The Dark Enlightenment’s Trojan Horse: Australia’s Fight for True Populism, By Brian Simpson and James Reed
A populist uprising is shaking the globe, farmers, workers, and patriots rallying against corrupt elites, from rural heartlands to X's digital trenches. But there's a wolf in sheep's clothing. The Dark Enlightenment, a Silicon Valley-spawned ideology, is hijacking this rebellion, twisting it into a technocratic dystopia that's globalism in disguise. As Technocracy News exposes, figures like Curtis Yarvin, Peter Thiel, and Balaji Srinivasan are peddling a "techno-populism" that trades liberty for algorithmic control. Australia, with its history of globalist compliance, is a prime target for this deception. Are there Dark Enlightenment thinkers here? And how can we forge a true populist revolt before our fight against globalism is co-opted by digital elites?
The Dark Enlightenment cloaks itself in populist armor, railing against democracy's chaos and the "Cathedral" of progressive elites. Yarvin (aka Mencius Moldbug) calls for a CEO-monarch to replace elections; Thiel lauds Singapore's autocracy; Srinivasan pitches "Network States" governed by blockchain and biometrics. Their rhetoric, anti-elite, pro-"freedom,' hooks the disaffected. But Technocracy News lays bare the scam: techno-populism isn't about liberty; it's about control. Sovereignty is deemed "inefficient," rights are negotiable, and the rule of law bends to algorithms. Projects like Próspera and Praxis, bankrolled by Thiel, aren't grassroots, they're venture-capital fiefdoms where tech lords dictate terms.
This mirrors the globalist schemes, like the WHO's Pandemic Agreement pushing digital IDs and centralised power. Both techno-populists and global technocrats (UN, WEF) envision a future where governance is "optimised," not debated, silencing the common man. It's the same trap, whether dressed in Davos suits or Silicon Valley hoodies: a digital plantation sold as rebellion.
Are there Dark Enlightenment thinkers in Australia driving this Trojan horse? Not really. Australia's egalitarian culture and pragmatic politics reject Neo-Reaction NRx's elitist, techno-feudal dreams. Unlike the U.S., where Yarvin and Thiel wield tech-billionaire influence, Australia has no NRx hub. George Christensen's Nation First Substack skewers globalist policies like net zero but stays rooted in populist nationalism, not Yarvin's monarchist fantasies. Matt Canavan's fight against net zero and Pauline Hanson's One Nation channel anti-globalist fire, but they're about sovereignty and regional values, not algorithmic rule.
Australia's media, dominated by Murdoch and public broadcasters, stifles fringe ideologies. Our "fair go" ethos clashes with NRx's hierarchy obsession. On X, NRx ideas appear, but they're U.S. imports, not local. The Nationals' split from the Liberals reflects a hunger for anti-globalist resistance, but it's populist, not technocratic. Australia's battle against globalism, WHO compliance, BlackRock's grip, is fought by farmers and workers, not tech-bro wannabes.
The Dark Enlightenment's deception is a wake-up call for Australia. Techno-populism is the WHO's Pandemic Agreement's twin: both promise freedom while delivering a "Slavery Stack." Technocracy News warns populists are being tricked into trading government overreach for tech-bro surveillance. In Australia, where compliance runs deep (think Covid lockdowns), this is a real threat. The Nationals' half-hearted split and the Liberals' collapse under Susan Ley prove the establishment can't resist this. Even Canavan's fire needs a broader spark.
The answer? A true populist revolt, not NRx's counterfeit. One Nation's defiance of vaccine mandates and corporate overreach mirrors RFK Jr.'s WHO rebellion. But Australia needs a UK Reform-style party: a nationalist, populist force uniting regional voters, workers, and urban rebels against the globalist-leftist machine. This movement must reject both the WHO's digital IDs and Thiel's Network States, championing sovereignty, liberty, and the rule of law over "efficient" algorithms.
The Dark Enlightenment isn't Australia's ally, it's a globalist wolf in populist clothing. No local thinkers carry its flag, and our populist spirit, seen in Canavan's grit and Hanson's resolve, rejects its techno-trap. The danger is real: letting techno-populism hijack our fight against globalism, turning rebels into pawns of a digital elite. Australia's compliance history makes us vulnerable, but our heartland can fight back. Keep the algorithms at bay! The globalists, whether in Geneva or Silicon Valley, like sharks, are circling.
"By all appearances, a populist revival is sweeping the globe, from rural heartlands to digital spaces and political rallies. It is a movement claiming to reclaim the nation from the grasp of corrupt elites, transnational bureaucracies, and decaying liberal democracies. But look closer, and the image distorts.
What presents itself as grassroots rebellion is often being driven by figures and ideologies that despise the very foundations of populist thought: individual liberty, local self-governance, the rule of law, and constitutional restraint.
The ideological force at work behind this sleight of hand is technopopulism—a mutation of traditional populism incubated in the philosophical engine of the Dark Enlightenment, where thinkers like Curtis Yarvin (aka Mencius Moldbug) reframe democracy not as a safeguard of freedom, but as a failed experiment that must be replaced by algorithmic governance and executive rule.
In this warped mirror, populists are no longer the champions of liberty—they are foot soldiers for a new, data-driven ruling class.
The Bait: Populist Language, Libertarian Aesthetics
Technopopulism emerged through Silicon Valley corridors and NRx blogs, but it found a global audience by weaponizing the language of populism: anti-elite rhetoric, calls to restore "order" and "competence", and celebrations of "free markets" and "free speech."
Figures like Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Balaji Srinivasan don the populist mantle while proposing visions in which freedom is redefined as submission to optimized systems, where code becomes law, and where traditional political authority is replaced with tech-stack sovereignty.
Yarvin explicitly denounces democracy, calling for a monarch acting like a corporate CEO. Thiel has praised the "beauty" of a post-democratic Singapore. Srinivasan envisions replacing nation-states with "Network States" governed by digital platforms and biometric entry keys.
The Switch: From Liberty to Order
Traditional populism—whether American, Hungarian, or Indian—rests on sovereignty of the people, preserved through limited government, inalienable rights, and rule of law. It resists centralized control.
But technopopulism flips the script. Sovereignty is inefficient. Rights are flexible. Rule of law is optional—if the algorithms work better.
Technopopulists promise a "new golden age," but only if we surrender the old architecture of liberty. They frame autocratic governance as a feature, not a bug—so long as it's "efficient" and "technologically sophisticated."
This is not a restoration of freedom. It is the soft coup of the digital elite, masquerading as rebellion.
Network States: The Technocratic Utopias of the Right
Nowhere is the deception clearer than in the rise of so-called "Network States."
Promoted by Balaji Srinivasan and bankrolled by Thiel-affiliated capital, these are digital startup societies that aim to gain political recognition and replace traditional governments. Projects like Próspera (Honduras) and Praxis aren't citizen-led movements—they are venture capital experiments where unelected founders design governance from the top down, in other words, a Technocracy.
These entities promise freedom from bureaucracy. In reality, they offer private sovereignty ruled by unaccountable, arch-technocrat billionaires, with little regard for the communities they displace.
The Parallel of Globalists and Anti-Globalists
While populists cheer the downfall of the "liberal order," they are unknowingly embracing a technocratic mirror image of the very system they oppose.
Both global technocrats (UN, WEF, EU) and anti-globalist technopopulists (Thiel network, Dark Enlightenment, etc.) believe:
§The future belongs to digital systems
§Constitutional democracy is obsolete
§Efficiency outweighs rights
§Governance should be optimized, not debated
In both visions, the common man loses. He may be told he has a voice, but in practice, his behavior is engineered through smart grids, carbon scores, or blockchain sovereignty. Whether it's called "sustainable development" or "startup citizenship," the effect is the same: technocratic control disguised as empowerment.
The Irony of the "Freedom Stack"
In software development, the phase "full stack" refers to the customer facing application plus the back-end database configuration and processing. The use of "Freedom Stack" is appropriate except in reality it is a "Slavery Stack."
Perhaps the most tragic irony is that many liberty-minded citizens have been duped into building their own chains. Populists fail to see that they are helping replace one end-to-end surveillance regime with another, trading government overreach for Technocrat omniscience.
Technopopulism presents compliance as liberty: "You're free… as long as you don't trigger the algorithm."
Conclusion: The Rebellion That Wasn't
The Dark Enlightenment hasn't just critiqued democracy. It has infiltrated and redirected populist energy into a project that retains populist aesthetics but implements technocratic governance.
The result is a hollowed-out resistance movement, waving liberty flags while marching toward a hyper-digitized, corporately governed future.
Populists are not reclaiming the republic—they are birthing its replacement. And until this deception is exposed, technocracy will rise unchallenged, wearing the very clothes of freedom it seeks to destroy.
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