The Network State Nightmare

A Critique of Technocratic Primacy

Billionaire technocrats like Peter Thiel and Balaji Srinivasan promote "network states," AI-monitored corporate monarchies inspired by neo-reactionary ideology.
Military theorist John Robb legitimizes network states, arguing that traditional governance is too slow for modern polycrisis challenges.
Robb frames network states as high-performance governance akin to AI-stabilized fighter jets but ignores their inherent authoritarian risks.
He praises Musk for preventing a "stability model" of network states in the US while overlooking the self-interest behind Musk and Thiel's alternative model.
The push for network states threatens democracy, concentrating power in the hands of billionaire-controlled AI systems with no public accountability.

There's a handful of technocratic billionaires with some cooky ideas, and a bank roll that can make anything happen. Names like Mark Andreesen, Peter Thiel and Balaji Srinivasan have taken a cue from some neo-reactionary (NRx) corners of the web for a corporate monarchy enforced by AI surveillance.

Their followers are nerd futurists who expect an imminent techno driven collapse of our current governance model, and eagerly wait to replace it with something more cybernetic and overtly oppressive. Between them, their circle has passed around books like Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson & Lord William Rees-Mogg, The Network State by Balaji Srinivasan, and Patchwork by Mencius Moldbug. While their ideas have been building for decades since the 80s, a lot of people dismiss it as crackpot pseudoscience, which it is, and carry on with their lives. But pseudo or not, they have the ear of powerful ultra wealthy elites who endorse their ideas. Worst case scenario reads from the dystopian futurist section aren't even on the radar of the everyday folks who are just worried about paying their bills. Folks are too busy trying to survive that they don't have time to care about technocratic oligarchy aspirants stepping on the throat of democracy to erect a dictatorship. Can't blame them. But it doesn't matter how bad some ideas are if there's no active opposition to it. Especially when it's funded by the casually wealthiest sector of nerds on the planet.

I.

So when I stumbled upon this source by John Robb my booty hole twitched. This is the kind of source that brings obscure ideas into mainstream acceptance as reality. Because he brings all of the dry calculated input of a military veteran, and he attests to the US attempt to build a network state.

John Robb's profile picture on Substack.

Enter John Robb. He earned his bachelor of science in astronautical engineering from the US Air Force Academy Honors Program in 1985. His career included work in counterterrorism with the United States Special Operations Command. That line of work would see Robb's expertise in El Salvador, Panama, Columbia, Turkey, and Egypt. After retiring from the air force as a captain in 1992, he would get his masters in public and private management from Yale University in 1995. In 2004 he put his extensive experience to use as a military theorist from his blog Global Guerillas, where he posted the article I'll be analyzing today: Prototyping The Network State.

He put it behind a minimum $5 paywall, but it's well worth the Washingtons. He presents a perspective on futurism that only someone with decades of experience keeping up with the progress of evolving culture and technologies at the intersection of military strategy could tell it.

In his recent article Prototyping the Network State, he gives his critique of current US progress on adopting the interstate. Long story short, he think it's cool but ineffective as it currently stands. But the important part to me is that he brushes over the concept of a network state expecting readers to know what it is. There's no argument made to gather evidence that it exists. He just critiques it under the assumption that it's real. Which it is, I've written about several of them online today.

II.

This is how John opens the discussion on the shape of the problem; with 3 succinct bullet points:

The US government is a system that has evolved to manage the nation-state. It was built to solve complicated problems—linear problems solvable through procedures, processes, analysis, etc. Its design optimizes stability, with limited control by politicians and bureaucrats.

However, the environment has changed. Globalization and networking have created a dynamic world that routinely generates complex problems — nonlinear problems that actively resist processes, procedures, and analysis (the polycrisis).

Worse, globalization and networking have also hollowed out the nation-state, leaving it with far less power and control than before the turn of the century. This weakness, in combination with the complexity of the environment, has led to repeated failures (the permacrisis).

Robb says a variety of things that hit me like a bag full of dead kittens. He starts his article by justifying network states with the concept of a polycrisis. Fancy word for a perfect storm of shit. Whether that combination comes as a plague, war, market crash, AI singularity, or some other combination of abominations is dealer's choice. But he's saying that the linear means of problem-solving used by people isn't good enough to meet the demands of tomorrow's complex problems. Many of which could happen at the same time or in close succession like a polycrisis.

He argues that because we're facing non-linear issues we need non-linear problem-solvers. Or a machine that can approach issues from multiple angles at once. A cybernetic transhumanist network state governance.

You might be asking, Derek what the fuck is a network state?

And that's how you got here, reader! By asking the right questions.

Network states were the seminal work of Curtis Yarvin (originally under the pen name Mencius Moldbug), philosophical father of Dark Enlightenment and the neo-reactionary (NRx) movement credited in many a terrorist's manifesto. A form of government ruled by a techno CEO dictator where poor people are used as biodiesel for the cars, or put in virtual reality prisons so the wealthy can enjoy the effects of mass murder without the social stigma of genocide. He said he was joking about the biodiesel thing though. I wrote a whole article about it that you can check out here:

Robb doesn't seem too concerned. Then again he's worked in counterterrorism around the world, so maybe he just doesn't flinch when he sees a group of crackpots gathering in dark corners of the world.

There's just one issue with his justification for a network state to overrule democratic processes to meet the demands of polycrisis. Governance plays a bigger role than "control," as he put it. Government also has a role protecting the interests of the public and their hold on democracy whereas a centralized technocratic network state does not. It's effectively a dictatorship under the prescriptions of Yarvin. Robb casually has no regard for democracy whatsoever. It's not a value in his perspective in the slightest. Its disappearance would be a casual and inconsequential collateral damage of the advancement of federal control and corporate technology.

Sure a computer can analyze the countless factors of an impending polycrisis better than any group of humans, but that doesn't mean the machine has to make those decisions alone. There's no strategic advantage to ripping the soul of humanity out of governance when the current state of AI is riddled with inherent bias, impossible to hold accountable due to its black box nature, and frequently hallucinates erroneous information. Completely trusting AI with your military would be a national suicide. And the only way to improve these areas are to directly train the AI. But who's going to train it? Their technocratic billionaire owners whose interests are at conflict with public interest?

If a network state could operate in a decentralized democratic model where their AI systems are managed and trained by the public collective I might be more on board. But as its presented by Dark Enlightenment sympathizers, these systems are primarily under the influence of a handful of folks that are more interested in data-harvesting and centralized power. A nation under AI surveillance managed by Mark Andreesen, Peter Thiel, or Elon Musk (which may already be happening) is completely out of the question for public safety.

Graphic by Truthdig. Images sourced via AP Photo and Adobe Stock

If we're going to introduce cybernetic problem-solving at the bureaucratic or military level then there has to remain an unquestionable human presence guardrailing the AI from doing something profoundly stupid. At least the way that technology exists today. Because people don't want government just for the sake of control, but to protect their public interests, and their democratic freedom.

III.

Robb goes on to present the evolution of traditional governance to a network state with the following three bullet points:

We have traditionally optimized aircraft design (fuselage, wings, tail, etc.) for stability — planes that like to fly straight and level. This stability makes it possible for a pilot to make adjustments by hand fast enough to control the aircraft in most flight conditions (bad weather, adverse winds, etc.).

However, stability isn’t the goal in a competitive combat environment, it’s maneuverability and performance. To increase the performance of an aircraft, we need to add instability to the design of the airframe. Adding instability increases its performance at a cost of stability.

The problem is that when we add instability into an aircraft’s design, it quickly becomes uncontrollable by a human pilot. To fix that shortfall, a computer system (fly by wire) is used to make the millisecond inputs necessary to stabilize and control the plane (translating what the pilot wants to do into action).

John phrases the priority of network state development as being advantageous for rapid decision-making the way a machine-piloted fighter jet exceeds the human limitations of a traditional fighter jet. Associating stability with traditional governance, and instability with the advantages of governance powered by machine learning, he makes the case that stability is a necessary sacrifice to secure the country.

Except removing the pilot is only presents an illusion that the machine has no human influence. Being trained by humans, the machine inherently contains the biases of its creators. If governance is merely control then policy is merely software, and the machine is merely following orders from an exclusive circle of corporate elites. There may be no pilot, but that doesn't mean there's no man in the background dictating the machine's judgement. And if that humanity isn't the greater public at large then we inherently have a conflict of interest.

Plus, stability isn't a bug in the system. It's a feature of a free democratic society. The everyday people paying their bills and keeping up with their social obligations have no regard for your political model if they can't live their lives in peace. Stability isn't a factor that can be afforded as an option. It's the point. Without stability we have no future worth looking forward to, because there's no mechanism to prevent authoritarian overreach without it.

The cost of over-optimization is a risk US citizens can't afford. High-performance at the expense of soul has the same risks on a fighter jet as the platform Americans live their daily lives on. They can both go boom. With the hyper-optimization of a machine piloted fighter jet sure you get better results most of the time. But the consequences of their errors can be massive compared to the errors of a plane piloted by a single man. Likewise, governance without the stability of human discernment risks rapid collapse, which mankind wouldn't be prepared to mitigate at the speeds a machine would execute those techno authoritarian problems.

IV.

The military theorist brings us to a juicy illustration on how network states have been attempted around the world today, and how the US tried to test one out:

China pioneered the stability model of the network state. It uses networks to control speech, behavior (social credit scores) and exposure to outside contagion (the Great Firewall). During the last US administration, there was an attempt to utilize this stability model to moderate political outcomes (censorship, bans, probes, lawfare, etc.).

The stability model's goal is network alignment—a network of people, corporations, and organizations that share the same way of thinking (the same norms, standards, goals, etc.). Alignment reduces environmental complexity, making it easier for legacy institutions to solve problems and function normally. However, network state alignment also reduces innovation and creativity due to its inherent resistance to novelty production and unauthorized thinking.

The attempt to use this model in the US failed (mainly due to Musk’s acquisition of X). The jury is still out on China. However, the long-term prospects are bleak. Narrowing thought down to a narrow orthodoxy will likely eliminate the innovation China needs to keep pace with the rest of the world. Worse, it may fall into a tyranny (a long night of AI-fueled network control) so complete that it would make Big Brother blush.

The Air Force veteran proceeds to compare what he phrases as the stability model and the performance model of network states that have been attempted so far.

China's authoritarian surveillance state is a pioneering example of the network state stability model. Upheld by state-issued orthodoxy, China's social guardrails on exponential machine growth include network controls like constriction of speech, behavior management through social credit scores, and social homogeneity through what Robb refers to as "the Great Firewall." He argues that the state's self-imposed limitations simultaneously keeps their society in tact while also impeding their advancement on the international arena by slowing their own techno progress and innovation with narrow thinking.

Robb adds that the US has experimented with the stability model during Twitter's pre-Musk era through censorship, bans, deplatforming, et cetera. He even praises Elon Musk for sparing the US from the rise of this version of the network state with his purchase of Twitter. A statement that's going to age like curdled chocolate milk in a glass of red wine.

Except what he's referring to as a stability model of the network state in the US comes with no evidence that it was implemented by the government instead of political figures meeting pushback from two fronts: between public social pressure and corporate interests. Aside from Donald Trump being banned from social media platforms by their owners, I can only remember examples of exclusion through collective social pressure.

As public disapproval for certain ideas rose because people began to pushback with social exclusion. Something that already happens without technology. Robb refers to social networks as part of the governing model, but I view that as a conflation. Because no one is immune to the social consequences of their actions. Distinguishing federal and public reactions to speech is critical to understanding the scope of freedom of speech which exists to protect citizens from federal retaliation: not social.

Peter Paul Rubens - Saint Michael expelling Lucifer and the Rebellious Angels, 1622

Robb's performance model of the network state is the US version currently being developed by the Trumpian Musk rule. Particularly through their DOGE initiative to streamline government by cutting what they perceive to be wasteful agency budgets and dissenting federal agents.

Naturally, I don't think they've been streamlining anything except their self-interest with anti-competitive practices and competitor sabotage bordering on antitrust violations. Effectively 40% of DOGE cuts haven't saved a single dollar, and their website had to be edited after their top-saving cuts were debunked as misinformation. An accuracy rate that's so bad it's almost like they're missing on purpose. Because saving money isn't actually their goal. That's just a propaganda message to glaze over the fact that they're sabotaging political and corporate opponents for their personal convenience.

For example, Musk has openly admitted to falsely accusing Verizon of putting US air safety as risk in 2023 to sabotage their $2.4 billion FAA contract: no mask. Today POTUS is granting that contract to his ally, Elon Musk, despite data showing Musk's company isn't prepared to meet the communication needs of the FAA. They're not aiming to make the US more dynamic against polycrisis. They're aiming to economically exploit the federal contracts, and remove obstacles to their authoritarian expansion of their power, out of self-interest. Which sounds oddly like the type of waste and fraud that DOGE should be protecting us from.

What's more, Robb is hitting us with a false dichotomy between stability and performance. Unsurprising for a blogger that ends their article on the notion that network states will come with bursts of authoritarianism. A notion he explains with no concern or urgency whatsoever. But stability and performance aren't mutually exclusive. Exploding fighter jets victim to instability are a waste of federal dollars, and liability to national security. Similarly, government instability lubricates authoritarian overreach. Something Robb seems to be aware of with no complaints.

Rather than stability and performance being diametrically opposed, they're the two wings of government in the single ascent to democracy. We need the government to be both effective, and stable enough to protect against democratic erosion.

**Icarus, from The Four Disgracers** by Hendrick Goltzius (1588)

V.

Our military theorist goes on to mention the benefits of something he called the network spoils system. Essentially allowing viral social media personalities to qualify innovation into policy. He's under no naivete that this will lead to frequent political vacuums where agents, policies, and programs are gutted and replaced with every transition of the executive office using the popular culture of their viral influencers. Which seems to imply that social media virality equates to social proof for collective ideas.

First, political vacuums are inherently destabilizing and present a path for authoritarianism to take hold. In fact, the CIA knows this and deliberately destabilizes countries possessing resources the US wants with the same political vacuums Robb describes. In so doing, they present opportunities for elections they can manipulate to hopefully change the hands holding power to someone that aligns with their trade interests avoiding an all out military conflict. Something Robb doesn't deny with the next and last sentence of his article:

"While this reduces government resistance to tribal attempts to govern, it will increase turmoil and likely generate bursts of authoritarianism."

He just doesn't phrase it as a bad thing. But I'd imagine there are a lot of Americans that want to avoid authoritarianism and protect what's left of democracy. Which is the last thing protecting our personal freedoms. Neo-Nazi accelerationists are well aware of the benefits to their agenda that destabilization presents, which I've written more about here:

Robb's vision of the network spoils system is that social media influencers, in their virality, become the new arbiters of policy coordinating tribalism into status quo. The problem with virality as political process is that it's inherently disconnected from neutrality and discernment.

Virality is built on dopamine-addicting metrics of engagement that bubble over doomer sentiments and political polarization. Back in the day we used to say "if it bleeds it reads," to describe what gets ratings in journalism. Today the Information Age magnifies that phenomenon exponentially. You have to exploit strong emotions in people to generate fast engagement. Making people mad is the most frictionless route to make that happen. Any political party worth its salt is going to have a diversity of opinions on any meaningful subject. And there should be. That diversity protects us from narrow and circular thinking. When a group is unanimous on serious issues you're not looking at a mere political party anymore. That's an organized conspiracy to hijack government from the people. Your ranks should have some type of minority of some idea. That would be evidence of an organic collective. Evidence of honest humanity.

And mainstream social media networks are deep-coded with the preferences and whims of their technocratic owners. We have evidence that Musk multiplies the weight of his account account on Twitter's feed in 2023, as well as algorithmically reducing visibility of posts he perceives to be negative just this last January. We can't trust elites like this to become oligarchs of our society where they can shape our beliefs.

The only way I can see the network spoils system as having any grasp of democratic legitimacy is if it were to happen on a truly secure decentralized platform devoid of centralized ownership and influence. Something like Nostr, Mastodon, or Bluesky. Places where ideas collect organically through the meaningful connections built by real people instead of the preferences of elites with a few silent keystrokes.

The advantage of decentralized social media platforms is that they're hosted on private servers around the world by individuals or groups that care about autonomy and personal data privacy. They're resistant to government and corporate shutdowns and censorship because they're organized and hosted by neither. Everyone who wants to see democracy compete with these accelerationist technocrats for the future of society needs to hop on privacy-by-design software to close the curtain on billionaire-owned data panopticons that make us vulnerable to exploitation. I've written more on the war between democracy and technocracy which you can read about here:

VI.

Although John Robb and I have extremely opposing views on whether network states or technocratic primacy is a good or bad thing, I have to thank him for legitimizing a discussion that's usually dismissed as the mumblings of niche internet crackpots. Network states are real.

Billionaires like Peter Thiel are making sure of it. He's one of the founders of Pronomos, a capital fund dedicated to the development of network states. Their roster includes network states like Praxis, Prospera, Itana, Afropolitan, Palau, and Yung Drung City. It's public information that no one's talking about. Well elites are talking about it with their simps at nerd conventions. And none of those discussions include democracy. The rest of us need to catch up, and contribute our voice while we're still free to do so.

by Derek Guzman

Independent journalist in tech, art, and philosophy

A Critique of Technocratic Primacy

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by Derek Guzman

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