The most alpha I've been able to add to my process has been zooming out real far and researching "conspiracy theories".
I've already talked about the Public-facing Elites (
https://controlplanecapital.com/p/public-facing-elites-using-myth-making )
The public-facing Elites are the interfaces between the Controllers and the masses.
They are carefully selected not because they are the deepest technical minds (those remain inside state/para-state labs and defense contractors) but because they can serve as myth-making avatars - “trustworthy human front ends” for systemic agendas.
The best example is Elon Musk:
- Turns state agendas into heroic challenges (”colonize Mars”, “accelerate sustainable energy”).
- Makes highly complex state projects legible to the masses (rockets, EVs).
- Redefines what is possible, i.e., multi-planetary destiny.
I've also talked about why Public Officials are deliberately selected and made look inept. (
https://controlplanecapital.com/p/inept-public-officials-vs-genius )
A good example is Jerome Powell with is transitory inflation 😂
Making officials look inept is not a bug; it's the lubricant that shifts legitimacy from public institutions to private control substrates.
You manufacture "visible incompetence" at the top of public orgs (politicians, Fed chair, Treasury secretary, spokespeople, etc) because of:
1) Plausible deniability & blame absorption.
- If outcomes are unpopular, “the politicians bungled it”. Strategic continuity survives; personnel rotate. The cockpit stays untouched.
2) Consent management via despair.
- Chronic bungling signals “government can’t execute” → public begs for capable private operators. That’s a soft mandate for outsourcing power to state-embedded firms.
3) Overton-window widening.
- Visible ineptitude makes extraordinary measures and emergency procurement look reasonable. “We can’t wait for bureaucracy; give XYZ (pre-selected) the keys”.
4) Scapegoat economics.
- Credit is privatized (heroes, “innovators”), blame is socialized (”Congress/Fed messed up”). This sustains asymmetric payoffs to chosen vendors.
5) Narrative bifurcation: bumbling State vs heroic Genius.
- Positions private avatars (Musk/Altman/Karp) as only credible solvers. Funds, talent, and data flow toward them by default.
6) Obfuscation of the command layer.
- Clownish spokespeople hide where decisions are really made (standards bodies, security councils, procurement compacts, platform policies). Confusion is a moat.
7) Policy ratchet lubricant.
- Each “failure” justifies a new knob (ID, provenance, kill-switches, programmable money). Sunsets don’t sunset.
8) Humiliation tests.
- Public tolerates obvious dysfunction → the Controllers mark how far they can push next. Demoralization lowers resistance cost.
I've also written about Stanford Graduates/Dropouts (
https://controlplanecapital.com/p/investing-in-stanford-graduatesdropouts ).
Perhaps the most impressive list.
Here are just some examples: Elon Musk, Alex Karp, John F. Kennedy, Rishi Sunak, Sundar Pichai, Mukesh Ambani, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Herbert Hoover, Mitt Romney, Peter Thiel, Cory Booker, Jawed Karim, Aaron Swartz, Dianne Feinstein, Philippe of Belgium, Steve Ballmer, Rachel Maddow, Laurene Powell Jobs, Kevin Systrom, Phil Knight, Sam Altman, Sam Harris, Jensen Huang, Ashraf Ghani, Adam Schiff, Reed Hastings, Josh Hawley, Mike Krieger, Reid Hoffman, Ehud Barak, Morris Chang, etc.
The article I have not yet written is just zooming out even more and defining all the roles in the system.
E.g. Peter Thiel sits above the public-facing Elites, below the Controllers.
He is an Intermediary Governor.
They are not the TV-facing “geniuses” or CEOs. They are the switch-owners: people who can change parameters on infrastructure others depend on. They don’t need public charisma; they need veto rights, standard-setting power, and custody over process.
What Intermediary Governors actually do
- Parameterize the rules (policy knobs, standards, eligibility lists).
- Sequence liquidity (who gets dollars/credit first, under what collateral).
- Bless or blacklist (who’s “compliant”, “safe”, “admissible”).
- Orchestrate harmonization (make the same rule appear across jurisdictions).
- Allocate narrative oxygen (what gets framed as “safety”, “best practice”, “responsible”).
Why Intermediary Governors matter
Because defaults beat laws. A single checkbox in a standard, an app-store clause, a custody rule, or a clearing constraint moves more money/behavior than a speech. Intermediary Governors bind the cockpit (Controllers) to the machine without showing up in headlines.
Some of the other roles are:
1) Legibility Architects
- Purpose: Make people, assets, and flows machine-readable so they can be governed.
2) Consent Sculptors
- Purpose: Keep apparent buy-in high enough that force stays cheap.
3) Shock Troopers (Crisis Accelerants)
- Purpose: Use crises to push new rails while opposition is stunned.
4) Intermediary Governors (e.g. Peter Thiel)
- Purpose: Enforce policy without passing laws - via chokepoints.
5) Valve Operators (Macro/Micro Fluidics)
- Purpose: Modulate liquidity, credit, and attention to maintain stability and reward insiders.
6) Plausible-Deniability Brokers
- Purpose: Split orders between state and private fronts; keep cockpit hidden.
7) Lightning Rods
- Purpose: Absorb outrage so the architecture survives.
8) Fog Generators
- Purpose: Keep opponents arguing over symbols while rails get installed.
9) Stability Farmers (Bread & Circus)
- Purpose: Dampen revolt with comfort and ritual.
10) Growth Ambassadors (Legibility-Friendly Growth)
- Purpose: Sponsor innovation that increases governability (not just GDP).
11) Lawfare Cartographers
- Purpose: Draw the legal map so resistance is pre-criminalized.
12) Quota Distributors (Patronage)
- Purpose: Buy quiet by allocating licenses, permits, grants.
13) Sacrificial Pawns
- Purpose: Demonstrate “accountability” without touching the system.
14) International Sync Agents
- Purpose: Keep allies’ knobs turning together so policy hits feel “inevitable”.
15) Ritual Priests (Legitimacy Caretakers)
- Purpose: Maintain civic myths (elections, courts, national moments) that keep compliance cheap.
The roles are many more, these are just the main ones.
I am not suggesting that everyone in the system knows the bigger picture.
Obviously, everything is on a need to know basis and some of this stuff is very complicated even at the surface level.
Plus, one of the greatest quotes of all time:
- "It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It"
- Upton Sinclair
What Huxley is saying:
- “Abnormally normal” = perfectly compliant to a sick environment.
If a society’s core incentives reward obedience, consumption, and performative virtue over truth and agency, then adjustment is a pathology: you’re healthy-for-the-system, not healthy-for-yourself.
- Silenced “human voice” = the self that resists harmful incentives.
The child’s curiosity, refusal to lie, intolerance for double standards - trained out early via schooling, media norms, and micro-rewards/punishments until dissent feels wrong.
- No symptoms = no alarms.
The “neurotic” at least shows friction with false incentives; the “normal” runs without error messages. That’s efficient for rulers and lethal for authenticity.
Huxley’s core insight isn’t “future dystopia”, it’s cost curves: pleasure is a cheaper control input than pain, defaults govern better than laws, and language (“safety”, “stability”, “community”) edits reality. If you track incentives, defaults, and word swaps - not ideals - you’ll predict human behavior with embarrassing accuracy.
More context: