Compulsive Villain-Coded Behavior

I am continually amazed at the apparent ability of Thiel and his flunkies to somehow simultaneously make a big thing of how highly they regard Tolkien’s work, how vital an inspiration Lord of the Rings is (in terms of values, even, not just as a convenient reservoir of cool-sounding names to have on your business-card) …

… and yet then manage to, almost like they’ve got an unerring instinct for it, do something under such banner that’s the Opposite Of What The Text(s) Said Was Right.

The previous major exemplar was Thiel & Luckey choosing to name their crypto bank “Erebor” (you know, after the mountain that becomes such a concentration of wealth as to end up lorded over by a dragon … and with a disease affixed in its custodians to wish to hoard treasure, seemingly manifesting in a paranoid psychosis as it progresses).

And afore that, there was Thiel’s rather conspicuous clanger of calling his surveillance company ‘Palantir‘ – after that notoriously co-opted mechanism through which the Great Eye would domineer an incautious user (through ‘selective information’ or otherwise) and thereby even influence otherwise powerful figures erstwhile upon the side of good, toward contribution to evil.

But it was only a matter of time ’til we got another one.

In this instance – Luckey, in a video extolling what he thinks might be good ideas for the future of warfare … has somehow managed to gush his way to his very own Fighting Uruk-Hai. These being the “engineered biologics” he’s on about – anthropomorphic or otherwise.

Now, to be fair and sure – I would not be the sci fi (and more particularly, tabletop wargaming) fan that I am, were I to fail to acknowledge the potential conceptual utility for ‘muscles in machines’ (‘myomer’, in Battletech terms – albeit that’s an artificial equivalent); and, indeed, this post was initially going to be just a “There Are No Wolves On Fenris” reference (as far as the ‘engineered biologics’ bit goes viz. wolves, dire or otherwise).

But those are very, very different settings – with very, very different paradigmatic ethoi animating them. Even if both do draw from Tolkien (occasionally fairly explicitly).

When Thiel and Luckey invoke elements from Tolkien’s legendarium, they do so both because they’re – ostensible – Tolkien fans drawing upon that which they claim to love … but they’re also looking to position themselves, their ventures, in syzygy with the heroes of that world.

Anduril is especially resonant in that regard – after all, it’s the sword of Aragorn; the one that enables the re-empowerment, the resurrection of ‘the West’, through its (open) wielding.

Yet in the very real sense, these actions and values thusly expressed under its name … they are not those of one of Tolkien’s heroes. Rather – they are those of one of Tolkien’s villains.

There are many quotes from the man, his letters and his works, with which one might seek to illustrate such a principle – but in terms of where things are not just ‘at’ but ‘headed’ in the ambit of this so-called ‘Anduril’ … my mind goes toward the conclusionary lines of a letter he’d sent to his son on the 30th of January 1945:

“Well the first War of the Machines seems to be drawing to its final inconclusive chapter – leaving, alas, everyone the poorer, many bereaved or maimed and millions dead, and only one thing triumphant: the Machines. As the servants of the Machines are becoming a privileged class, the Machines are going to be enormously more powerful. What’s their next move?”