In February, #Marc #Andreessen described the #Chatham #House group chats to the podcaster #Lex #Fridman as “the equivalent of [Soviet era] #samizdat”
“The combination of encryption and disappearing messages really unleashed it,” he said. The chats, he wrote recently, helped produce our national “vibe shift.”
They have rarely been discussed in public, though you can catch the occasional mention in, for instance, a podcast debate between #Mark #Cuban and the Republican entrepreneur #Vivek #Ramaswamy, which started in a chat.

But they are made visible through a group consensus on social media.
Their effects have ranged from the mainstreaming of the monarchist pundit #Curtis #Yarvin to a particularly focused and developed dislike of the former Washington Post writer #Taylor #Lorenz.

They succeeded at avoiding leaks (until, to a modest extent, this article) in part because of Signal’s and WhatsApp’s #disappearing #message features,
and in part because the groups had formed out of a mix of fear and disdain for journalists they believed were “out to get us,” as one member put it.
“People during 2020 felt that there was a monoculture on social media, and if they didn’t agree with something, group chats became a safe space to debate that, share that, build consensus, feel that you’re not alone,”
said #Erik #Torenberg, an entrepreneur who was the first employee of the tech community hub Product Hunt.
As #Krishnan was setting up a set of tech group WhatsApp chats at a16z, #Torenberg independently founded a group of tech chats on WhatsApp and some more political Signal chats.

“They’re having all the private conversations because they weren’t allowed to have the public conversations,” Andreessen told Torenberg on a recent podcast,
after claiming in the name of secrecy that he’d never heard of such groups.
“If it wasn’t for the censorship all of these conversations would have happened in public, which would have been much better.”
Their creations took off:
“It might not seem like it, because of all the sh*t that people still post on X, but the internet has fragmented,”
the Substack author #Noah #Smith wrote after my inquiries for this story spilled into public Saturday.
“Group chats are now where everything important and interesting happens.”

https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-that-changed-america

Even at this late stage, the combination of such an extreme lack of self-awareness and so much self-pity all wrapped up in a single person is just astonishing.

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Yarvin seems shocked that Musk (with zero government experience except for a reliance on government contracts) is doing such a poor job. He also seems chagrined at Trump's specific actions, like tariffs, which are throwing markets into chaos. In political terms, the whole thing is a total disaster. By early 2025, millions of Americans are marching in streets and even Republican voters are showing up at town halls to express seething anger.

Yarvin seems to have come to a stark realization: If Musk/Trump fail to destroy the democratic system, extreme anti-government pseudo-intellectuals may face a bleak future. He urgently warns them against half-assing the revolution – and reveals his own fear of what might happen when the pendulum swings in the other direction:

But in the end, it is the road toward winding up in the foam yourself—probably with me, for all my troubles. (This is what usually happens to right-wing intellectuals, actually.)

https://www.thenerdreich.com/curtis-yarvin-fears-his-authoritarian-fantasy-is-flopping/

What to do if Trump Invokes the Insurrection Act on April 20th.
https://medium.com/@aletheisthenes/if-the-shit-actually-hits-the-fan-b491462c6057

In #Marx' ersten Band von #DasKapital gibt es eine Passage, an die ich derzeit oft denken muss, weil schnell die ideologischen Stichwortgeber für aktuelle Prozesse benannt sind und umgekehrt als Kern des Übels identifiziert. Aber, jetzt Marx: »Es ist in der Tat viel leichter, durch Analyse den irdischen Kern der religiösen Nebelbildungen zu finden, als umgekehrt, aus den jedesmaligen wirklichen Lebensverhältnissen ihre verhimmelten Formen zu entwickeln. Die letztre ist die einzig materialistische und daher wissenschaftliche Methode.« (S. 393) Ich denke derzeit an Friedrich A. #Hayek und Milton #Friedman, Ludwig von #Mises bis Murray Newton #Rothbard oder Curtis Guy #Yarvin - alle werden genannt, wenn es um den Geist des #Projekt2025 geht oder was Musk herumtreibt. Das ist alles nicht falsch. Mit vielen Ausführungen legitimiert die #Trump-Administration und ihr Umfeld nicht nur, was sie tun, sondern sie erklären es damit auch, nicht nur Dritten, sondern auch sich selbst. 1/2
[1/2]

Pay. Attention.

This is an older clip. She did another segment last night.

#Maddow shows #JDVance explaining his lack of faith that democracy can deliver on his conservative ideals, and shows the influences behind Vance's preference that the United States government be gutted and instead run by a dictator.
#Yarvin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeVhHNSe9Ks

He’s anti-democracy and pro-Trump: the obscure ‘dark enlightenment’ blogger influencing the next US administration - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/21/curtis-yarvin-trump "Key figures in the incoming administration follow Curtis #Yarvin, who’s pushing for an autocratic takeover of the US" clearly a dangerous nutter #trump

Rachel #Maddow’s main story tonight was focused on Vance’s love of Curtis #Yarvin. I wonder if it will come up in tomorrow’s #debate.

Vance is the most frightening politician because he’s young and smart and has absolutely no principles.