

Trying to phrase things so everybody understands takes a lot of time and effort.

The more you are family with people, the less you must do this.

This is the source of a strange tension for Westerners: should I create more people who are like me, or should I create a culture that is like more people?

This, of course, is the conflict of Churchill and Hitler.




“Phrasing so everyone understands” is the discipline of coding

Emmett's family facial recognition app is an example of this strange tension.

Why would you employ a bunch of random asians to tell you who your family is?

Why would you outsource your understanding so much?




Modern societal competition is now metric-based versus physically-based.
It's much less acceptable to be in a competition over something physical - like a woman.




We know competition is good. But where does that leave us in the sphere of nations? What basis should we compete on?

The current suggestion is that we compete based on arbitrary characteristics. We simply happen to be a part of a state; company; or neighborhood. We could be in a different one tomorrow. 

But what is the point of this? Wouldn't it make more sense to compete based on something real?

Such as genes? And geography?

And herein lies the problem: the modern system wants humans to be so disconnected from the land that it does not shape us at all. Like the players on a professional sports team, it does not matter whether we are from the city we are in. Just like the players are expected to simply show up to the city and play, all that matters is we show up to the city and work. 

Essentially, we are to treat all geography, culture, and genetics as temporary and unimportant.

This seems like a huge mistake.




**What sort of Competition is good for Life?**

What is competition?

Here is a good definition:

_Multiple parties striving for a reward which will not be shared._

According to this definition, competitive situations and cultures are always outcome-dependent. They are focused on results, because few or no rewards are guaranteed. A competitive situation is also known as a zero-sum situation, in which one person must lose for another to gain.

The opposite of competition is collaboration, which can be defined as follows:

_Multiple parties striving for a reward which will be shared._ 

One important difference that follows is that, in competition, the different parties must have different views of the future (each party is striving for the future in which they win). In cooperation, however, the parties have an agreed view of the future. 

Therefore, one way to understand competition vs. cooperation is to study the future expectations of the different parties. If they are shared, there is cooperation. If not, there is competition. 

This can be understood further in terms of order vs. chaos. With order, each party is aligned with their actions and expectations. With chaos, each party has its own expectations, and will take self-selected actions to achieve their goal.

To go even deeper, it can be understood in terms of togetherness and separation. Togetherness is cooperation: physical bodies which is moving in the same direction. Competition is separation: physical bodies which are moving in different directions.




There is also another measure of a society: liveliness. Life is moving, and some societies have more movement than others.

The liveliest society would be a primordial soup of individual life forms, competing or collaborating in the moment but with no vision of the future.


**The Postwar West is Anti-Competitive**

Today in the West, we live in a radically anti-competitive culture. This culture largely began in the 1960s, and accelerated with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Here are some examples of the anti-competitive mindset which has slowly gripped us over the years:

- “Innovation helps all of humanity! A rising tide lifts all boats! Life and economy are not zero-sum!” 
- Promotion of participation trophies and scoreless games in children’s sports leagues (something I especially hated as a kid - so much so that I would keep the score in my head and announce it)
- A myriad of platitudes against outcome-dependence (“life is about the journey not the destination”, “the ego is a destructive force”, “comparison is the thief of joy”, “all that matters is that you learned something”)
- Search “competition vs. collaboration” and see the myriad articles on Google which promote collaboration over competition
- The Google Gemini and ChatGPT responses of which is better (they both favor collaboration)
- Kamala Harris discussing how she wants “everyone to end up in the same place”
- George Bush and his “no child left behind” policy
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
- Affirmative Action

As I said, the 1990s have a unique claim on these ideas. Here are some examples: 

- Increasing talk of “tolerance” as a virtue
- Popular movies and media, especially after 1991, where only villainous bullies want to promote competition and hierarchy in school
- Radical individualism - where the phrase “be yourself, no matter what!” is the essential life philosophy. 
- The suggestion that no individual should be made to change their behavior, as long as it is not illegal. 

Surely, there are many more. But this is a good start.

Many of these values are so normalized that some will be shocked to see them labeled “radically anti-competitive”. But, they are. 

Let us take the first example: the oft-repeated economics and business claim that the world is not zero-sum.

This is only partially true. Yes, it is true that many goods can be produced more cheaply when technology helps out. This is good, because it lowers the bar for entry to many markets and services which are good for people.

But what about land?

If I want more land, there is little technology or innovation that can help. Elon’s colonization of Mars is a long-term example, but that land will not be habitable for hundreds of years.

So: if we want more land, we are in competition. The Earth is all owned by someone. Few give up land willingly. So, we must compete.

Competition for land is perhaps the oldest competition of all - and deeper than just humans. Even animals, like wolves and chimps, are very territorial. They fight over borders constantly.

On its face, this makes sense - we are a life form, and life forms are meant to expand. If the land can’t support or fit all of us, we must compete. 

However, today, there are many who believe that competing for land is outdated. They believe that this is a false and bad mindset, which produces violence and does not bring the most economically viable outcomes. 

The question is, though - America has a great deal of land which our companies control, directly or indirectly. So how did we get it? Through violence and competition, of course!

Our victory in World War II allowed our economic footprint to expand vastly across the Earth, opening many lands to American purchase and rule. We still use our influence, backed by our giant military, to keep these lands open to our economy.

Taiwan and Ukraine are great examples: both valuable plots of land, which other civilizations covet. So, we do what we can to fight for them.

As it turns out, competition over land has never gone away. The spirit of competition has never gone away, because countries like China and Russia are still trying to take our land. 

So, an interesting question: why is competition so discouraged within Western nations, if we are still outwardly competing? 

To answer this, we need to look at the actual Westerners who have adopted these values. 

As mentioned, many of these cultural values were born in the 1960s. For instance, the radical individualist ideas of “no judgment” and “tolerance” were core parts of the hippie movement. They then became mainstream in the 90s. 

Thinking of the 60s and the 90s, we can see that the Baby Boomers and the Millennials are emblematic of these patterns. The Baby Boomers were the 1960s hippies, and the Millennials were the 1990s children in an anti-competitive culture.

This is interesting, because the implication seems to be that the children born after great victories (WWII for the Boomers, Cold War for the Millennials) end up with especially anti-competitive behavior. Perhaps the thinking goes something like this: 

“There is little threat in the outside world, so why compete? After all, there are enough resources for everyone.”

This sort of mindset would mean that conflict is useless, since it would only create unnecessary pain in a very wealthy society. In the short term, perhaps this is true. 

So: why are Western nations internally anti-competitive but externally competitive? The answer seems to be that the internal natives of our nations have chosen and been encouraged to forego the spirit of competition. Our men have become less territorial and more risk-averse. Ultimately, this is due to victories in wars, which allowed a cultural shift towards cooperation in the face of large quantities of resources.

On its face, this doesn’t seem necessarily bad. We did well, and we enjoyed the spoils of victory. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. 

But we are in 2024: a presidential candidate was just almost assassinated, threats to democracy are normal, and talk of civil war is common. The American border has evaporated, birth rates are below replacement, and accusations of communism and Nazism are everywhere in the public discourse. Our system is spinning like a top, with our citizens blaming each other for ruining the nation. 

Finally, the spirit of victory, unity, and cooperation is under attack. For 60 years, the internal West has been increasingly anti-competitive: until Donald Trump. 

For the first time in 60 years, Trump ran on the basis that, actually, things were not so good. He ran on the basis that, perhaps, there is not enough for everyone - not unless we fight for it. His most famous base is manufacturing workers - left behind in the fun of victory, they lost jobs and purpose in life. The nation became more prosperous, but many of these workers fell into a pit of despair. 

Trump ran on two main principles in 2016: More manufacturing and less immigration. He stewed at the loss of American manufacturing jobs overseas, and he rejected allowing many immigrants into this land. 

Because of this, our governments have begun embracing large numbers of immigrants to replace gaps left by low birth rates. 

One thing which is very strange is that we, heritage Westerners, were never told of these trends or decisions. We were never encouraged to expand and seek growth - only to continue seeking comfort as much as possible.

I only really became concerned in 2024, when I saw the border evaporate. On a primal, competitive level, it felt terrible - not just to me, but many other men as well. Unfortunately, it turns out that this is only the outward result of 60 years of anti-competitive behavior. It is the result of seeking comfort above all else, even if that means outsourcing our manufacturing jobs, creating softer and softer workplaces, and foregoing kids because it is “too hard” to support them. 

Therefore, it seems that the anti-competitive camp made a miscalculation. They assumed that it was better to be a service economy than a manufacturing economy, because service is easier and prettier work than manufacturing. They assumed that the nation’s overall GDP was what mattered, but actually there was a large class which lost much in the midst of growth. That miscalculation has now brought the neoliberal project within an inch of life. 

In 2024, the greatest competition in the West now seems to be between the forces of competition and collaboration themselves. As I write this, the spirit of competition is gaining ground. But the spirit of collaboration is still fighting. So who are these people? 

So - who are the collaborators? We have established that extreme collaboration flourished in the 60s and 90s, but how does it manifest today? 

The forces of collaboration are the people who are often called “Globalists”. Their philosophy is defined by a loose patchwork of ideas, that usually 

1. Promote secular values
2. Promote consumerism and multinational corporations
3. Promote technology as a means to solve many or all problems
4. Promote the future as a potential utopia or fantastic improvement, as long as the former 3 are retained.

Who holds these ideas? Typically: technologists, women, and societal elites. Often, there are entire companies that match this profile (e.g. there are many large corporations who intentionally favor women in hiring, vote Democrat, and benefit from loose multinational regulation).

In other words: these people are urban. Vastly the occupants of large cities and large corporations, perhaps it makes sense they are more collaborative: their societies require more collaboration to function. 

See this email from the king of tech, Steve Jobs:

This sums up life in a city. One must rely on countless others, simply to live. One is packed with countless others, working and traveling as a large mass. Therefore, to be ideologically consistent, one must favor extensive collaboration in daily life. Otherwise, cities would quickly become chaos. 

So: we have the urban-rural divide. This divide has existed as long as cities and country, obviously - but interestingly, it seems, post-1960, that **the urban and collaborative perspective began to win**. A coalition of technology, women, and elites managed to take power in both government agencies and corporations. Farmers and factory workers, on the other hand, were increasingly marginalized. 

The coalition produced an increasingly anti-competitive culture at large. Now, in 2024, that culture is suffering from political turmoil, low birth rates, large debt, and a deepening faction of Republicans who thirst to drain the swamp, close the agencies, and destroy the postwar cooperative spirit.  

So: why did all this happen? Why did the cooperators begin to win in 1960, and why did factory workers and farmers get marginalized?

Again, we can go back to the generational question. It seems that generations born into victory will naturally adopt more utopian values, like the Boomers and the Millennials. 

The Boomers, especially, are at the heart of this question. And the Boomers were shaped by their parents: The Greatest Generation.

Little is said of the divide in values between the Boomers and their parents, but it is massive. It is undoubtedly the largest divide of any two generations since. 

The Greatest Generation were racist: they liked FDR, who believed that America was only for Northern Europeans. Immigration was outlawed for any other group. Segregation was expected. Hard labor was expected. Fighting was expected. They didn’t have a Department of Defense: they had a Department of _War_.

Meanwhile, only 20 years later, the Civil Rights act was passed. The Department of War was renamed. The Boomer children smoked marijuana, wore bright colors, and watched Jimi Hendrix. It makes sense that we celebrated, after a great victory: but our celebration wasn’t cast as such. Instead, it was cast as part of the victory itself - what we fought for in World War II. Instead, It was cast as _the way society can and will be, forever._

Instead of finishing the celebration and getting back to work on expanding our nation, peacetime values became “human values”. Pleasure became an expectation. Instead of moving forward, the Baby Boomers huddled inward. They huddled in the corner with our military, intelligence, and nuclear bombs: the power of which guaranteed them a perfectly blissful existence. 

Through this nestling, though, community and intermediate power structures collapsed in America and the West. Because Boomers looked inward instead of outward, they congregated around a small set of men who promised to do the hard work that few wanted to. These men offered pleasure to the people, and in return were able to consolidate power in military, government, and industry. 

This is the origin of the Deep State, the Total State, or the Establishment: whatever you would call that small class holding disproportionate power in America today. Born from a toxic relationship between the excessive comfort of ignorant masses and the excessive strife of ambitious men, it is now an entrenched system which hollows out the middle class to pursue giant designs. This is the “managerial class” of which Samuel Francis spoke in the 1990s: the class which gave away our manufacturing sector, and who he hoped would have their day of reckoning.

Exactly one generation after the Great War, that day of reckoning finally came: Donald Trump became president. 

Trump is extreme competition bursting out of an extremely cooperative system. As has been mentioned, the small amount of ambitious men who have been consolidating power for 60 years, want regular people to be as comfortable and cooperative as possible. It makes them more controllable. In riling up the masses, Trump has committed the cardinal sin of the ambitious: he has betrayed his own elite class and weaponized the common man against them.

  


But what if I want more land?

Currently, land is finite. All land on Earth is owned by someone.

Therefore, if I decide I want more land than I have, I am in competition. Assuming, of course, that the other person still wants theirs.

  
So what is the mechanism with which I can acquire ownership?

In this society, the answer is money. Produce value equal to the owner’s care for the land, and I will have it.

This is the order of a market society.

  
In primitive society, the mechanism is violence. If we want the same land, then war will decide.

  
What is the fundamental difference between these two states?

  
In the market, our lives are both continuing on their track. We must simply align in incentives.

In the war, our lives are against each other. We must fight.

  
The market is competition of **time** without competition of **life.** 

We do not pit lives against each other to see which of our beings are more valuable. Instead, we pit minutes and hours against each other to see who can **produce** **more life**.

  
Therefore, a wholly market society eliminates fear for life from human competition.

However, currently, there are multiple societies that exist. These societies are in competition.

So: who will win this competition?

If we take our advanced market society and pit it against a more primitive one, we have an interesting question about human nature: 

Do we produce better results when we have no fear for Life?

  
Is it right to have no fear for life?

Is it productive to have no fear for life?

And:

Is there anything you would die for?

Any land, any people? 

Any idea, any religion?


Even if they aren’t producing well?


If you initiate this fight, are you Cain?

Should Abel have been ready for war? 


Communism and Fascism are the radical manifestations of these beliefs. Funnily, one always requires the other.

“I will compete against millions to kill anyone promoting strength, competition, and hierarchy”

“I will cooperate with millions to kill anyone promoting weakness, cooperation, and equality”

The interesting situation we see is that, in the West, competition never went away. It simply became monopolized by a couple of men at the top, who are actually _excessively_ competitive. The great mass of men, meanwhile, become extremely anti-competitive, and all small-to-medium power structures are destroyed and aggregated. The only cause for which anyone is now allowed to compete is that of the great mass itself. 

This is the pattern which produces the “Total State” - in which the intermediate power structures and communities of the nation have been hollowed out, leaving only two classes: the few who own power, and the many who do not. 

One must ask the question: is this civilization? After all, the processes I am describing here are the same processes which took the primitive clans of Vikings and Picts to a civilization on the first place.

Upon further investigation, it turns out that this is a copy of the earlier argument that our current time is merely an extension of normal technological advancement. This would make the Globalists the correct standard-bearers of history, and everyone opposed part of a pointless anti-progress camp. 

This leads to a rather niche opinion: the Globalists, as most futurists, are probably right about some of their predictions for society.

The brain and technology are the crown jewel of humanity. Our intelligence and consciousness are what make human beings greater than animals.

Or, they can - _as long as we reproduce_. It turns out we are missing a trait we _share_ with animals: reproduction. Our birth rates are tending towards collapse. No children, no brains, no technology. If tech is our crown jewel, children are our foundation. That foundation is crumbling. 

The problem is that today’s Globalism has slipped to an insatiable pitch, which cannot be accomplished with the resources and societies we currently have.

Indeed, much of what characterizes Globalism today is desperate pandering to flatter minorities. These minorities are from more animalistic civilizations: _the ones with higher birth rates._

It seems clear today that “noble savage” lovers in Western society are a yearning for what we now lack: growth, expansion, movement, children, Life.

Therefore, the correct position is not to be against technological advancement, but to be against the pursuit of this at all costs. It is the people and the society, not the technology, which form the foundation of a civilization’s power. The tech is a close second. 

Therefore, when we oppose the Globalists, we do not say that technology is inherently bad, or even that the Globalists are all wrong about the future. Rather, the Expansionist claim is this: 

Sex and reproduction are the greatest form of invention known to man. If we fail in these, we will lose our technology too. Just like the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, and every other society which fell prey to low birth rates and loss of identity. Our civilization will falter, stagnate, and then fall. 

Technology comes from Life; Life doesn’t come from technology. Technology is to _enhance_ Life, not to produce it.

To understand this truth about the organism of society is to understand every other perspective in this book. 

To go against this perspective is to be an Extinctionist: to support a type of society which does not produce Life. These societies, obviously, do not last. Often, they get conquered. 
  

How acceptable is using force in daily life?

  

That’s how collectivist your society is

  

Collectivism requires stillness, does it not? 


How much pain should be allowed to exist in the world? 

This is the question of competition vs. cooperation

Nature vs. nurture

Western society is attempting to eliminate most pain from the world

To eliminate competition

But perhaps it will flip

  

When nations flip between these extremes of competition and collaboration it is a flailing defense mechanism against situations they are not ready for 

  

Christianity shows the way forward

We are in competition or cooperation all the time, at various moments. But for the most important questions of human nature, there must be a way to address them:

Sex, violence, money.

Without a way to address these, society will flail between competition and collaboration, picking whichever is convenient. 

This is the flailing of communism and fascism. 

Testosterone has dropped 50% in the last 20 years 

The lack of courage is what needs to change first 

Tucker Carlson … take the jump. Take the job you’re not qualified for, have the kids, etc 

How would you most like to advance society?

1. Produce more technology and become more comfortable

1. Produce more people and take more land

Is the point of life to grow and expand, or to be as comfortable as possible?

This is the masculine/feminine dichotomy at play. 

Whether you are racist depends on whether you are playing the game of Life

Whether you are playing the game of Life depends on whether you believe humans or machines are the most important creation.

Were the Old South slavers playing the game of Life more than the Union? 

After all, they never wanted to outsource the slaves to technology. Only to have a symbiotic relationship, where they were the masters. 

Marc Andreessen wrote that “software is eating the world”… meanwhile, immigrants are eating it from the other side.

We won World War II. It was great.

We celebrate this victory by sinking into comfort while mad technologists and rabid migrants, at the top and bottom of our society, devoured the land which would be lived in by our children.