The difference between societies that govern through trust versus fear isn’t abstract. It’s whether athletes can speak without their families becoming hostages.
When American Olympians express “mixed emotions” and the president attacks them for it, MAGA reveals what it’s optimizing for: the authoritarian playbook where criticism equals treason.
The tell is in what they envy. Russian athletes don’t criticize Putin. Chinese athletes don’t question the CCP. Not because they’re more patriotic, because their families are leverage and survival depends on compliance. MAGA looks at that and sees efficiency, not horror.
Authoritarian systems optimize for power and control, concentrating suffering on anyone who doesn’t conform. Democratic systems with high trust optimize for the capacity to speak, challenge, and correct course without losing everything.
The American athletes aren’t tearing down the flag. They’re using the freedoms it represents—-the exact freedoms distinguishing trust-based societies from fear-based ones. When those freedoms become conditional on saying only what power wants to hear, you’re not defending America. You’re dismantling it.
Hunter Hess: “One of the many things that makes this country so amazing is that we have the right and the freedom to point that out.”
That’s what societies should optimize for…not dominating rivals, but conditions where humans can speak truth without fear that honesty destroys their families.
MAGA wants the Chinese model: shut up, comply, or face consequences. They’re not defending American values. They’re envying authoritarian control and calling it patriotism.
Once you’ve lost the capacity to criticize power without retribution, you’ve lost the point of civilization entirely.
Freedom of speech isn’t an inherent attribute of civilization…just thinking of most civilizations throughout history, they have functioned without it.
But it’s an inherent requirement for the kind of civilization worth building.
Here’s why I think that’s necessary—-civilizations can optimize for different things. You can build societies that optimize for state power, territorial expansion, religious conformity, or maintaining hierarchies. Most of human history looks like that.
Those civilizations functioned. They built pyramids, conquered territories, created art and architecture. But they also concentrated suffering on anyone who didn’t fit…heretics, dissidents, the wrong ethnicity, the wrong class.
Freedom of speech isn’t necessary for civilization to exist. It’s necessary for civilization to correct itself.
Without the capacity to criticize power, challenge injustice, and speak uncomfortable truths, systems have no mechanism for self-correction. Mistakes compound. Suffering concentrates. Atrocities scale.
The question is: what are we optimizing for?
If the goal is just power, stability, and order; plenty of authoritarian systems deliver that.
If the goal is reducing suffering, enabling human flourishing, and creating conditions where people can explore meaning beyond survival, then freedom of speech becomes essential.
Not because it’s inherent to civilization, but because it’s the architecture that allows societies to become less brutal over time.
I subscribe to that. Without freedom of speech, no effective feedback mechanisms. Without those, even good leadership becomes bad, and further downhill from there, reshaping the whole society and planting time bombs for future generations.
Reversing this mechanics is the problem bugging me more than anything.
Johan, if you wrote a book, I would read it; and I only read fictional books. Your observations are as compelling as the best speculative fiction, as if it were written by Neal Stephenson. He was able to spark interest in mathematics for me - in Anathem, the first book I read of his - even though I'd avoided math since high-school. Now you have done that for me in geopolitics.
That’s incredibly kind of you to say, and honestly, it means more than you might realize. The Neal Stephenson comparison is particularly gratifying; Anathem is one of those rare books that makes abstract concepts feel urgent and alive, where philosophy and mathematics become as gripping as any thriller plot. If I’m doing anything close to that for geopolitics, I’m doing exactly what I set out to do.
The truth is, geopolitics is speculative fiction that happens to be real. We’re watching systems compete, ideologies clash, power structures evolve, and the stakes are whether billions of people get to live well or spend their lives trapped in survival mode. That’s more compelling than most fiction because the consequences actually matter.
I’m working on turning a lot of this into longer-form pieces that could eventually become a book. If these ideas resonate with you, that’s the signal I need to keep pushing.
The goal isn’t just to analyze what’s happening, it’s to make people give a damn about why it matters and what we should actually be building instead.
Thank you for reading, and for letting me know it’s landing. Comments like this keep me writing.
Megyn is busy bashing US Citizens representing us at the Olympics who say they have issues with US Policies and actions and Bad Bunny a Puerto Rican US Citizen who also uses his platform to criticize what he sees as things we are doing wrong. If Megyn is ignorant of the fact that he is a US Citizen I will also point out that the official language in Puerto Rico is Spanish and I for one can appreciate a good performance by a performer singing in the official language of their country. I am sure that Megyn has likely seen operas sung in non English languages and was able to appreciate the performance. I greatly appreciated Bad Bunny’s homage to all of the Americas.
Garry, one of the reasons Trump can't handle criticism from US athletes is because it instantly reveals how little Americans respect him. It's a narcissistic injury. His self-concept is that everything he says, does, touches, and believes is right and true because in his mind he's smarter, savvier, tougher, and more capable than anyone else. He's infallible in his own narcissistic mind. When someone representing America gives the lie to all that, in one sentence no less, Trump can't make sense of it and so he gets angry in a childish, narcissistic way. It's the same with all of MAGA. They're so insecure and so ignorant that humility in the face of American ugliness is impossible. Instead, they lash out at the critics, thinking blame and "righteous outrage" will carry the day. They're wrong, of course. The emperor has no clothes.
Yep, the US athletes better enjoy their freedom to speak while it lasts. With the speed the US if plunging into dictatorship and totalitarianism it's gonna be gone soon.
Americans are losing their freedom to the patrimonial psychopath, the gravedigger of democracy, the rights of freedom, nature, Trump, and his loyal repressive forces. I lived in a totalitarian regime for 40 years in Czechoslovakia.
Neither factual accuracy nor logical consistency - or even ordinary human decency, for that matter - has ever been attributed to La Trump. In fact, I can't think of any high ranking official or candidate for office who has bad mouthed the U.S. and its heroes and achievements more loudly or consistently or in more inappropriate circumstances than Trump.
The Nazi Republicans Should Not Be Allowed To Govern For At Least 10y
The current Nazi Republican political movement guided by Project 2025’s white supremacist agenda has shown who they are This Christian Nationalist movement that the Nazi Republicans has fully supported really started in the Reagan years and finally has evolved to show its true racist, homophobic, xenophobic, fraudulent, dishonest, anti social safety net and pro wealth So greed is the Nazi Republican policy, pure and simple, NOT governing Americans are showing that they are completely against money in politics and they’re voting against politicians and AIPAC’s who are pushing their dollars to buy elections
By polling the American electorate is overwhelmingly opposed to such a government power grab by the greedy wealthy, aka oligarchs, and the only thing left for the Nazi propaganda machine led by right wing media channels such as Fox is to throw as much money as they can to try to influence the electorate But over and over again this “bribery” will not work as Musk found out in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race
Cheeto and his Nazi Republican allies figured they could buy their way to dictatorship with the help of oligarches but WE the People have different ideas about resisting big money in politics
Excellent points.
The difference between societies that govern through trust versus fear isn’t abstract. It’s whether athletes can speak without their families becoming hostages.
When American Olympians express “mixed emotions” and the president attacks them for it, MAGA reveals what it’s optimizing for: the authoritarian playbook where criticism equals treason.
The tell is in what they envy. Russian athletes don’t criticize Putin. Chinese athletes don’t question the CCP. Not because they’re more patriotic, because their families are leverage and survival depends on compliance. MAGA looks at that and sees efficiency, not horror.
Authoritarian systems optimize for power and control, concentrating suffering on anyone who doesn’t conform. Democratic systems with high trust optimize for the capacity to speak, challenge, and correct course without losing everything.
The American athletes aren’t tearing down the flag. They’re using the freedoms it represents—-the exact freedoms distinguishing trust-based societies from fear-based ones. When those freedoms become conditional on saying only what power wants to hear, you’re not defending America. You’re dismantling it.
Hunter Hess: “One of the many things that makes this country so amazing is that we have the right and the freedom to point that out.”
That’s what societies should optimize for…not dominating rivals, but conditions where humans can speak truth without fear that honesty destroys their families.
MAGA wants the Chinese model: shut up, comply, or face consequences. They’re not defending American values. They’re envying authoritarian control and calling it patriotism.
Once you’ve lost the capacity to criticize power without retribution, you’ve lost the point of civilization entirely.
Johan, while personally I am 100% for freedom of speech, do you think it’s an inherent attribute of civilization?
Freedom of speech isn’t an inherent attribute of civilization…just thinking of most civilizations throughout history, they have functioned without it.
But it’s an inherent requirement for the kind of civilization worth building.
Here’s why I think that’s necessary—-civilizations can optimize for different things. You can build societies that optimize for state power, territorial expansion, religious conformity, or maintaining hierarchies. Most of human history looks like that.
Those civilizations functioned. They built pyramids, conquered territories, created art and architecture. But they also concentrated suffering on anyone who didn’t fit…heretics, dissidents, the wrong ethnicity, the wrong class.
Freedom of speech isn’t necessary for civilization to exist. It’s necessary for civilization to correct itself.
Without the capacity to criticize power, challenge injustice, and speak uncomfortable truths, systems have no mechanism for self-correction. Mistakes compound. Suffering concentrates. Atrocities scale.
The question is: what are we optimizing for?
If the goal is just power, stability, and order; plenty of authoritarian systems deliver that.
If the goal is reducing suffering, enabling human flourishing, and creating conditions where people can explore meaning beyond survival, then freedom of speech becomes essential.
Not because it’s inherent to civilization, but because it’s the architecture that allows societies to become less brutal over time.
I subscribe to that. Without freedom of speech, no effective feedback mechanisms. Without those, even good leadership becomes bad, and further downhill from there, reshaping the whole society and planting time bombs for future generations.
Reversing this mechanics is the problem bugging me more than anything.
Johan, if you wrote a book, I would read it; and I only read fictional books. Your observations are as compelling as the best speculative fiction, as if it were written by Neal Stephenson. He was able to spark interest in mathematics for me - in Anathem, the first book I read of his - even though I'd avoided math since high-school. Now you have done that for me in geopolitics.
That is pretty amazing.
That’s incredibly kind of you to say, and honestly, it means more than you might realize. The Neal Stephenson comparison is particularly gratifying; Anathem is one of those rare books that makes abstract concepts feel urgent and alive, where philosophy and mathematics become as gripping as any thriller plot. If I’m doing anything close to that for geopolitics, I’m doing exactly what I set out to do.
The truth is, geopolitics is speculative fiction that happens to be real. We’re watching systems compete, ideologies clash, power structures evolve, and the stakes are whether billions of people get to live well or spend their lives trapped in survival mode. That’s more compelling than most fiction because the consequences actually matter.
I’m working on turning a lot of this into longer-form pieces that could eventually become a book. If these ideas resonate with you, that’s the signal I need to keep pushing.
The goal isn’t just to analyze what’s happening, it’s to make people give a damn about why it matters and what we should actually be building instead.
Thank you for reading, and for letting me know it’s landing. Comments like this keep me writing.
America has democratic freedoms that are still unimaginable in much of the world. But that's not a reason to be idle.
Authoritarianism is never too far.
Democracy is built by the people, and it will collapse if those people don't stay vigilant, if they don't keep fighting for their rights.
You took freedom for granted for a long time and stopped taking it when you handed it over to the malignant narcissist fascist Trump.
Megyn is busy bashing US Citizens representing us at the Olympics who say they have issues with US Policies and actions and Bad Bunny a Puerto Rican US Citizen who also uses his platform to criticize what he sees as things we are doing wrong. If Megyn is ignorant of the fact that he is a US Citizen I will also point out that the official language in Puerto Rico is Spanish and I for one can appreciate a good performance by a performer singing in the official language of their country. I am sure that Megyn has likely seen operas sung in non English languages and was able to appreciate the performance. I greatly appreciated Bad Bunny’s homage to all of the Americas.
Um, Trump goes overseas and bashes the US every time. No comment from Megyn Kelly on that??
Garry, one of the reasons Trump can't handle criticism from US athletes is because it instantly reveals how little Americans respect him. It's a narcissistic injury. His self-concept is that everything he says, does, touches, and believes is right and true because in his mind he's smarter, savvier, tougher, and more capable than anyone else. He's infallible in his own narcissistic mind. When someone representing America gives the lie to all that, in one sentence no less, Trump can't make sense of it and so he gets angry in a childish, narcissistic way. It's the same with all of MAGA. They're so insecure and so ignorant that humility in the face of American ugliness is impossible. Instead, they lash out at the critics, thinking blame and "righteous outrage" will carry the day. They're wrong, of course. The emperor has no clothes.
Yep, the US athletes better enjoy their freedom to speak while it lasts. With the speed the US if plunging into dictatorship and totalitarianism it's gonna be gone soon.
As In China, you have whatever rights you can express nicely. They call it harmony. But dissent is never nice if it’s substantive.
Americans are losing their freedom to the patrimonial psychopath, the gravedigger of democracy, the rights of freedom, nature, Trump, and his loyal repressive forces. I lived in a totalitarian regime for 40 years in Czechoslovakia.
Gary is the best, we love him
Neither factual accuracy nor logical consistency - or even ordinary human decency, for that matter - has ever been attributed to La Trump. In fact, I can't think of any high ranking official or candidate for office who has bad mouthed the U.S. and its heroes and achievements more loudly or consistently or in more inappropriate circumstances than Trump.
Coming to mind...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Olympics_Black_Power_salute
The Nazi Republicans Should Not Be Allowed To Govern For At Least 10y
The current Nazi Republican political movement guided by Project 2025’s white supremacist agenda has shown who they are This Christian Nationalist movement that the Nazi Republicans has fully supported really started in the Reagan years and finally has evolved to show its true racist, homophobic, xenophobic, fraudulent, dishonest, anti social safety net and pro wealth So greed is the Nazi Republican policy, pure and simple, NOT governing Americans are showing that they are completely against money in politics and they’re voting against politicians and AIPAC’s who are pushing their dollars to buy elections
By polling the American electorate is overwhelmingly opposed to such a government power grab by the greedy wealthy, aka oligarchs, and the only thing left for the Nazi propaganda machine led by right wing media channels such as Fox is to throw as much money as they can to try to influence the electorate But over and over again this “bribery” will not work as Musk found out in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race
Cheeto and his Nazi Republican allies figured they could buy their way to dictatorship with the help of oligarches but WE the People have different ideas about resisting big money in politics