The Online Personality, Thaumaturgically

My problem with social media:
You can casually combine a Rules of Nature person with a Witch/Nectar person into one consistent individual. Not even hard. The full range of human experience is heckin' wide, and praise be to Gnon.

The heart is glorious because it is weak. What's the point of having a tough exterior if you don't have a gooey interior? "I was worried about my armour so I armoured it." Err, good joke?

Prey, too, can be glorious. Imagine you have nothing. No weapons, no brains. Despite this, when the lion comes for you, you live. The wolf slavers for your delicious organs, but her pack goes home hungry. Booyah! The predator is strong in body and the prey is strong in soul.

On Twitter you have to confine yourself to a monochromatic wavelength of light or you confuse your followers. Followers refuse to engage deeply enough to permit Tweeters to develop into interesting characters. On Twitter you have to be boring, a liar, or a nonentity. Selection against non-NPCs.

Cathedral Is A Perfect Term, or Prospiracy Considered Retarded

Being correct, the term must be disavowed by Moldbug.

 "it evolves; this doctrine has a predictable direction of evolution, and the whole structure moves together."

No mystery.There's a Pope. We don't know who it is because they rely on security by obscurity. As per the principles of responsibility laundering, they never show up in the news. One of the side effects is that their decrees are typically slow. Can take years to get through the system.

Getting a quick response is to buy a sonar unit for those it's getting a response from. We as observers would be able to trace the orders, so they normally don't. Further, since America is basically a usurper regime, and lots of high-church proggies are more than happy to usurp the Pope position, even before we have time to trace the orders the Pope would be violently replaced. We would trace the orders to a branch that has already been pruned.

Fascism, as per Land, is Communism that's insecure and ashamed of itself. In a properly Fascist country (not Russia or China, which barely even pretend to be democratic) naturally the evolution is from more ashamed and hypocritical to more zealous and pure. Imagine the counterfactual: if the evolution is towards less Fascism, it means they have already converted to anti-Fascist convictions. For completeness I will also mention the second counterfactual: a confident and assertive Communist country is one with over 90% mortality. All are equal only in death. The Fascist dimly senses this, and they don't want to actually die, which is why they're ashamed and compromise Communism with some form of Reality, such as Capitalism.

Fun trivia: the Pope doesn't like SJWs, and wants them to sit down and shut up. They're making things worse for everyone, including themselves. However, SJWs really do arise spontaneously, and do so more often than the Pope can order them shut down. Any that truly step beyond the pale get whacked by one of the fast-track orders, though. 

There has to be a Pope in theory due to the nature of property. If two fight over ownership of something, one must win. Shocking news: once I've eaten a pear, you can't also eat it. Whichever hungry person ends up eating the pear was already the owner. The conflict arose due to someone being mistaken about this ownership. (See also: Socrates, evil vs. ignorance.)

As previously, we can see there must also be a Pope in practice, because we don't see dead evolutionary lines. One of which would have caused America to nuke itself a long time ago.

Let's talk about evolution, tornadoes, and blind watchmakers. I think it's funny.
The argument runs thus: evolution is like a tornado assembling an airliner. In fact evolution supposes that, given that tornadoes are caused by airliners and the airliners can adjust the tornadoes to be more likely to assemble an airliner, and further that airliners kill and eat any tornadoes that destroy airliners, it's not particularly surprising to see a tornado assemble a complex artifact.
Or: yeah, evolution is a blind watchmaker assuming blind watchmakers exist as a matter of logical necessity and it turns out watches can unblind watchmakers if they manage to successfully assemble a watch.
Moldbug's prospiracy hypothesis is that not only do tornadoes assemble airliners, they can only assemble airliners as a matter of logical necessity. Every tornado assembles an airliner perfectly. It must be so, because the Cathedral essentially never tries anything that ultimately goes extinct. Good joke! Bad logic.

More: you can see the command structure in the way the election was stolen. If they were merely ordered to defraud guerrilla style, the methods would have varied. In reality we get a series of late-night vote dumps with hecked up ratios. (There was some guerrilla stuff but it's insignificant and Twitter lets you post about it.) It's not hard to imagine how this happened. They tried to be all wink-wink nudge-nudge but democratic operatives are biological trash - not merely peasants, but underclass - and had to repeatedly ask for clarification until they functionally got a direct, detailed order. Similarly one of courts would have heard one of Trump's suits, accidentally or by brain damage. Evolution is sloppy. The Cathedral is not sloppy. Not when it matters. 

I tried to resist hammering this into the ground, but the prospiracy theory is real fuckin' dumb, so I decline.
The 2016-2020 series makes perfect sense as the reaction of a perfectly normal command-and-control structure. Normally you can defraud about 6% of the vote. I estimate DNC gets 6% and RNC gets 5%, adds up to 1%. In 2016 they knew a) if they defrauded properly like they did in 2020, it would be obvious, as in fact it was and b) 6% fraud means a swing of 12%. 50-50 goes to 44-56. They figured they had very little to worry about. The RNC wasn't going to play ball with Trump, giving the DNC  free reign. No way Trump would overcome a 12-point disadvantage, right? He's a reality TV star for Satan's sake. Worst case they blackmail him later or kill his credibility with wall-to-wall negative coverage.

Haha, oops.

Sorry, Americans really do hate you that much, nerd.

Frankly Trump constitutes lese majeste just by existing, so they decided to show their full might in 2020. Gloves off. Yeah it would be expensive and embarrassing but Trump's worth it, so they went for the throat. 

Have you seen some of the designs evolution comes up with? Evolution is inhuman. When it goes off the chain the things it makes are almost unfathomable. How do eyes evolve? It's absurdly clever, however it's managed. Oh, except for these inexplicable idiotic solecisms like the tailbone and making the birth canal also the insemination canal, not to mention running this plumbing through the hips instead of around them. Evolution does not make for clean and easy to understand narratives with understandable mistakes you could have made yourself. If tornadoes really were handing you airliners every time they passed through your back yard, yes 2020 would have been stolen but how would it have been done? We would not have a clue on God's green Earth. There would have been vote dumps in Trump's favour happening at high noon in the middle of urban Wisconsin. WTF moments everywhere.

No, if 2016 wasn't defrauded enough, evolution doesn't try proper fraud in 2020. Evolution is super dumb on timescales like that. If Trump had fired the Swamp, then maybe the selection would have been harsh enough. In reality Trump fired Sir Diddly and the Right Honourable Squat.

Look, I'm trying to run out of reasons to say [prospiracy considered retarded] but I keep finding new ones. Sorry.

Moldbug is a lord. If this isn't obvious to you, remember he built an Urbit. Moldbug's problem is that he's a lower-ranked lord than the Pope and is very successfully bottoming from the bottom. Fascist gonna fasc.

On Formalizing Blocs

A rather transparent attempt to de-legitimize the regime, no?
De-legitimizing the illegitimate is lovely of course, but the regime tends to object. The regime is hardly a stranger to violence. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It would also make vote fraud a lot harder. If gang B has 1200 members, of which 5000 voted, it's very embarrassing. American voting systems are insecure on purpose. Guess who made them insecure, and guess why they would do such a thing. 

"I snapped—called him a fascist. “Neighbour,” I said, “we’ve been a one-party state since your grandma was—”"
Spooky. 

"though in many ways it is in effect a sadistic tyranny, it is [...] at least, certainly not by people who think of themselves as sadistic tyrants"
Spookier.
Though to be precise the psycho lords are well aware they cannot afford to appear to be psycho lords. Luckily this is normally not an issue since they can simply have their Pope order the peasants not to see them as psycho lords, and lo and behold their will be done. BLM has a body count in the 10,000s - and I'm talking purely Africans here -  but nobody will ever see them as racist mass-murderers. Or rather, everyone who matters already sees them as exactly that, but are on board with the plan.  You can tell by showing them the stats and watching them go all [invisible garage dragon]. They are not surprised, and know exactly which realities they need the chutzpah to flatly deny.

On Advice

I used to take advice regularly. I saw all the folks ignoring their good advice, and I was determined to not be like that. Autism superpowers activate! They couldn't tell good advice from bad, why would I be able to? I'll take all of it. The conflicting bits I'll take alternately and compare. Secretly I have high agreeableness and would rather get along.

Unfortunately all the advice was bad. Haha, joke's on me.

You know the advice I needed to hear?

"Yeah, you're right. They don't respect you. So quit. You can't walk through walls without using a door, you can't fly to the moon by flapping your arms, you can't draw a circle with corners, and you can't offer advice worth a damn. Fun fact: impossible things are impossible."

Who offers this advice? It's plain brutal. Nobody offers it. Jocko: "No no it's just in your head, everyone loves you." Yeah thanks heard that one before.

The first time I offered myself the advice, I took it. I took everyone's advice, but especially my own. And it fuckin' worked. You know respect isn't needed to live? And you can just let folk fail? They were going to fail anyway, but now I don't look like a douche. (I am a douche, but I don't look like one IRL. In fact I had to tone down the persona's charisma because I was regularly getting limpets.)

When my brutal advice worked, I immediately wondered. What other brutal things would work? Well, all your base. I offered myself the nastiest shit I could possibly imagine and damn it has been effective. I got most of it during the first pass but I did miss a major one until just last year. I'm somewhat addicted. If it's not caustic enough to pry apart flesh and bone I can hardly be bothered. My last one knocked me on my ass for two weeks, and that's about the level I like. Borderline existential crisis. 

If you think about it, all advice is brutal. You can lie about it or you can be upfront. I guess that's being 'indirect'. What's Jocko actually saying to this poor sap? "Yeah you're wrong about everything and actually your judgment is bad, your lived experience is pure illusion. Reals not feels jackhole, haha. This is what I sound like when I'm trying to be nice." You know what? That's properly caustic. Might be true. Let's check. (Later.) It sure as hell ain't nice. It's wearing the smiley drama mask, but being 'indirect' is a fuckin' lie, that's what's wrong with it.

Let's think about it: either the caustic version is true, or not. If it's true, it turns out he's an idiot and there's no cure for idiocy. You're fucked, have fun with that mate. If it's false - if in fact his environment has a respect problem - Jocko's advice is worthless due to being wrong on both levels. The advice is self-refuting in all conceivable situations.

By contrast, "don't offer advice" is especially true. If you're an idiot, well that explains why nobody respects you or takes your advice, doesn't it? If you're not an idiot, odds are your environment has a respect problem. It's not you, it's them, but it still means: don't offer advice. They have head injuries which are in the way. Impossible things are impossible. 

But wait, there's more. The poor sap is going to feel like he was offered the caustic version whether it's veiled or not. I've never seen someone successfully let down easy. Have you? Rejection feels like rejection, which feels like failure. There's no combination of words or etiquette which makes failure feel like not-failure; and thank God for small mercies. Sure, don't deliberately add a pain garnish on the pain steak, but... Likewise, being called an idiot feels like being called an idiot, no matter how fancy you dress it up. 

Let's twist the knife. Jocko is saying, "Oh yeah, sure folk respect you. I mean, I don't, but others, yeah definitely those others who I don't even know as well as a faceless letter." Savage. Shit, what would this bastard say if he was trying to be mean?

All advice boils down to virtue signalling. "I know how to run your life and you don't." If that's true, it's brutal. If it's false, you're an asshole. In almost all cases they know how to run their life better than you by virtue of years of experience. "Hey fattie, you need to lose weight." Fatty: "Shocking insight Sherlock. You spend all night figuring that out?" They either already know or they're a fuckin' idiot and can't take the advice anyway. 

Basically humans are rational. If their rationale doesn't seem to make sense it's merely because they're lying to you. Work out what the action will accomplish and infer they intend to do that thing. Typically the motivation for lying to you will be immediately obvious. Taking your advice would have stopped them from accomplishing their real goal, so... The fatty is fat because they care more about other things than about losing weight. Starvation diets are bad for you but if you're willing to be hungry forever you can be as skinny as you want. It's never impossible. Anorexics are the opposite. They care more about being skinny than about little things like not dying. No accounting for taste. "You might buy it!" Real talk: "Yeah. So?" 

This poor sap is probably playing some sort of Game that People Play. Slave morality: being persecuted is holy. If he can offer good advice (the best! peer-reviewed and everything!) and get it rejected, he is persecuted, and thus a Good Person. Woe is Me or I Got You Now, SOB. He's deliberately trying to get his advice rejected, but has this niggling small voice saying that even winning this 4D chess game isn't worth the time spent playing...

I do occasionally get asked for advice, but in meatspace I always deflect. They don't want advice, they want affirmation, but I hate lying so that doesn't work out. I suppose in theory you could probably do [a fool who persists in his folly becomes wise]. Want to get a tattoo? Double down man. Get a whole sleeve. I know this one guy (on twitch) and he's was so happy with his sleeve he had to get another. It was expensive and he was saving up and everything. Problem being this is a touch too parasitic. Feels like I would be encouraging others to really fuck up their life so I look better by comparison. Falling institutions should be pushed but I'm less sanguine about treating poor gullible individuals like that.

I still occasionally offer advice. When I feel like deliberately being a dick. The only point is to set up an, "I told you so," which in turn only serves the cause of being smug.

On Politics

It's worth repeating: politics is strictly bad.
If nobody is being betrayed, it's not politics. All politicians are traitors. The rope is too good for them.
Even setting aside 90% of the population who are shills, it's not /pol/lacks, it's /pol/lutants.

That is all.

Commies and Serfs, Friends 4lyfe

I forget where, but I recently came across the fascinating idea that Soviet Communism was an attempt by the Russian bourgeoisie to re-connect with the alienated Russian peasantry.

Certainly this is the story they told themselves. The story necessarily reveals their true motives.

"Hey, I want to be your friend, but first you have to change everything about yourself." This isn't exactly an expression of affection. More of an expression of implacable hatred? "I would love to be friends with someone who is nothing like you at all." 

They chose Communism as the vehicle for this hatred. It's a selection effect - if it couldn't incarnate hatred, it wouldn't have been chosen. It killed enormous numbers of Russian peasants, exactly as you would expect an apotheosis of hatred to do. Sociology is easy and they got what they wanted on the first try.

Apparently this is a real difficult point. Got some Occult Technique to share with you here. If you want to be friends with someone, walk up to them and say hi. Ask them what they're up to and how their day is going. Maybe it's not exciting, but it's fairly reliable. You do not need to upend a whole country to make friends with someone - as counterintuitive as this may seem.

Poltergeists Seize Power

Lord save us from journalists and patriots.

You realize Trump could have seized DC with his rioters? He decided not to, because he is/was a patriot. Seizing power through the sine qua non of democratic processes, literally to a T the way the Founding Fathers seized power, would have been to betray America's democratic principles. If we stop equivocating it turns out ignorant red voters wanted less Fascism, but Trump is a loyal Fascist and it was his duty to stop them from betraying themselves like that. His protest was white and it would have been racist, see. Friends don't let friends do the r. 

Incidentally this is why the Cathedral is freaking out about said riot. Trump has exposed a fatal weakness to the world. All that remains now is for some enterprising mid-level aristocrat to whip up a mob and exploit it. (High-level aristos already knew about the weakness.) 

We get used to seeing mobs as somewhat impotent, largely confined to looting undefended stores. Sure they cause hundreds of billions in damage, but only because the police have been explicitly ordered not to stop them. When it's a red-state mob, this is not the case. Imagine the mob where Rittens is an average member. 

 

Anyway, let's talk context. 

Jack is a Lord. Highly ranked, maybe even a duke, though I doubt it. You can tell because he built a company.

Twitter has around 5000 employees. You need at least 50 lords to manage 5000 peasants. Jack has maybe three lords including himself.
To run 5000 peasants properly as a single unit, at minimum Jack would need 50 squires or knights, plus two barons managing 25 knights each, plus a count or margrave or something to keep the barons yoked together and reporting properly to Jack. If any layer is not properly hierarchical in such a way, the high-status subordinate will merely end up topping from the bottom, essentially isolating their department from the CEO.

Jack, however, is a Fascist. He has no idea that leaders are born, not made. He thinks if he hires smart enough cows they can learn not to be herd animals, and that's exactly what he tried. Not that he had a real choice, given that there aren't 50 available lords. He would have had to choke his company down to the available lords; simply not allowing it to expand.
Result: some of the psycho lords inside USG noticed all these loose peasants and casually mind-controlled some key figures. The peasants couldn't possibly do what Jack wanted them to do because there aren't enough hours in the day for Jack to tell them all what to do. In particular, the censors were seized, in accordance with Roman tradition. Or rather, the psycho lords had agents mind-control the peasants on their behalf. It wouldn't do for mere employees to get ideas above their station due to regularly speaking to those with real power. Secrecy is also an issue. Have to have at least one sacrificial cutout in case Assange or someone exposes the racket. 

Aside: it's plainly obvious Jack wants out, and if you can explain to me why he doesn't just quit, I would greatly appreciate it. 

I shouldn't (but probably do) have to point out that this model is specific and easily falsified. You can cast my description as functions with certain unknown variables, and go looking for the missing variables. Track down the censors at Twitter. (Or Facebook.) Track down who they consider to be 'thought leaders'. Track down who gives marching orders to the thought leaders. If any of the dynamics aren't as I described, it will become immediately obvious. 

In short it's not a shamanistic model. This is [stage direction], not thaumaturgy. As such, I learned something today. Moldbug is a little shamanistic, but not consistently enough to do it properly. He's super chuffed about the anima called the Official Press, and quite happy to let it summon historical poltergeists to throw things around without any noticeable agent interaction. 

Apparently, the Press has power, which it uses according to hunger.

Somehow, China and Russia's press aren't subject to any of the nonsense that Moldbug ascribes to the Press. Apparently Russian journalists don't suffer from thymos? What privilege!

The Press attacked Trump's riot. Because it wasn't secured. Sure. I can agree.
The Press didn't attack BLM riots. Because they were secured. Problem: they were primarily secured by journalist air cover.

Moldbug's thesis: the Press attacks things the Press doesn't secure. Haha, oops.

Back when there were some Americans fluent in English, this formal fallacy was known as begging the question. 

Of course in reality, it's the Twitter thing again. Sulzberger can't control all his peasants. More on this in a bit.

This aposiopesis has several roots. First is mixing shamanistic analysis with regular analysis. The Press is certainly an anima. Absolutely. Power (kratia) is not an anima. Power is joules per second. Joules are force times distance. If you can't write the detailed position function x(t) then you don't understand Power. 

Moldbug vs. Junk DNA. Alleged scientist: "I can't find a function for this, therefore it has no function."
MAGA rioters get arrested, while Fascist rioters don't. "I can't see why therefore I don't need to explain it."

Moldbug has gone full climatologist. If you think the Earth is doing funky climate things and you're a real scientist, the first thing you check is what Jupiter is doing. Nature is generously providing you with a control, and it's rude not to take advantage of it. If you're a climatologist, you become a lady and protest way too much in the pages of Wikipedia. Jupiter might be tracking Earth's temperature kink for kink but that's Definitely Not Important due to Reasons.
Likewise Moldbug is a Fascist who is loves Fascists but is quite done with Fascism. Thus there must be some very clever reason Fascists keep doing the Fascism. Sure, it's fun to play with toy theories and likewise it's an interesting intellectual exercise to work out why exactly Zuckbook censors so close to the party line, but...well, more on this in a bit.

What would really happen should Zuckerberg or Dorsey start countermanding the traitors in their organization? I figure Zuck would be fired by the board he allegedly controls. Alternatively they have or can invent blackmail material on Zuck. Accuse him of Russian collusion. Zuck doesn't exactly have tens of millions of loyal potential-rioters who might get pissed about this. 

If this wouldn't work it's clear that he would be blocked by Visa and Paypal, the same way Gab is. Lose all his advertisers and so on. Remember all business in America is in violation of the law, as per anarcho-tyranny. If you pay your dues to the Party, then you don't get prosecuted. Rebel, and suddenly the investigators start noticing your irregularities. If Zuck can't be prosecuted for anything, certainly his advertisers can be found to have hostile work environments or whatever it takes. Often they don't even need to be this ham-handed. American businesses suffer lawsuits constantly. All they have to do is stop ruling in favour of favoured corporations. 

The Press, likewise, is controlled. It is normal for the Press to commit treason or break various secret acts. Should any paper dare to cross the Party, all they have to do is start prosecuting them for these crimes. 

If we're being proper shaman, the ultimate conclusion is Fascists gonna Fasc. America is a theocracy. It has a Pope. (A psycho Pope, natch.) The Pope is Fascist. Anyone who isn't Fascist gets excommunicated, because the Army is Fascist and backs the Pope. Who is the Pope? In this sense, Moldbug's intuition can sort of be rescued. It doesn't matter who the Pope is. Sure you could find him, attack him, and take him down, but the Army would remain Fascist (it's full of peasants, after all) and would only accept a new Fascist as Pope. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

However, there very certainly is a Pope, and he determines how far the party line goes. In particular he ensures nobody goes so far the Army is alienated and starts to doubt Fascism. Otherwise the alleged-holiness spirals would have given us tranny tyranny in the 50s. Further, the Pope finesses that line real hard. At least as tight as the joins in the Pyramids. He is exceptionally skilled. The Army is always on the verge of feeling betrayed enough to desert en masse, but never quite crosses that line. 

Russia and China may or may not be theocracies. Probably not? They have Popes anyway. Their Popes are not Fascist. Thus Pussy Riot gets beaten, arrested, and forgotten. Inexplicably this doesn't make the Russian Press act the slightest bit hungry. At worst, China's Pope is subordinate to a nu-Stalin.

Similarly we can see that places like the Philippines, Rwanda, Uruguay, Poland, and Hungary reject the Party the moment they think they can get away with it. The very instant America's force projection falters, they start rolling rightward. Cthulu always swims left as long as there's a literal gun to its head. 

What happens if you attack America's Pope? It doesn't work, because Fascism. The only way to make the Pope's defeat Official is to change public opinion. More precisely, to wrench the Army's loyalty away from the Pope. However, the Army can't understand that their Pope is the Pope. The Pope told them they think for themselves, and they obediently believe this is the case. To get them to sit down and listen long enough to teach them they're in fact ignorant, stupid peasants, you have to already be the Pope. 

Thus you only succeed in letting the psycho lords know you're a genuine threat. "He knows what's going on, shiiiiiiiiit~" Then they tell Hillary that you have evidence that might lead to her arrest, and then... They rely heavily on security by obscurity and piercing this will bring you right to the top of their to-do list. Sure you'll inconvenience the Papacy, but little else. If you can figure out who the Pope is, so can his enemies, and thus they coordinate a nice coup and usurp the office. Usurpers are more American than apple pie. You're already dead at this point, though.

Why is America biologically fucked? Because this hack is undoubtedly the best American writer. I've looked for decades for someone better than Moldbug, and found none. Is this good enough? This is not even remotely good enough.
You may think YouTube comments and Twitter replies are made primarily by idiot 13 year olds. Haha, nope. Average Americans aren't even fluent in English, let alone current events, let alone history.

"You would think no grownup could take this shit seriously. You would reckon poorly with history!"

On the contrary, it is exactly true that no grownup could take it seriously. Most Americans take it seriously, and the conclusion is left as an exercise for the reader.
Prusisan school is specifically and consciously designed to have this result. No grownup would be surprised that it in fact does.

BTW when Moldbug says he won't leave America, he's lying. If it becomes sensible he'll be out in a heartbeat. Pure signalling.

America is Biologically Fucked

"The real reason this could never happen is a reason you’ll like: they are simply not capable of it. They suck too much. And it’s just a biological fact—you can mutate bad ideas, but you can’t mutate suck. Huge sighs of relief are heard all over Berkeley."

Problem: Berkeley also sucks too much. Haha, oops. 

The design for America's government calls for 0 lords. No workable government can be formed using 0 lords. 

The nearest workable design to America's government calls for 100 lords where only 10 are available. Even if we imagined they fully exploited the available lordship resources, the system would have to adapt to having 90 non-lords in lord positions. It would attempt to need only 10 lords. These changes would make the remaining 10 lords uncomfortable, and they would leave. Lords have options, by definition. This is why the design calls for 0 lords. 

The aristocratic population can roughly be modelled as a constant. Only the peasant population grows. World population has decupled in the last 200 years. Indeed, perhaps saying there are 10 lords for every 100 demands for a lord is optimistic. Perhaps the last time there were enough lords was about 1300, meaning you're looking at 5 at best, give or take differential casualties in WWI. If education is a factor, 1 or fewer.

Although you can find a few lower nobles (barons or knights) born to the lower orders, you will essentially never find a duke or prince born into a peasant family. Even if you did they would go insane from loneliness and total dearth of challenge. On the plus side, even in modern times, the four horsemen are deeply prejudiced against the peasants. Sooner or later the problem will solve itself. We don't have to wait for the glacial aristocratic breeding cycle to catch up to the peasant's head start.

 

America's government is actively hostile to lordship, because the peasants are jealous and insecure. In other words, bureaucracy is about covering your ass and never taking responsibility, which gives hives to most real lords.

There are some psychopathic lords in the workings anyway, which allow it to sort of function. Turns out psychos are psychotic, so only the parts directly serving their sadistic amusement get maintained. For example, working ""for"" the IRS makes graft especially simple, and as a result it runs smooth as butter, even though tax receipts are almost meaningless to USG's budget. As for the rest, the peasants LARPing as lords create problems, because they can't think for themselves, and then desperately, hopelessly, try to patch them up. You can see the results in a newspaper. If you're into that sort of prurience.

'Diversity is our strength' => 'Let's try to steal everyone else's lords.' Problem: the lords don't want to come. They're already living large in their own countries. America offers them more money in exchange for less status. Yeah, good luck with that. (And the system can't use them even if they did take it.) Basically, you get bastards and wannabes. Not only that, but due to Fascism, you can't filter out the lower orders. Peasants, man, I tell ya. Meanwhile the psycho lords are allowing it because strangers and aliens vote democrat. Makes the elections almost look honest most of the time.

In some kind of prank by Fate, many of these peasants are sharp as a tack, and would be more than enough if they could only break away from their irresponsible bovine herd instincts. However, they can't. A smart cow makes smart milk. (Drinking it makes you feel smart or something.) The cow cannot be the lion. No policy or ideology short of Flood-level divine intervention can prevent America's auto-buggery.

It is darkly amusing to see alleged rightists worry about the birth rate on other continents when the birth problem was insolubly bad centuries ago. Certainly you can argue that these peasants are worse than those proles or whatever, but the Titanic is already listing. No sane lord is stupid enough to take responsible custodianship of the stinking, sinking wreck it pleases America to call a country.