The Online Right's Kobayashi Maru Test

On the options facing the online right in an era of heightened geopolitical tension and National Security risks.

After Tucker Carlson interviewed Vladimir Putin, Western elites such as Hillary Clinton and Boris Johnson called Tucker Carlson a traitor and a useful idiot. Many online commentators mockingly retorted “Traitor to what, Blackrock’s bottom line?”

In my recent article “Conscription?” I trod similar territory by arguing that men will be reluctant to fight for a banal economic zone in which patriotic and nationalist sentiment has been all but criminalized. Nevertheless, despite such remonstrations, the rhetoric of our political class moves into ever more unhinged and dangerous territory as the war drums bang ever louder. The unfolding geopolitical chaos heralds a potential hazard for our merry band of online pundits and commentators that few seem to be thinking about or mulling over: what happens when the politicians view us as traitors?

War and threats to National Security are perennial states of exception within which a regime can ram through all manner of draconian laws and limits to free expression and if you’re on the wrong side of that, too bad for you. Unlike the Covid-19 arc, people can actually see China’s military or Russian hypersonic missiles. Once a certain threshold is crossed (and I believe we are close to it) the Regime will be able to deploy a multitude of censorious policies and worse that can be justified in the name of National Security. It just so happens, by sheer coincidence, that all across the “Five-Eyes” Nations bloated regulation charters are currently being rolled out to ensure that governments can censor whomever they wish online. In Britain, an example of such regulation is the Online Harms Bill. In the European Union, it’s called the Digital Services Act (DSA), and in Australia the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). America is still relatively free of overt state censorship but that is small recompense when private corporations will happily oblige in gagging the populace on behalf of the intelligence bureaucracy and, once again, we’re talking about National Security here, not whether masks work.

The point here is that, in the event of a geopolitical crisis the loosely connected nodes of the network I shall call the Online Right, will find themselves on the wrong side of Power as it enters a state of emergency or exception. If you oppose the dominant Regime ruling the West, it naturally follows that you question or outright oppose the policies and thinking that could lead us into an incomprehensibly destructive conflict.

Tucker Carlson has repeatedly claimed that he loves America but despises its ruling class who he sees as betraying the Nation. Yet, those ruling classes view Carlson himself as a traitor for fraternizing with their enemy. In the event that the Nation becomes fully mobilized and men are being loaded onto carriers, Tucker’s stance becomes more problematic, and when the dying and hardship begin all but untenable because the interests of the Regime have coalesced with the Nation more generally.

Likewise, with some justification, the Regime can claim that those naysaying the “war effort” are a danger to National Security and can therefore be dealt with accordingly. The issue becomes particularly acute when it comes to “influencers” with the ability to reach thousands or hundreds of thousands of fighting-age white men across the West. You may regard the people responsible for the conflict as idiotic or demonic, but once the threshold has been crossed, you’re either with the Nation or against it. A principled, and to a degree Machiavellian, stance of neutrality is equally problematic because how can you be neutral when your Nation and people are at war?

Is it possible to be indifferent and aloof as family, friends, and neighbours are all drafted or in some way become invested in the struggle? This is not even to mention certain elements on the Right who overtly and conspicuously cheerlead for the opposition forces. In a time of conflict, this would be the equivalent of siding with the virus during the Covid-19 saga.

During the pandemic era, the insidious corruption and venality of many of the policies were hidden behind the stalking horse of “Public Health” in which dissenters could be written off as uncaring and suicidal lunatics trying to kill Grandma. However, the integrity of the Nation or Western order itself was not under threat (quite the opposite) but in the event of conflict it would be, and that’s bad news for dissenters because the Regime has casus belli to take the gloves off truly and, thanks in large part to Covid-19, has the technical and regulatory frameworks to erase people like a smudge of dirt. We can also thank the pandemic for allowing the Regime to know who is and is not susceptible to narrative trusting in times of emergency due to the vaccine roll-out so rest assured, the list has already been drafted and names taken of the rotten apples that must be tossed out of the barrel.

I keep hoping that this Gordian Knot will dissipate within the news cycle, that tensions will decrease and sanity will return. However, thus far the incendiary rhetoric has only shown signs of becoming ever more unhinged.

Regime critics will increasingly find themselves facing a “Kobayashi Maru” scenario as seen in Star Trek: Wrath Of Khan.

The nominal goal of the exercise is to rescue the civilian fuel ship Kobayashi Maru, which is damaged and stranded in disputed territory between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. The cadet being evaluated must decide whether to attempt to rescue the Kobayashi Maru—endangering their ship and crew—or leave the Kobayashi Maru to certain destruction. If the cadet chooses to attempt a rescue, an insurmountable enemy force attacks their vessel. By reprogramming the test itself, James T. Kirk became the only cadet to overcome the Kobayashi Maru simulation.

The Kobayashi Maru scenario is not real, but a scenario that teaches defeat to cadets. Unlike Captain Kirk, we cannot rewrite the program. This essay also represents a hypothetical scenario, though already partially played out in reality. In the event of conflict, opinions that are standard fare within the Online Right will be seen as threats to National Security. On the other hand, to reluctantly side with the Regime once the firing begins would leave a bad taste in the mouth and everyone would know who and what they had now folded themselves into.

Let us then take a look in brief at some scenarios and narrative positions on offer in the event of having crossed the threshold.

Third Worldist

Pledging your undying fealty to the Kremlin, Xi Jinping, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the “Global South” while remaining in the West is probably going to result in your erasure from the internet and severe personal consequences in the real world. So much so that it is entirely possible Western intelligence agencies are using the movement as a honeytrap to flush out their most ideologically committed opponents. Whether real or an op, this faction will be the ones celebrating the loudest when the body bags begin returning and as such, represent the most precarious and dubious stance to hold. The Marxist elements can at least lay claim to anachronistic universal ideals, but the Nationalist faction will find themselves in the paradoxical situation of siding with external enemies against the very people they claim to represent. As such, they would probably end up being despised by almost everyone.

Destablizer Enjoyer

The destablizer enjoyers will encompass the Elite Theorists and many reactionaries who, while being far less ideological than the Third Worldists, share their disdain for the Western ruling class. The Big Hope is that war and bloodshed will result in internal pressures being placed on the Regime that will result in a circulation of Elites and a situation wherein the West is governed by either friendlies or at least a cabal of people marginally less insane than who we have now. This camp will have to tread a fine line between objectivity for appearance’s sake and resisting the urge to publicly gloat in the event of Regime defeats.

Keep Your Head Down

After trying and failing to argue against escalation, many people will simply knuckle down and try to avoid suspicion and censorship. Hostilities will be framed within the context of grand tragedy that could have been avoided. The discourse will become aloof and primarily focused on cultural, artistic, or philosophical matters. Here, we shall find discreet real-world organizing and a dedication to pragmatically surviving the unfolding horror rather than poking our ruling class in the eye.

The Reluctant Shill

The Reluctant Shills will be the largest camp immediately adjacent to the Online Right and will encompass many of the influencers currently counter-signalling the Regime’s policymakers and the mainstream more generally. Primarily, this camp will view the position of opposing the Regime as forces are being deployed or after the shots have been fired, as no longer tenable and they will adopt an attitude of “well, we’re in it now!” Their allegiance will be to the military itself rather than the politicians and this is precisely the problem with the politicians pulling the move of making their interests inseparable from that of the Nation writ large — its armed forces in particular.

There is of course the line of reasoning that in an era of nuclear weapons, a major conflict between major power-blocs is impossible. I’m not entirely convinced by this argument but it hardly matters anyway, because a permanent state of preparedness or military build-up would still result in the Regime being able to easily pick from the full buffet of technocratic censorship measures it has granted itself to erase its critics in recent years — and the critics it dislikes most are on the right.

Put simply, the Regime will revel in crushing its internal enemies in the name of countering its external enemies.

National Security, or some more flowery jargon would simply become the new “public health”. If, for example, policymakers have convinced themselves that Russia will attack a NATO country when they’re done with Ukraine, opposing another billion to Zelensky becomes an attack on the wider geostrategic aims of NATO and therefore National Security. The masses could be kept in a permanent state of dread and fear, thereby allowing the Regime to consolidate its narrative power, legitimate it and superficially realign itself with the public will — a will it has itself created.

Previous waves of censorship have hit the Online Right particularly hard. In 2017 the backlash to the Trump presidency saw entire networks of writers, video essayists, and sites vanish. The COVID-19 saga expanded the net far wider than previously thought imaginable. This continued throughout the 2020 U.S. election. Some argue that the various waves of censorship have acted as a filtering process, or a Darwinian pressure being applied to the scene with those able to pitch their ideas and content over the heads of the censorious tools left active. That may be so, but it behooves us to consider and prepare for what comes next rather than simply reacting after the fact, as has been the case repeatedly in years gone by.