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Daily Missive

The Pursuit of Chaos

Loading ...John Robb

April 10, 2025 • 4 minute, 42 second read


networkspolitical networksTrade war

The Pursuit of Chaos

 

April 10, 2025 — In one short year, the reborn red political network has:

  • taken over the Republican party,
  • neutralized the legacy media,
  • and thoroughly disrupted the blue political network that controls the Democratic party.

It’s proven it can wage an online political war and win, but now comes the hard part. Can it govern? Four years ago, the blue network faced the same situation. It put a candidate who mailed in his campaign into the White House and the red network was in tatters (particularly after Jan 6th).

However, a mere four years later, the blue network is shattered and out of power; a failure caused by flaws in how that network made decisions. Is the same fate in store for the red network and if so, what are these flaws?

Turn Your Images On

A Venn diagram of the two predominant political parties in the US doesn’t yield much crossover and even less in common.

We’re in the midst of trying to find a way to integrate networked decision-making into our system of societal governance.

  • The development of the printing press changed the way we think (at the neural level), and by extension, it changed the way we govern ourselves.
  • Over time, we developed three types of decision-making; bureaucratic (gov’t and corporate), market (financial, economic, and elections), and tribal (converted to nationalism); combining them into a functional, systemic whole. It was a turbulent process of trial, error, and disaster (the implosion of two failed systems, Communism and Fascism, in the 20th Century are a case in point).
  • Now, we’re adding networked decision making to the existing mix using two political networks (red and blue). Each network has their own way of making decisions and have the potential to become invaluable to how we make decisions, but they so new, they are filled with flaws and dangers. Don’t confuse this newness for weakness though. These networks have proven so powerful, it took less them than a decade to dominate our societal decision making system.

With this in mind, let’s dig into how we got to where we are today.

How Political Networks Evolve

The red and blue networks aren’t changing incrementally. They are undergoing a rapid process of evolution; birth, death, and rebirth (in a stronger configuration). The competition between them and the relative lack of friction in forming networked organizations, is driving this process forward at a torrential pace. Let’s use the evolution of the red network as an example:

  • Back in 2016, the red network was a decentralized open-source insurgency held together by a simple goal (put Trump, a weapon of mass disruption, in the White House).
  • Its extreme decentralization made the insurgency nearly impossible to suppress (the establishment tried) and its open source dynamic — Anyone could join in. Anyone could contribute. Successes were copied and amplified. — made it far more innovative than the establishment they were at war with.
  • This combination of strengths made it possible for the red network insurgency to take over the Republican party, overload the Democratic party, and place Trump in the White House in less than a year. However, that’s when things went sideways. Due to the way they work, open source insurgencies have a fatal flaw. They fall apart when they achieve their goal; in this case, when Trump won, the insurgency faded, leaving him to govern alone.

Four years of blue network rule later, a newly evolved red network emerged to put Trump into the White House and shatter the blue network.

  • The red network in 2024 wasn’t as decentralized as 2016’s open source insurgency because it didn’t need to be. Elon’s acquisition of X removed the blue network’s suppression (media, corporate, government, individuals) that made decentralization a requirement for survival in 2016.
  • Instead of millions of semi-anonymous individuals working to put Trump into the White House, the 2024 network was run by hundreds of big, powerful, and professional accounts (highly evolved digital ledgers with hundreds of millions of followers collectively) with a media presence many times that of the legacy media.
  • These accounts, acting as gatekeepers for innovation, amplifiers for online maneuvers, and the curators of narratives usable in governance. They anchored the network, providing it with a permanence and a cohesion it didn’t have in 2016. In this unevolved form, it didn’t have the capacity to persist after reaching its goal (win the White House).

The Collapse of the Blue Network

The blue network formed in 2017, to oppose Trump. At that point it was apparent to me (long before it became a journalistic cottage industry to complain about censorship, etc.) that the blue network’s decision-making processes were deeply flawed and that these flaws would drive it to seek increasing levels of centralization and control. Worse, my fear that this effort (particularly with AI on the doorstep) could rapidly overshoot the mark and plunge us into a stasis I named ‘The Long Night.”

—John Robb
Global Guerillas & Grey Swan

P.S. from Addison: As you might expect, the Grey Swan inbox has been active. And, well, animated. I’m happy to report Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is alive and well. As are the folks who are critical of others who resist without providing productive alternatives. Oy!

For our part, we’ve been busy tending to the Grey Swan model portfolio and getting our April monthly bulletin in the hands of paid members. If ever there was a time for diligent updates… this would be it.

That said, the inbox continues to be a source of wonder and entertainment. Please share your ideas here: addison@greyswanfraternity.com. And thank you for your patience!


Mamdani Land

July 7, 2025 • Joel Bowman

Universal healthcare and “free” (taxpayer-funded) education and the rest of the redistributive voter bribes are ways of spending money, not generating it. Progressive taxation is a means of redistributing wealth, not producing it. The difference is non-trivial.

Countries like Kuwait and Norway are not rich because of their respective governments’ addiction to expensive giveaway programs, whatever one thinks of the merits or alleged compassion of such redistributive policies. They are wealthy despite them.

Down at the other End of the World, meanwhile, president Javier Milei has been busy liberating Argentina’s long-suffering citizens from three-quarters of a century of politicians’ worst laid plans. We’ll have more about the goings on in our adopted home later in the week.

Mamdani Land
The US Dollar, Trading Like a Memecoin

July 7, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

While market volatility may be the big story this year, the bigger story may be that of the U.S. dollar itself.

Year-to-date, it’s down over 10%.

That’s a huge move for any currency.

But usually the 10% moves occur in third-world countries experiencing a crisis, not the so-called world reserve currency.

The US Dollar, Trading Like a Memecoin
The Trump Narrative, Second Half

July 7, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

From tax-law turnarounds to tariff theater, corporate spats, and labor dysfunction — all under the gaze of election season — this is a high-stakes narrative in real time. Trump, acting as hero and provocateur, has unleashed a ready-made script for midterm dominance — one that deeply impacts your investment blueprint.

If you’re going to win in this second half, you’ll need to align your portfolio with Trump’s moves, anticipate his counter-narratives, and hedge against the downside with tools like gold, and, yes, bitcoin.

But we’ll want to keep checking in with the plotline. Because in 2025, being on stage is the way to shape your results, not sitting in the audience.

The Trump Narrative, Second Half
A Republic: Es Lo Que Es

July 3, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

The genius of the American experiment is that it allows for course correction — but only if we remember our role. Not as subjects, but as stewards.

Your role, good sir or wise gentle lady, is to continue doing what you’ve always done: managing your affairs with clear eyes and a steady hand, educating those who’ll carry the torch, and resisting the ever-present temptation to comply just for comfort’s sake.

Yes, the government will grow. Yes, the financial world may turn inside out before breakfast — possibly before your second cup of coffee. But you still have the right to think. To choose. To invest in your own way.

A Republic: Es Lo Que Es