The funny thing about what is happening right now in the West: a self-inflicted economic collapse, widespread social unrest, the sudden rise of an unbelievable American authoritarianism, et cetera, is that many libertarians over the past 30 to 40 years have made their name peddling various impending apocalypse scenarios on par with what is happening now. The 80s and 90s saw many libertarians warning of social collapse, urging listeners to stockpile gold and guns, and await the end of the world. What is so surreal about our present state is that it tops anything even the most hyperbolic of the Doomsdayers have said.
These people promoted visions of chip implants, the “mark of the Beast”, FEMA camps, “martial law”, and other totalitarian nightmares.
But the predictions of those libertarians never came to pass. Instead, the apocalypse arrived in a very different manner. Fear, fanned by corporate news, government, and regulatory agencies, mutated into a deadly social contagion, and spread wildly through the population. Rather than reacting sanely and responsibly, State and local bureaucrats made emotional decisions regarding COVID-19, and taking the most reckless and dangerous actions imaginable.
What is so strange is that we have approached very close to the libertarian-envisioned apocalypse, but it’s genesis was almost purely psychological. We’ve lived through, and are still living through, a mass psychological event, a collective madness.
If anything, the great COVID hysteria of 2020 should make us understand how easily the modern world can unravel, based on the psychological state of the masses alone.
