Been reading a lot of Terry Pratchett and I have Deep Thoughts inspired by the character of Vetinari, the Patriarch of Ankh-Morpork.
Warning: minor spoilers ahead.
Ankh-Morpork is pointedly a sort of in-absentia monarchy. It is structured as a monarchy but doesn’t have a king.
Conversation
Replying to
This thread is an interesting dissection of how power works in a fantasy-comedy novel, but I don't know if I'd say it applies to reality. Many (most) of the advances ppl take for granted came relatively recently & on the backs of political leaders who risked beliefs
1
1
Put another way, it appears you're describing Managerial Technocratic Neoliberalism In Abdication Of Ideals, which is what got us into this mess.
2
1
Yes, and I disagree that that's what "got us into this mess"
2
Replying to
Snarky tweet side-by-sides notwithstanding (I couldn't help myself), have you watched Adam Curtis' 'Hypernormalisation' yet?
1
That was terrible. Psychotic rambling and apophenia adding up to nothing. Century of Self was much better. There was a there there.
Replying to
I haven't heard of Century but I'l check it out. I felt Hypernormalisation had a terrifically strong "there": ~70s, gov blinked in the face of modern complexity & ceded control to biz managers & backward-looking prediction models, doubled down on narrative-as-reality

