Elon Musk Wants A "Freedom City" Of His Own To Rule Over Like A Deranged God
The technofascists are demanding a return to feudal city-states because fuck democracy and 1000 years of progress.
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I first read about “freedom cities” a few weeks ago and I was surprised I hadn’t come across the idea before. The libertarian billionaire freaks have been kicking it around for years but for some reason, the legacy press hasn’t been talking about it.
Oh, right. “The legacy press.” No fucking wonder this particular piece of filth has been flying under the radar. These are the same “journalists” who looked the other way as white nationalism spread like a cancer and took over the American right wing. The same truth-tellers who are, even now, finding 1001 excuses not to call Musk’s coup a coup or a Nazi salute a Nazi salute.
Now, we have billionaire fucksticks demanding literal city-states to run according to their twisted whims. The legacy press MIGHT take note of it when Elon Musk has his puppet president declare eminent domain on a few hundred square miles of Texas. Musktopia? Xville? XMusksTheSpot? I’m sure Musk the ketamine junkie will come up with a sufficiently stupid fucking name and everyone who lives there will either be predator or prey. But mostly prey.
Because let’s not fucking kid ourselves, that’s what this is all about.
If you’re not familiar with the phrase “Going Galt,” I fucking envy you so very fucking much. That bit of fetid libertarian brain rot comes from Ayn Rand’s shitty book “Atlas Shrugged,” otherwise known as the Bible for greedy selfish white men all over the world.
In this 1100+ page snooze fest, Rand creates a world where the rich are plagued by parasites who take their money and inventions and hold them back. If this sounds familiar, it’s quite literally the entire ideology of the Republican Party. Yes, it’s based on a shitty book. John Galt, the ahahahahahahaha “hero” gathers all of the mighty industrialists, commits acts of terrorism and abandons civilization by building a secret city away from all of the bad evil losers who aren’t as awesome as him and his rich friends. It’s called “Galt’s Gulch” and civilization collapses without all of these pillars of society.
One of my favorite quotes of all time sums up Atlas Shrugged perfectly:
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
Now, I’ve known for years that libertarians had dreamed of “Going Galt.” I’ve even heard of a few times they tried to buy property to start their own little libertarian commune and how that never seems to work out. It’s almost like putting a bunch of white male assholes (and they’re almost always white male assholes) together who think only they should be in charge and rules are for pussies anyway is a recipe for disaster. Who knew?1
Naturally, the Silicon Valley technofascists have their own spin on it. Enter “Freedom Cities”:
Several groups representing “startup nations”—tech hubs exempt from the taxes and regulations that apply to the countries where they are located—are drafting Congressional legislation to create “freedom cities” in the US that would be similarly free from certain federal laws, WIRED has learned.
According to interviews and presentations viewed by WIRED, the goal of these cities would be to have places where anti-aging clinical trials, nuclear reactor startups, and building construction can proceed without having to get prior approval from agencies like the Food and Drug Administration, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
They’re quite serious about this.
This all traces back apparently, to Curtis Yarvin, the guru to the tech bros whose great innovation was to tell rich people that they could be unaccountable feudal lords by dressing it up in techspeak. You see, if you claim it’s all about efficiency and progress, you’re not a fucking fascist, you’re a heroic visionary!
Actually, no. You’re just a fucking fascist with the most transparent of veneers.
I mean, Jesus fucking Christ, they’re not even trying to do a bait-and-switch here. They’re barely even dressing it up in techbro nonsense. Musk is out there spewing white nationalist gibberish and throwing Nazi salutes. We all see what they’re doing and who they want to emulate.
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But even if they were JUST trying to establish their little fiefdoms without the Nazi fanfic, it would still be bloodcurdling. Can you imagine a world where a single far-right billionaire is the law of the land? It really shouldn’t be that hard. Just look at how Republicans act NOW.
Here’s just a brief list of things the right endorses:
Pollution
Slavery
Unregulated drug use2
Rape
No abortion3
Outlawing homosexuality4
Racial and gender discrimination
State control of the media
No free speech
No elections
Pedophilia5
The list goes on for quite some time and all of it is bad. Does that sound like someplace you want to live? How about someplace to raise your kids? I mean, sure, it’s fucking awesome if you’re one of the billionaires in charge. If you’re not? It’s going to be a soul-sucking hellhole.
“Oh,” you say, “but they want to build a utopia! A hi-tech paradise where everyone can live full lives and humanity can reach its fullest potential!”
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Have you MET these fucking people?! Stop and think about that for a hot second. What was the last thing Elon Musk ever did that did not benefit him personally? Peter Theil? Marc Andreessen? Any of the far-right billionaires funding and running the coup taking place this very second?
These are not people interested in the betterment of mankind. These are people interested in their own glory and power. They’re misanthropes or rapists or pedophiles or deviants so twisted that they view laws as a threat to their continued existence. In the best-case scenario, they’ve become so consumed with greed and their own mythology of victimization that they cannot live in a society where they have to follow the same rules as everyone else. They MUST be the overlords, unaccountable to no one.
They will, however, quickly discover the great flaw of “Going Galt.” It’s easy to declare your desire to be free of the “shackles” of society when you are sucking at the teat of government and civilization as all billionaires do. But when you are the undisputed ruler of your own fiefdom? Well, someone has to be responsible for keeping the lights on. Someone has to keep the streets clean. Someone has to run the daycare centers so your secretaries, all women in tight skirts, of course, can take memos and flirt with you, telling you how manly and virile you are.
And those people aren’t going to want to live in squalor in your perfect utopia. But you don’t value their work so you aren’t going to want to pay them much of anything. So there’s going to be discontent. And that will require increasing amounts of repression and state violence. But you’re OK with that because the little people have to know their place, don’t they?
That little death spiral won’t go on for very long as you find your servant class leaving. Unless you plan to keep them in chains? Maybe! Freedom Cities will allow that sort of thing, after all! I, for one, look forward to a modern version of the Fugitive Slave Act being passed. Won’t that be fun?! Freedom Cities, baby!
It’s really important to understand how dangerous these billionaire enclaves will be. They will be playgrounds for the ultra-wealthy to live out their power trip fantasies. No laws will apply to them. I know you’re thinking, “They don’t apply to them now!” Yes and no. Elon Musk cannot openly have sex with a 14-year-old. Peter Theil cannot keep a plantation of slaves. Mark Zuckerberg cannot have a protester shot for calling him a creepy freak wearing a human skin suit.
But once they have their “Freedom Cities?” You can bet they’ll do just that. The “freedom” in “Freedom Cities” means freedom for all consequences. That’s all libertarians have ever wanted. That’s all “Going Galt” was ever about. The freedom to lie, to cheat, to steal, to rape.6 They want all the benefits of society handed to them with none of the responsibility and certainly none of the constraints or obligations to act like a civilized creature instead of a selfish animal.
When they do this, because with Trump on a leash, why wouldn’t they? Let’s hope hundreds of thousands of MAGA flock to these grand experiments in freedumb. They can all discover what the freedom of living as peasants under a feudal lord is like and when they demand to be set free, we can tell them that the United States is no longer accepting immigrants from Xland. They’re just not sending their best. Now fuck off back to the hell you created for yourselves while we clean up the mess you left behind, you stupid assholes.
There are 14 days until the first Blue Wave starts in Wisconsin and 231 days until it hits Virginia and Pennsylvania. If I were a billionaire fascist, I’d think REALLY hard about getting out of the way.
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I mean, besides anyone with two working brain cells?
I’m for legalizing drugs but that’s not the same as “Let the drugs flow as much as you want!”
Unless you are part of the upper class, of course.
Except for the people in charge, of course. Peter Theil gets to be gay. Not so much for everyone else.
“Protect the children!” LOL! You mean, “Keep them safe until Republicans are done molesting them”
The great and powerful hero of “Atlas Shrugged” raped a woman which, of course, made her fall in love with him. So manly and powerful! Did I mention a woman wrote this book? 🙄
How about indicting NAZI Elon for the crimes he has already committed and his company “town” can be a Federal prison cell!!!
I first discovered the repulsive worm named Yarvin about a month ago. I tried reading his incoherent ramblings (he is on Substack by the way. And a quick look at his subscribers and what they talk about will make your skin crawl and make you want to shower afterwards) and got a pretty good feel for the guy. I also urge everyone to listen to the Behind the Bastards Podcast episode on Yarvin. That one does have Ed Helms on a guest and that dude is awesome.
Everyday since I discovered him I will check the news cycle to see if anyone is mentioning him. He is ominously absent in any discussion about what is happening right now even though he is directly connected to all the major players. He is very good friends with JD Vance, for example. This is cause for concern. This little fuck is a direct threat to our democracy and needs to be tracked down.