The hopium Austrian

The lessons of a barbecue in South America: reflections on freedom, technology and the struggle for independence

One goal of my trip in South America is to open myself up to everything that comes my way. I record the interesting and instructive experiences so that posterity can learn from them.

Optimistic plea
Yesterday I encountered an Austrian at a barbecue, as it is called here an ‘asado’, organised by Bitcoin enthusiasts. He approached me with a very enthusiastic and optimistic story. Government is said to have lost its grip on public discourse as more and more people inform themselves through social media. Local communication networks are breaking away from the state-driven media – people are starting to inform themselves more independently.

He added that weapon production can also be increasingly decentralised: rebels in Myanmar, for example, are said to be making their own weapons with software that a German has made freely available to everyone. So if a government becomes tyrannical, there would be more opportunities for citizens to resist.

Realistic rebuttals
The Austrian said this with a look that sparkled with hope and drive. A minute wrinkle appeared on his face when I immediately said that these points are easy to refute.

To start with the point about decentralised communication. Think back to the time when everyone and his mother was illegally downloading movies. The whole world was familiar with torrents and Pirate Bay: this ran from Pyongyang in North Korea to Moscow, New York and Amsterdam. On construction sites, people walked around with DVDs of illegally downloaded series, and in offices at multinationals they went around on USBs.

“They will never be able to prohibit this” – was the cry at the time – “because this is far too widespread. It is branched out all over the world and all walks of life engage in this.”

And yet now, 10 to 15 years later, this practice is pretty much completely killed. Let us proceed to draw a comparison with political activism and government-critical discourse. Compared to the fans of illegal films, series and music, that really is a small fringe club. So much easier to track and monitor.

On top of this, since the government went on a rampage in corona time – and before that, of course, this was already going on with the Yellow Jackets, and more recently again with the Farmers’ protests – the secret services have been tracking the people in question for a long time. Moreover, the development of AI makes it possible to plough through tapped data gigantically fast. By using humans, this job outstretches the capacity of governments much quicker.

Comparison with streaming services
The Austrian was still hopeful and enthusiastic. “The comparison with Pirate Bay is not correct,” he said. “Streaming services have marketed themselves better and made themselves more attractive to consumers. This has pushed illegal downloading into the background. It has little to do with government repression.”

This rebuttal is not actually a rebuttal. Because illegal downloading is about having access to all the information that has ever been relevant. Is about having large amounts of data available to the people. Streaming services, on the other hand, work with a temporal framework: a changing selection that rotates. So they determine what is relevant, and the subscriber has to follow. This makes the subscriber vulnerable to the political programming that those woke companies propagate.

Moreover – streaming services are essentially feudal, because they turn consumers into loaners: “You will own nothing and be happy.” Streaming services normalise a world where only multinationals still own and where citizens have everything on loan. So it is not at all a good thing that they have become so popular – quite the contrary! That construction worker who walked around with that DVD under his arm back then, can still watch that DVD today. Even if the film on it no longer fits today’s woke-time image.

Fireworks
What I had brought in so far was just the preamble – now come the real fireworks. However, I do want to concede that communication is indeed decentralized. And also that ‘small cores’ of government-critical people who communicate relatively intensively with each other are emerging more quickly. But as soon as you want to reach the wider masses from that small resistance core, you first run into shadow bans, limited views bans and digital traps. As soon as you want to become your own collective, you get the secret services all over you and it’s GG. Good Game and, with other words: Game Over.

The Austrian’s face began to show subtle signs of worry. Doctor Sid was only just warming up. We moved on to the point of ‘truth-seeking’, ‘debunking’, or what is called, ‘investigative journalism’.

Aha-Experience
“You think,” I explained, “that if you just uncover enough data, just expose enough corruption and present facts to the public, that the broad masses will come to understand; that there will be some kind of ‘Aha-Experience’ (Aha-Erlebnis) and that things will then change.

But of course that is not the case – and we have known this ever since the ‘clap for healthcare’ and the subsequent walk-out of politicians from parliament when it came to voting for healthcare pay rises. Or when it came to Prime-Minister Rutte and his ‘controlled growing group immunity’. Or that the Provincial Council elections in 2019 revolved around stopping the Climate Bill, after which that Climate Bill was rammed through by the cartel parties one day before the newly elected Senate was installed. Not to mention the result of the Ukraine Referendum (strongly opposed) and that there is now a Ukrainian flag flying on every government building…

In short: the masses have known for a long time that they are being taken for a ride and they have abandoned the question of truth. The question of truth is irrelevant to them: what they want is social benefits, staying friends at the golf club, the security of their mortgage.

They already know they are being lied to. “Exposing truth” backfires, because all those truth seekers are marginalised socially and economically. This practice is called "Negative social proof”. So the masses are conditioned to keep away from that truth-seeking as much as possible. After all, they don’t want to end up like Willem Engel: they want their mortgage!

So in the big picture, ‘investigative journalism’ and ‘presenting facts’ have rather a counterproductive deterrent effect. It teaches the masses to associate that with ‘enemies of the system’, and thus with no access to the system’s resources, and thus with fewer hot chicks around you. Those usually – sorry feminists – want the security, standard of living, financial stability and development opportunities that come along with government jobs and a central position within the system. The ideological struggle often leaves them indifferent. When a civil war or a palace revolution occurs and a new group of ‘alpha males’ emerges, they will join that new group.

Attempt to live in the truth
Now we come to Václav Havel – a crown jewel within my argument. This Czech dissident wrote the book Attempt to Live in Truth. In it, he gives the example of a greengrocer living in a communist country who has hung a poster in his shop with a slogan about the workers’ revolution. “Why is that hanging there?” Havel wonders. Does that greengrocer really believe in communist ideals?

That poster hangs there because it is a statement towards those in power. “I am accommodating, I won’t get in your way, leave me alone.” And it was exactly the same with QR codes and Jewish stars. Those didn’t help either, but serve as statements to publicly propagate leniency and conformism and thus to normalise those ‘qualities’ deeper socially. “We, the people, know that you, those in power, lie to us. But still we conform – this is the reality, the normality.”

I cited the examples of ‘clapping for healthcare’ and ‘controlled growing group immunity’ because they show that the lies and deception are no mystery. The deceptions have been shown to the people publicly and openly in all their abrasiveness – just think of Minister Grapperhaus’ (CDA) wedding. The masses know they are being lied to. Whether it’s about LGBTQ, Israel-Palestine, climate or Black Lives Matter: they think, “just tell me what the latest lie is, I don’t care about the truth, I’ll play along with the game, I’ll support the hype so I don’t get in trouble.”

Taking all this into account, in short it doesn’t matter a jot that it is more possible to participate in truth-telling on systems that support decentralised communication.

Surely disappointment, dejection and even mild panic were now showing on the Austrian’s face. It was clear that I had not exaggerated when I had so firmly and nonchalantly announced that “all these points are relatively easy to refute”. Therefore, fast forward to the third and decisive point: the decentralised production of weapons.

Weapons for the people?
Making weapons first and foremost hinges on the classic Marxist question: ‘Who owns the means of production?’ It is indeed possible for rebels in failed states to compete with governments, but it is different in countries with serious industrial capacity. It is likely that elites can churn out more drones and robot soldiers than citizens can pull plastic pistols and armour-piercing crossbows from their 3D printers.

Of course, it is not a single issue of ‘historical materialism’, as this Marxist approach might suggest. In other words, it is not only about means of production but also about willingness to fight and willingness to die. Are you prepared to take up arms, kill and die for what you feel deeply connected to?

Then we must return for a moment to the German philosopher Jünger, who drew a conclusion from World War I, specifically about the role played by technology and mechanisation. Heroic literature had taught him that courage mattered – that one soldier’s heroic actions on the battlefield could make a difference. But the reality was that hordes of oncoming soldiers were mowed down with a single machine gun and soldiers were pulverised by cannons roaring from miles away.

Drones and robot mosquitoes
So heroism no longer made much sense. And indeed – the government is so incompetent that police and army might not want to fight for them anymore once ‘the shit hits the fan’. However, this aspect of demoralisation is overcome by technology. Against one civilian willing to kill and die for freedom, the ruler puts multiple robotic weapons automated to kill.

Note that the current war in Ukraine, is accelerating the development of these weapons. So we are talking about sniper drones equipped with facial recognition: they can spot and kill a dissident from kilometres away.

And now the objection, of course, is that killing a dissident will anger new people, and that this ends up starting a wildfire of outrage, which eventually the ruler can no longer cover. But now the robot mosquito comes into play (the film Resident Evil: Death Island provides an accurate explanation). The mosquito is equipped with a virus tailored to your specific genetic code. The virus is spread and you, potential dissident, are the only one for whom this virus is deadly. See if you can prove that it wasn't ‘just’ a heart attack... And then, after endless effort, you have demonstrated that it was indeed said virus, and we are back at the greengrocer’s poster.

Aftermath and potential hope
But of course I couldn’t leave this Austrian totally spiritually destroyed. After all, he had said something wonderful:

“Sid – I see Germany and Austria degenerating into a civil war between militant woke, militant Islam and militant patriots. I have no desire to contribute any more tax money to this clown show. I vote with my feet – I am leaving.” Profound statement! Should be rewarded!

Indeed, the ‘hope’ is that militant woke and militant Islam will clash and weaken each other, making the patriots stronger by comparison. The Austrian mentioned his brother: someone who is politically in the middle, recognises faintly that things are going in the wrong direction, but clearly does not want to move because letting go of apparent certainties is too complicated. Now what?

What is going to happen is that the middle class will be eradicated completely by a multitude of factors. Fierce competition from globalisation, the evaporation of social cohesion, draconian inflation and being overrun by scarcely integrable immigrants. So those people like his brother inevitably become displaced. The political middle disappears and the displaced will find shelter within one of the poles just mentioned.

However, this also has adverse consequences for expats as the euro plummets. As a result, the purchasing power of expats becomes pathetic even in poorer countries. You can already see it in Paraguay: the euro went from 8500 guarani to 7700 within weeks. The rest of the world is also starting to notice that the EU is an empty shell. Vulnerable on all crucial fronts: industry, energy, demographics.

The nuke has already gone off
As an expat, you cannot change this, which leads to a comparison with the final scene of Resident Evil 3 (the original, not the dreg remake). The nuke has already gone off in Europe – the EMP now spreads across the world. We are in the rescue helicopter ‘riding the wave’. In the violent swings of this situation, we are still trying to take in some of life’s beauty without looking far ahead.

The assumption was always – returning to Havel – that capitalism, liberalism and democracy go together. This is the lesson learned from the Cold War and the collapse of communist states. The human spirit needs space to develop ambition and innovation, otherwise you end up like Cuba. But now there is China, which is just getting on with nanotechnology, social credit systems and genetic engineering. Even if the people no longer want to reproduce because life is too hellish, the rulers pull new citizens from artificial wombs.

Either way, there will be citizens left in Europe who cannot leave because they do not have the means or cannot escape in time. These people will be forced into pillarization. So we come again to that polarity of the three camps: militant woke, militant Islam and militant patriots.

In conclusion
The biggest mistake we can make is to interpret this state of affairs in eschatological terms: a ‘Lord of the Rings’-like story of a battle between two camps, light and darkness, one of which emerges as the factual winner and at the same time moral winner. Instead, we should see it as Emperor: Battle for Dune, in which the Atreides, Ordos and Harkonnen vie for possession of the planet. The situation requires a polytheistic interpretation – not a monotheistic one.

Is there light at the end of the tunnel? Perhaps, if militant woke and militant Islam completely exhaust each other, and the national conservatives plus libertarians meanwhile invest all their energy in themselves. Not allowing themselves to be drawn into a gruelling confrontation to eventually emerge as the victor.

Do realise that if you choose this path, you will be destroyed like Thilo Sarrazin in Germany and Jeroen Pols in the Netherlands. Court case after court case will be brought against you and your name will be dragged through the mud in every conceivable newspaper. You just have to feel like it...

Final Thoughts
So, what’s the takeaway? The world isn’t a Hollywood movie where good triumphs over evil, and everyone walks off into the sunset. It’s messy, chaotic, and filled with factions clawing for power – more Dune than Lord of the Rings. Hope is fine, but don’t let it blind you to reality. If you’re going to fight back, know that the system will crush you if it can. If you’re going to survive, you’ll need to do it quietly, under the radar, building strength while others burn themselves out. In the end, it’s not about saving the world – it’s about finding a way to live in it without losing your soul.

Anyone reading this piece with interest should definitely read my book: Wees Afgrondelijk (Be Abysmal, reviewed here by Edgar Frederix). Not that I earn that much from it now (then you’d better support me via BackMe – awesome, thanks!)