patrick.net

A few years ago, a software engineer at Google named James Damore published an internal memo—in response to a mandatory diversity training program he attended—titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber”.

Damore, by all conceivable metrics the kind of competent, curious engineer that tech companies pay mountains of money to retain, made the unforgivable mistake of essentially asking: “Hey, what if Reality—and not targeted misogyny—accounts for the fact that more men than women work in tech? Also, why does it feel like I could get fired for asking this?”




... It’s hard to say exactly how long it’s taken for the eponymous vibe to shift, but everyone knows it’s happening. For at least the last six months, not a day has gone by when I haven’t seen something, heard a statement, read a post, or had a conversation with someone that doesn’t leave me completely shocked—in a good way.

“This would not have happened a year ago. Vibe shift.”

The Vibe Shift I’m talking about is the speaking of previously unspeakable truths, the noticing of previously suppressed facts. I’m talking about the give you feel when the walls of Propaganda and Bureaucracy start to move as you push; the very visible dust kicked up in the air as Experts and Fact Checkers scramble to hold on to decaying institutions; the cautious but electric rush of energy when dictatorial edifices designed to stifle innovation, enterprise, and thought are exposed or toppled. ...



... Most folks in the tech and venture orbits are probably aware of the most salient example of the vibe shift in startups: the happenings in The Gundo. The tl;dr on the Gundo is a bunch of bright, young, ultra-ambitious dudes in El Segundo, CA have forsaken the “don’t rock the boat by saying what you believe and focus on hitting the SaaS jackpot” ethos of 2010-2020s Silicon Valley and are instead unapologetically pro-America, pro-family values, openly religious, all of which they channel into challenging and important missions like manufacturing hydrocarbons out of thin air, making it rain where it doesn't, and more generally “rebuilding America.”

But part of what is causing the Vibe Shift is that it goes well beyond the Gundo: indeed, no matter what circles you run in, almost everyone—from AI accelerationists to techbros to gun owners to Bitcoiners to Christians to normal families to children who like math to American citizens—is undergoing a variation of the same kind of pressure to conform, stagnate, decelerate.

Not only does the Current Thing demand total and unquestioning loyalty from all of these groups, but not even a year and a half ago anyone willing to speak out could be barred from participating in the public square, forever. ...

The Vibe Shift looks like ditching childless civilizational nihilism and saying, yeah, having kids is good, actually.

The Vibe Shift is the repudiation of homogenizing hyperglobalism and instead intentionally pursuing the communal, the local, and the national.

The Vibe Shift is the rejection of reality denial and instead embracing that men and women are unique and different.

The Vibe Shift is the refusal to subordinate yourself and your family to the whims and anxieties of activists and bureaucrats and relearning to trust your eyes and ears.

The Vibe Shift is the rejection of secular liberal materialism and a return to the Christian foundations of the West.

The Vibe Shift is taking off the ironic veil that aims to cover the festering wounds of despair and putting on the vestments of seriousness instead.

The Vibe Shift is laughing at those trying to demonize men and cheerfully proclaiming “Dudes rock.”

The Vibe Shift is spurning the fake and therapeutic and reclaiming the authentic and concrete.

The Vibe Shift is a healthy suspicion of credentialism and a return to human judgment.

The Vibe Shift is living not by lies, and instead speaking the truth—whatever the cost.

The Vibe Shift is directly facing our tumultuous times, refusing to blackpill, and choosing to build instead.

those that go out to find homeless people to give money and necessities only to film it and put it on social media.

The Vibe Shift I’m talking about is the speaking of previously unspeakable truths, the noticing of previously suppressed facts.

The Vibe Shift I’m talking about is the speaking of previously unspeakable truths, the noticing of previously suppressed facts.

Revolution of the Broletariat

from the christ-like resurrection of america’s frat boy to the chadification of tech, anti-masculinity is over; chad maximalism has arrived

Age of chad. With the festival-like “protests” at America’s wealthiest private universities growing more unhinged by the day, the rise of a would-be white girl jihadi with giant “I’m offended” glasses was inevitable. But last week, when Keffiyeh Karen took center stage at a press conference outside Columbia University, a main character more perfectly suited to this moment than I ever could have imagined was well and truly born. There, flanked by a lanky “yay Hamas” gay in make-up and a Castro shot boy midriff, she addressed the dire state of her fellow activists, who had just purposely locked themselves inside a campus building. The students were in danger of starving, she said of the mob literally free to leave and feed themselves at any moment. This was a crisis. The country’s richest 1% required food, and the anti-capitalist, anti-colonial “revolutionary” bourgeoisie demanded it be brought to them, by day laborers, at once. This was, their leader said with no apparent sense of self-awareness, basic “humanitarian aid.” ...

While the Sweetgreen Revolution raged to the north, a handful of similarly deranged activists first replaced, and then attempted to destroy, the most prominent American flag on UNC’s campus. Their efforts were retarded, however, when a pack of zoomer frat boys in pastel polos, broccoli perms, and at least one Hooters shirt stepped forward and defended the American flag with their bodies. The mob of Palestine enthusiasts, unprepared for this symbolic act of moral clarity, became enraged, but the country was overjoyed. Photos of the incident went viral, and a GoFundMe was launched to throw the boys a party. Donations climbed to over 500k before it was closed.

The archetypal frat boy, loathed for decades, was not only back, but celebrated. He was also not confined to UNC. ...

In all of this, one strange piece of the story increasingly hard to ignore is the gender division. Outside America’s few Muslim-majority communities, the country’s most ferocious contingent of Palestinian activists appear to be mostly female. The counter activists, on the other hand, appear to be almost entirely male. And the optics of male celebration in opposition to an activist movement so visibly female, after years of male demonization, is totally surreal.