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This is my favorite piece you've written to date. It is particularly powerful to conceive of reality as a force exerting itself on deceit. On a mundane level, I'm nearly certain this is something most people can relate to, especially given the old sayings like "the truth always comes out" and, very applicable to what you've written here, "the truth will set you free." Yet, I'm now considering that perhaps the extent to which adages such as these are applied to the consequences of bureaucracy (such as the incident in East Palestine, OH you noted) in the minds of those earnestly attempting to understand the truth behind such atrocities may be limited due to the counterintuitive nature of applying this particular conception of the nature of reality to phenomenons such as LSB. It is perhaps more intuitive to assume foul play or malicious intent, when in fact large scale incompetence and reluctance toward acknowledgements of the truth motivated by perverse incentives is likely much more common. A huge white pill for me is that, in the end, the truth about the reactor not only came out, but all attempts to expose it out of genuine concern for humanity were not in vain. The truth did matter. It does matter. Speaking the truth matters, even if the effects of doing so and the freedoms that come with it are not seen in the speaker's lifetime. Excellent job on this!

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This concept of a reality debt seems extremely important - of very wide applicability at a very high level of abstraction. I'm going to have to think about this for a while. It's quite obviously true, I feel that in my gut, but the underlying mechanism needs to be described.

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Lies increase aggregate systematic and random error within the system.

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And the more insulated from the costs of error folk are, the higher the level of efficient (for them) self-deception. https://helendale.substack.com/p/self-deceptive-rationalising-moralisers

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This is a great article, such an important concept that clearly has an outsized influence on our psychology but very difficult to communicate.

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Mar 19, 2023
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Thank you for sharing this. I do think this fits right in with perception vs. reality paradigm. The managers are able to obtain credit and move on while the perception that the existing code is viable drifts further from the reality of accumulating technical debt. After reading John Carters comment I think another useful way to look at it is that lies increase the observational error (delta between measured value and true value) within a system. Perception can be thought of as a measured value while reality is the true value. Astute observers have more precise tools of measurement (perception), but in bureaucracy the insulation from the consequences of failure causes a systematic prioritization of ignoramuses and liars over such individuals.

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Fantastic essay, and your title should become a popular catchphrase to describe the state of our culture: "Late Stage Bureaucracy." That's the best description I've heard yet for what we see around us now. Death by bureaucracy, with the HR Karens and DEI commisars strangling the life out of once productive institutions, inverting the natural order by elevating talentless grifters above the competent and virtuous. Hope we can course correct before we run into our own version of Chernobyl, though it wpuld take a mass awakening of the American people to demand that kind of change from our illegitimate and parasitic ruling class (and it would probably require a Chernobyl-like catastrophe to trigger such an awakening, unfortunately).

Also, thanks for the reminder that I need to read Mises!

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Great piece!

"It is still possible for the bureaucracy to be dismantled in a manner consistent with the U.S. Constitution."

Grant Smith

"America is faced with a phenomenon that the framers of the Constitution did not foresee and could not foresee: the voluntary abandonment of congressional rights. Congress has in many instances surrendered the function of legislation to government agencies and commissions..."

Ludwig von Mises, _Bureaucracy_

Mises was talking about what we now call the Deep State. We could view Trump as an experiment in whether the Administrative State could ever be dismantled. It will never dismantle itself, of course; given the left's control of the media, do the Deep State and its media minions have enough power to prevent any attempts to dismantle it?

"There is no compromise possible between these two systems. Contrary to a popular fallacy there is no middle way, no third system possible as a pattern of a permanent social order. The citizens must choose between capitalism and socialism..."

Ludwig von Mises, Bureaucracy

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I haven't read it in a long time, but this book was instrumental in keeping me sane during my early years in the Army. Thank you for providing these relevant quotes!

Trump does play a role in all this. I think of him as one of those things the elite didn't have to worry about because it could never happen. If it happened once, it can happen again. Also, I'm not positive he couldn't be more successful given another crack at it.

In any case, I do see a duly elected President aggressively dismantling the permanent bureaucracy to the greatest extent allowed by law (an extend that would melt the minds of the managerial elite) as our best chance of a controlled transition out of this bureaucratic nightmare. You can say it is a long shot, but I don't think anyone can say it is completely impossible. There is no structural reason that it is completely impossible, although there are plenty of reasons that it is unlikely. I feel that freedom loving Americans are obligated to at least try, if only because doing so is a logical requirement of anyone who considers themselves to be freedom loving or American.

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"I'm not positive he [Trump] couldn't be more successful given another crack at it."

Yes, it seemed at times that he was not prepared, perhaps did not expect, the opposition and machinations of the Deep State. He probably would do better next time, especially if he were supported by the election of some more "populist" Republicans. And agreed, all freedom loving Americans should hold out hope for as long as there is some.

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That's where I think DeSantis would be much more effective. Trump seemed to get hamstrung by his own personnel much of the time. I think DeSantis would be a much more competent manager in terms of appointing the right people and keeping them accountable for making needed changes, as well as beating the Left at its favorite game of "lawfare."

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I can't disagree. Trump was an outsider to the game of politics. Being a politician and governor of a big state is different.

Of course, being a politician and governor of a big state makes DeSantis an insider. I for one will not ever really trust another Republican politician.

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best case is that he's a pragmatist. His congressional record wasn't particularly populist.

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Perhaps a disaster of similarly epic proportions is the only catalyst capable of shattering the illusory constellation of perceptions advanced by The Cathedral.

I think that's what it's going to take. If covid didn't wake them up, nothing can wake them up. Some people just can't be saved.

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I feel that it is our duty to attempt to parlay the COVID catastrophe into a shattering of illusions to the greatest extent possible. If we fail, I have little doubt disasters of increasingly epic proportions will ensue until one does the trick or enemy achieves their decisive point.

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Have you been able to wake anyone up? I can't even get through to my family. This is why I'm pessimistic.

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Yes, I can think of a couple people off the top of my head, not very many to be sure, but every individual counts. One that I can share is that my father read The Real Anthony Fauci which has fully persuaded him of the lunacy of everything COVID. That said, he still has TDS from watching too much MSM which alienates him from the populist political base that I believe is a necessary component of any viable solutions to the problems outlined in that book.

Aside from waking people up personally, I can tell you that a great many people have become aware of the true scale and scope of the problems we face as a result of COVID. In terms of military members alone there are many that had some degree of trust in the system prior to the 1-2 punch of the Afghanistan withdrawal and draconian COVID authoritarianism. I would estimate that some thousands have now been disabused of that notion. I think that the majority of Americans understand on some level what we face, but that there are significant obstacles erected by the establishment to ensure that this doesn't translate into meaningful political change. To sum up, I think we have a majority that are awake in America and that the real challenge is translating this popular anti-establishment sentiment into meaningful political solutions in 2024 and beyond.

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I hope you're right, man. Everyone sees different pieces of the elephant, and the piece I'm seeing is self-satisfied and seemingly incapable of learning. I would love it if we could fix things through the established channels, but everything I see leads me to believe that they're hopelessly corrupt.

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Many are hopelessly corrupt, but they probably aren't the majority. Billions of dollars are being spent/sacrificed by government, big tech, and other institutions to make it look like these sniveling shitweasels are the majority. They understand what has been known by social psychologists for decades: Descriptive norms influence behavior more than almost any other single factor. The downside is that when the descriptive norms being broadcast aren't aligned with reality enough to "fake it till you make it", then a preference cascade is all but inevitable. Basically, you have to consider that a lot of resources have been expended to make you feel this way precisely because it inhibits your drive to take purposeful action that is not aligned with the norms being broadcast. There is good reason to hope.

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That's a fair point. They definitely benefit from a paralysis by pessimism. But like you said, action is really all that matters. Progressively overload everything.

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Do you think if the electronic media were shut off for a period of time, and more people would be forced to communicate in person, that more would see through the cloud of "expert" lies?

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You know, I don't think the problem is electronic media, although it does have a vulnerability that is being exploited. Due to the incestuous relationship between big tech and government, there are very powerful fingers that are able to apply pressure to the scales of digital discourse. This vulnerability can be mitigated in person, but that doesn't mean there aren't also ways around it online. If people could realize that institutionally bound sources of information only serve to advance the interests of those corrupted institutions, I think they would have everything they need to start working to better align their own perception with reality. Independent sources where you feel confident that you can discern the motivations of that source are best whether digital or in-person. For example, trusting a pediatrician when they recommend a covid vaccine for your 6-month old isn't any better than getting such a recommendation off the CDC website, even if the message was communicated in person.

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All true. What I see is that we are all being carpet bombed with a cacophony, of real information, useless clickbait, and propaganda that has dulled the sense of discernment and mental discipline. Few people can control their urge to watch, read, consume, play, "just one more level". But with real conversations, real in person interactions, the ability to use those extra subconscious senses to know when we are being lied to, is preferred. The challenge is getting more "people to realize", that reality is right there in front of them, if they'd connect with real people instead of digital avatars.

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Good article. I would argue that we don't have capitalism in the US currently. We have a form of soft socialism. We are currently heavily under attack by communism (Russian and China working together). Most of our levers of power have been taken the highest levels. This includes esg, equity, and woke crt marxist ideas dominating education, medical, military, judicial, and large corporations. Plus fentanyl being pushed (largest killer of fighting age men), borders being overrun, etc. The war is just not kenetic yet. Lots of folks blame the globalists but the globalists are pawns of the Communists.

"The U.S.S.R. collapsed shortly after the disaster at Chernobyl, and Mikhail Gorbachev has stated that the two events are related... "

you might look into JR Nyquist.

https://jrnyquist.blog/2023/02/21/the-politics-of-biological-warfare-and-the-inversion-of-blame-part-ii/

He is an excellent geo-political analyst. The dissolution of the Soviet empire was a ruse and the Soviet/Sino split was a trick as well. You can see all this playing out in real time today. Also there are leaked Chinese General Chi documents about using bio weapons to take over the US.

also see New Lies For Old a book by Anatoliy Golitsy

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I will check it out, but my intuition says that the ideology is varied, but the mechanism to enact it is the same. Whether nominally communist, fascist, or full throated advocate for stakeholder capitalism, bureaucracy is the mechanism needed to achieve the ideologically motivated unconstrained vision. The vision that promises perception can be made to supplant reality. Of course, you could also just broadly call all of this stuff communism, I just think that is a bit of a stretch, although I do think this is how boomers use the term.

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Ha. Boomers. Try this one which explains the root of the problem better and also read the comments. https://jrnyquist.blog/2023/03/11/the-triumph-of-misdirection/ Lenin’s playbook is complex.

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What we have in the United States is crony capitalism. Or, to put it another way, gains are privatized, losses socialized (but only for the connected).

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Excellent piece, Grant. I found your Substack from the recommendation of Rob Henderson and it was well worth taking the time to look into your work.

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Thanks for reading and for the kind feedback Devin!

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"To be highminded is to hold and articulate the luxury beliefs of the elite. To be highly educated is to hold some higher degree or credential than the average American. A midwit teacher can loudly proclaim that with her Masters degree she is more capable and qualified of caring for children than any parent without."

The trick to making such people trip over their own feet is to expose the internal contradictions in their beliefs.

For example, ask that midwit teacher whether her master's degree automatically makes her a superior parent than a transgender Latina undocumented immigrant with no formal educational credentials.

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The tricky ones will retreat into postmodernism where the caudatious demand for consistency is obvious evidence of racist white supremacy.

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Try talking to normies about federalism and they look at you like you asked them to just try on this white hood and hold this torch.

Seriously, I have better luck with COVID, culture war issues, anything. I have never once gotten anyone to agree or even consider a strengthening of federalism

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That's a good point. It doesn't help that the American elite called the real federalist "anti-federalists" from the start. Also, what is persuasive to normies is distinct from what is persuasive the introspective minority. That is made very clear in a new stack I'm just getting into https://open.substack.com/pub/neofeudalism/p/on-the-nature-and-crafting-of-belief?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android My other bias is showing here because I'm accustomed to talking to military people who swore an oath to the constitution, so they at least have to act like they know what federalism is. So many these days don't even care about the constitution, different priors require different arguments. For a great many though the only thing that matters is norms...

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Great essay, nonetheless!

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Very glad you enjoyed it!

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Really good essay, Grant. Lots to chew over and digest.

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In as few words as it gets: the reality will win, its victory is sealed. The unanswered question remains that of final body count.

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I cited this helpful essay of yours in my own recent discussion of bureaucratic pathologies.

https://helendale.substack.com/p/diversity-inclusion-equity-as-bureaucratic

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Yes.

Some points.

1. We are a Hegemony because of our matchless geography, which under any government should remain intact, I do not mean this one (which is feudalism in a Federal skin and more inertia than government). I mean do not allow the breakup of the nation, not to the point of internal enemy states and their inevitable foreign allies. The Eurasians would either dismember and exterminate us gleefully or we them. Attn - Southerners and Exiteers- this formula for Wars of unknown and unlimited horror.

2. 🇺🇸Competence is yet in plentiful supply, denied it’s place and HIDING from Karen and HR.

3. True Hard Hope; we are reindustrializing “in a Tidal Wave.”

4. You and we 🇺🇸 need allies- here.

https://a16z.com/american-dynamism-50/?mkt_tok=MzgyLUpaQi03OTgAAAGItX0ntb3rdfKiQDJ4ZdjV9yiKe6fM0lgx3EwUAIQAMX_0Z53sTByIjLT5p0DMpctPjgyaebwoM0WwSryxDEW2yZfie-tNEkhjHhcYM7QvzIjuPg

5. In a choice between the Earth and the Open Sky , America must choose the Open Sky.

(Or Earth gets nuked, and no we’re not innocent).

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"The people doing the labeling are the same type of people that would’ve turned all of Ukraine into a radioactive wasteland in 1986."

They still may yet, turn Ukraine into a radioactive wasteland.

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8 year term limits for Federal bureaucrats. Best feasible specific step, now. Yes to federalism, but that requires…what, exactly?

Late Stage Bureaucracy is a fine name for elite based messes we are living thru- tho most folks’ lives are pretty good.

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