I have several friends (like you!) who've chosen to make the kind of dive you describe. We're not going to agree! 1/

In my experience, the making-sense involves putting together complex unfalsifiable mechanisms that do make sense, because they are motivated by and always consistent with a set of priors so strong… 2/

…that complex chains of deflection and deception by hidden, powerful actors seem natural rather than implausible, as every bit of my own experience with institutions like government, media, and academia suggest. 3/

at least the Curtis-Yarvin-style neoreactionaries, who often come join the same political camp, get that "the cathedral" is simultaneously hegemonic and impotent, that the reach of these institutions is inescapable but the problem is they can't organize bold, coherent action… 4/

…they shrug along reflecting structural biases and imperatives built into the self-interest of these actors, even when doing so engenders contradictions that paralyze the entire system. 5/

"the cathedral" does not control the weather, beyond idiotically pumping carbon into the atmosphere while the institutions that constitute understand with a shrug that is unwise. 6/

there is a lot that's terrible abt our institutions. one thing that is both wonderful and terrible is that there really really is no one person in the drivers seat, no master plan, just a lot of competing bastards who manage to tilt the wheel, swerving us all very often right toward some cliff. /fin