This style, an overwrought prosody straining to evoke mischievous brilliance

He reimagined the conservative opposition to liberal individualism through an apotheosis of man and machinery

Like the later Junger, Wilson advocates withdrawal from mass society, writing that “culture arises from secession.” Secession is not an uncommon goal in American life today. The coasts show a preference for one kind, anti-government ranchers for another. But nowhere is the idea more politically developed and consequential than among the tech elite in Silicon Valley. At its nexus is computer scientist and tech CEO Curtis Yarvin, better known by his blogging pseudonym Mencius Moldbug. Yarvin is an architect of antidemocratic, neoreactionary politics and an influence on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. Another central figure is Paypal founder Peter Thiel, an investor in Yarvin’s company and high-profile Trump backer. The two are figureheads of the movement rejecting change through electoral politics in favor of “exit” from democracy. One strategy that has received funding by Thiel is “seasteading,” which involves founding autonomous principalities on international waters. The sort of political arrangement that might govern these new societies can be gleaned from Moldbug’s writing. In a philosophy he alternately dubs neocameralism and formalism, Moldbug proposes to replace the decrepit mob rule of democracy with a form of government modeled on the relationship between shareholders and CEOs.