the future. The stakes have never been higher. It's time to call out the Dark Enlightenment for what it is — an assault on freedom, equality, and the very idea of democracy itself.