Curtis Yarvin | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Yarvin in 2023 | |
| Born | 1973 (age 51–52) |
| Other names | Mencius Moldbug |
| Education | |
| Known for | Contributions to theDark Enlightenment and creatingUrbit |
| Spouse(s) | Jennifer Kollmer (died 2021) |
| Children | 3 |
| Website | Unqualified Reservations – earlier blog Gray Mirror – later blog |
Curtis Guy Yarvin (born 1973), also known by thepen nameMencius Moldbug, is an Americanfar-right politicalblogger and software developer.[1][2][3] He is known, along withaccelerationist philosopherNick Land, for founding the anti-egalitarian andanti-democratic philosophical movement known as theDark Enlightenment or neo-reactionary movement (NRx), which originated in the late 2000s.[4][5][6][7][2] By the early 2020s, Yarvin and his ideas were noted as having growing ideological influence in theAmerican Right, including among prominent figures such asVice PresidentJD Vance, andventure capitalist andRepublicanmegadonorPeter Thiel.[2][8][9]
In his blogUnqualified Reservations, which he wrote from 2007 to 2014, and in his later newsletterGray Mirror, which he started in 2020, he argues that Americandemocracy is a failed experiment[10] that should be replaced by an accountablemonarchy, similar to the governance structure of corporations.[11] In 2002, Yarvin began work on a personal software project that eventually became theUrbit networked computing platform. In 2013, he co-founded the company Tlon to oversee the Urbit project and helped lead it until 2019.[12] He made a return to the company in 2024, described as having a "wartime C.E.O." role.[13]
Yarvin has been described as a "neo-reactionary", "neo-monarchist" and "neo-feudalist" who "seesliberalism as creating aMatrix-liketotalitarian system, and who wants to replace American democracy with a sort oftechno-monarchy".[14][15][16][17] He has defended the institution ofslavery, and has suggested that certain races may be more naturally inclined toward servitude than others.[3][18] He has argued thatwhites have inherently higher IQs than black people,[18] and opposes U.S.civil rights programs.[19]
Yarvin has influenced some prominentSilicon Valley investors and Republican politicians. Political strategistSteve Bannon has read and admired his work.[20] Vice President JD Vance "has cited Yarvin as an influence himself".[21][22][8]Michael Anton, theState DepartmentDirector of Policy Planning duringTrump's second presidency, has also discussed Yarvin's ideas.[2] In January 2025, Yarvin attended a Trump inaugural gala in Washington;Politico reported he was "an informal guest of honor" due to his "outsize influence over theTrumpian right".[23]
Curtis Guy Yarvin[24] was born in 1973 to aliberal,secular family.[25] According to Yarvin, his father worked for the U.S. government as a diplomat inNicosia,[26] and his mother was fromWestchester County.[27] Yarvin's paternal grandparents were bothJewish.[28]
Throughout his childhood, he was sometimes homeschooled by his mother, and in his education skipped three grades.[13] In 1985, he enteredJohns Hopkins's longitudinalStudy of Mathematically Precocious Youth. In 1988, Yarvin graduated fromWilde Lake High School,[29] a public high school in the planned community ofColumbia, Maryland,[30][31] which he had entered as a twelve-year-old sophomore.[13]
Yarvin spent a pre-college summer atCornell University, then he attendedBrown University, graduating in 1992. He was then a graduate student in a computer science PhD program atUC Berkeley before dropping out after a year and a half to join a tech company.[32][27]
During the 1990s, Yarvin was influenced by thelibertarian tech culture ofSilicon Valley.[32] Yarvin read right-wing and American conservative works. The libertarianUniversity of Tennessee law professorGlenn Reynolds introduced him to writers likeLudwig von Mises andMurray Rothbard. The rejection ofempiricism by Mises and theAustrian School, who favored instead deduction fromfirst principles, influenced Yarvin's mindset.[33]
In 2002, Yarvin founded theUrbit computer platform as a decentralized network of personal servers. In 2013, he co-founded the San Francisco-based company Tlon Corp to build out Urbit further with funding from Peter Thiel's venture capital arm, theFounders Fund.[34][17] The company is named after the short story, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", byJorge Luis Borges.[13] In 2016, Yarvin was invited to present on thefunctional programming aspects of Urbit at LambdaConf 2016, which resulted in the withdrawal of five speakers, two sub-conferences, and several sponsors due to his controversial views.[18][35]
Yarvin left Tlon in January 2019, but retained some intellectual and financial involvement in the development of Urbit.[12] He returned to the company in 2024, though without an official title.[36] His role was described as a "wartime C.E.O", and his return led to the resignation of several top employees.[13]
In Yarvin's terms, his "red-pill moment" was when he was a supporter of the conservativeSwift Boat conspiracy theory that attempted to discreditDemocratic candidateJohn Kerry during the2004 Presidential election.[13] Yarvin believed in the accusations, and expected that Kerry would drop out of the race; when it didn't happen, he began pursuing other conservative conspiracy theories and fringe ideological positions on subjects such as theCivil War,global warming anddemocracy.[13]
The writing ofThomas Carlyle,James Burnham, andHans-Hermann Hoppe, all of which variously proposed the failure of democracy, prompted Yarvin's endorsement ofauthoritarianism and elitism.[37] In the 2000s, American-lednation-building in Iraq andAfghanistan strengthened Yarvin's anti-democratic views, while the federal response to the2008 financial crisis strengthened his libertarian convictions, as well as followingBarack Obama'selection as U.S. president later that year.[38] Yarvin has also regardedpickup artists as inspirations, having taken lessons on matters like how to deal with journalists from some of them; he once rhetorically asked "What would Heartiste say"? in reference to prominent PUA blog "Chateau Heartiste".[13]
In 2007, Yarvin began theblogUnqualified Reservations to promote his political views.[39] Yarvin's pen name is a combination of the Confucian philosopher "Mencius" and a play on "goldbug."[26] It was originally used to evade blocks when posting to Reddit and Hacker News. In an early blog post, he adapted a phrase from the movieThe Matrix, repurposing "red pill" to mean a shattering of progressive illusions.[27] He largely stopped updating his blog in 2013, when he began to focus onUrbit; in April 2016, he announced thatUnqualified Reservations had "completed its mission", and was finished.[40]
In 2020, Yarvin began another blog of his views, under the page nameGray Mirror of the Nihilist Prince, or simplyGray Mirror, on the publishing platformSubstack, intended as a preview for a planned book of the same title.[41] In June 2025, it was the third most popular "history" publication on the platform.[13] The blog has included speculation on how to replace American democracy with a new form of monarchy, something that has been labelledfascist by critics, but is disputed by Yarvin.[22]
Yarvin has also had printings of both previous blogs, and new works published in print by the far-right publishing housePassage Press. This includes the first of three planned printed volumes of previously publishedUnqualified Reservations blogs,[42] and the first of a four-part planned series, titledGray Mirror and unique to print, outlining his vision for a new political system.[13][43]
In January 2025, Yarvin attended a Trump inaugural gala inWashington, D.C., hosted byPassage Press;Politico reported he was "an informal guest of honor" due to his "outsize[d] influence over the Trumpian right".[23]David Marchese ofThe New York Times described him as "a fixture of the right-wing media universe", citing his appearances on the shows of political commentators likeTucker Carlson andCharlie Kirk, among others. He also described Yarvin's connections with officials in thesecond Trump administration, including theDirector of Policy Planning,Michael Anton.[1]
Yarvin has conceptualized "the Cathedral" as an analogy for what he has stated he believes is an informal amalgam of universities and the mainstream press, which collude to sway public opinion as they harness real political power in the United States.[44] According to him, a so-called "Brahmin" social class (in reference to theBrahmin class ofIndia's caste system and the AmericanBoston Brahmins) dominates American society, preaching progressive values to the masses. The socio-religious analogy originates from Yarvin's opinion that progressive ideology is delivered to and internalized by the general populace much in the same way religious authorities and institutions deliver religious dogma to worshippers. Yarvin and theDark Enlightenment assert that the Cathedral's commitment to equality and justice erodes social order,[45] instead advocating for an American monarchal figurewho he has expressed hope for taking responsibility for dissolving what he perceived as the Cathedral.[22] Yarvin contends that society needs a "hard reset" or a "reboot", not a series of gradual political reforms;[46] instead of activism, he advocates passivism, claiming that progressivism would fail without right-wing opposition.[47] According to him, NRx adherents should design "new architectures of exit" rather than engage in ineffective political activism.[48]
Yarvin argues for a "neo-cameralist" philosophy based onFrederick the Great of Prussia'scameralism.[7] In Yarvin's view, democratic governments are inefficient and wasteful and should be replaced with sovereignjoint-stock corporations whose "shareholders" (large owners) elect an executive with total power, but who must serve at their pleasure.[46] The executive, unencumbered by liberal-democratic procedures, could rule efficiently much like a CEO-monarch.[46] Yarvin admires Chinese leaderDeng Xiaoping for his pragmatic and market-oriented authoritarianism, and the city-state ofSingapore as an example of a successful authoritarian regime. He sees the United States as soft on crime, dominated by economic and democratic delusions.[45]
Yarvin supportsauthoritarianism onright-libertarian grounds, claiming that the division of political sovereignty expands the scope of the state, whereas strong governments with clear hierarchies remain minimal and narrowly focused.[45] According to scholar Joshua Tait, "Moldbug imagines a radical libertarian utopia with maximum freedom in all thingsexcept politics."[49] He has favoredsame-sex marriage,freedom of religion, and private use of drugs, and has written against race- or gender-based discriminatory laws, although, according to Tait, "he self-consciously proposed private welfare and prison reforms that resembled slavery".[46] Tait described Yarvin's writing as ultimately contradictory, summarizing the contradictions in his views:[32]
He advocates hierarchy, yet deeply resents cultural elites. His political vision is futuristic and libertarian, yet expressed in the language of monarchy and reaction. He is irreligious and socially liberal on many issues but angrily anti-progressive. He presents himself as a thinker searching for truth but admits to lying to his readers, saturating his arguments with jokes and irony. These tensions indicate broader fissures among the online Right.
Under his Moldbug pseudonym, Yarvin gave a presentation about "rebooting" the American government at the 2012BIL Conference. He used it to advocate the acronym "RAGE", which he defined as "Retire All Government Employees". He described what he felt were flaws in the accepted "World War II mythology", alluding to the idea thatAdolf Hitler's invasions were acts of self-defense. He argued these discrepancies were pushed by America's "ruling communists", who inventedpolitical correctness as an "extremely elaborate mechanism for persecuting racists and fascists".[50] "If Americans want to change their government," he said, "they're going to have to get over their dictator phobia."[51]
In the inaugural article published onUnqualified Reservations in 2007, entitled "A formalist manifesto", Yarvin called his concept of aligning property rights with political power "formalism", that is, the formal recognition of realities of the existing power, which should eventually be replaced in his view by a new ideology that rejects progressive doctrines transmitted by the Cathedral.[49][52] Yarvin's first use of the term "neoreactionary" to describe his project occurred in 2008.[53][54] His ideas have also been described by Dylan Matthews ofVox as "neo-monarchist".[15]
Yarvin claimed in a January 2025New York Times interview that there was historical precedent to support his reasoning, asserting that in his first inaugural addressFranklin Delano Roosevelt "essentially says, Hey, Congress, give me absolute power, or I'll take it anyway. So did FDR actually take that level of power? Yeah, he did." The interviewer, David Marchese, observed that "Yarvin relies on what those sympathetic to his views might see as a helpful serving of historical references", with it otherwise being "a highly distorting mix of gross oversimplification, cherry-picking and personal interpretation presented as fact" in Marchese's overview.[1]
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Peter Thiel was an investor in Yarvin's startup Tlon and gave $100,000 to Tlon's co-founder John Burnham in 2011.[55][56] In 2016, Yarvin privately asserted toMilo Yiannopoulos that he had been "coaching Thiel" and that he had watched the 2016 U.S. presidential election at Thiel's house.[57] In his writings, Yarvin has pointed to a 2009 essay by Thiel, in which the latter declared: "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible ... Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women—two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians—have rendered the notion of 'capitalist democracy' into an oxymoron."[58]
Yarvin's ideas were influential amongright-libertarians andpaleolibertarians, and prominent investors like Thiel have echoed Yarvin's project of seceding from the United States to establish tech-CEO dictatorships.[59][56] JournalistJonathan Wilson noted that Yarvin had "a serious intellectual influence on key figures in Donald Trump's coming administration".[2] Venture capitalistMarc Andreessen, an informal adviser toDonald Trump, has spoken in approval of Yarvin.[1] Political strategistSteve Bannon has read and admired his work.[20] Vice-president JD Vance also praised Yarvin in 2021, and said, drawing from his 2012 "Retire All Government Employees" talk, that "what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, and replace them with our people. And when the courts stop you, stand before the country and say, 'Thechief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.'"[21][60]
CNN noted that while Thiel, Andreessen, Vance, and Anton have shown support for Yarvin, they have shown varying and inconsistent support for his theories, depending on their positions: "An advisor to Vance denied the vice president has a close relationship with Yarvin, saying the two have met 'like once.' Thiel, who did not respond to a request for comment, toldThe Atlantic in 2023 he didn't think Yarvin's ideas would 'work' but found him to be an 'interesting and powerful' historian. And earlier this year, Andreessen, who also did not respond to a request for comment, posted on X that one can read 'Yarvin without becoming a monarchist.'"[61] InvestorBalaji Srinivasan has also echoed Yarvin's ideas of techno-corporate cameralism. He advocated in a 2013 speech for a "society run bySilicon Valley ... an opt-in society, ultimately outside the US, run by technology".[62][56]
Yarvin has been consistently described as analt-right figure in journalism and commentary.[7][63][16] For instance,Mike Wendling dubbed Yarvin "the alt-right's favorite philosophy instructor" in 2018.[64][7] Tait describesUnqualified Reservations as a"'highbrow' predecessor and later companion to the transgressive anti-'politically correct'metapolitics of nebulous online communities like4chan and/pol/".[56] Yarvin has publicly distanced himself from thealt-right. In a private message, Yarvin counseled Milo Yiannopoulos, then a reporter atBreitbart News, to deal withneo-Nazis "the way some perfectly tailored high-communistNYT reporter handles a herd of greasy anarchist hippies. Patronizing contempt. Your heart is in the right place, young lady, now get a shower and shave those pits."[65]
Writing inVanity FairJames Pogue said of Yarvin:[9]
Some of Yarvin's writing from (his blogUnqualified Reservations) is so radically right wing that it almost has to be read to be believed, like the time he critiqued the attacks by the Norwegian far-right terroristAnders Behring Breivik—who killed 77 people, including dozens of children at a youth camp—not on the grounds that terrorism is wrong but because the killings wouldn't do anything effective to overthrow what Yarvin called Norway's 'communist' government. He argued thatNelson Mandela, once head of the military wing of theAfrican National Congress, had endorsed terror tactics and political murder against opponents and said anyone who claimed 'St. Mandela' was more innocent than Breivik might have 'amother you'd like to fuck.'
InCommonweal, Matt McManus said of Yarvin that:[66]
He comes across as a kind of third-rate authoritarianDavid Foster Wallace, combining post-postmodern bookish eclecticism with a yearning to communicate with and influence young disaffected white men. His writings are full of dubious historical claims usually mixed with thinly veiled bigotry and a powdery kind of middle-class snobbery.
Yarvin came to greater public attention in February 2017 whenPolitico reported thatSteve Bannon, who served asWhite House Chief Strategist under U.S. PresidentDonald Trump, read Yarvin's blog and that Yarvin "has reportedly opened up a line to the White House, communicating with Bannon and his aides through an intermediary".[67] The story was picked up by other magazines and newspapers, includingThe Atlantic,The Independent, andMother Jones.[7][68][69] Yarvin denied toVox that he was in contact with Bannon in any way,[15] but he jokingly toldThe Atlantic that his White House contact was theTwitter userBronze Age Pervert.[7] Yarvin later gave a copy of Bronze Age Pervert's bookBronze Age Mindset toMichael Anton, a former seniornational security official in thefirst Trump administration. Trump also named Anton to be theU.S. State DepartmentDirector of Policy Planning in hissecond presidency.[70][71][72]
In a May 2021 conversation, Anton said Yarvin was arguing that a president could "gain power lawfully through an election, and then exercise it unlawfully". Yarvin replied, "It wouldn't be unlawful. You'd simply declare astate of emergency in your inaugural address", adding, "you'd actually have a mandate to do this. Where would that mandate come from? It would come from basically running on it, saying, 'Hey, this is what we're going to do.'" He continued that if a hypothetical authoritarian president were to take office in 2025, "you can't continue to have aHarvard or aNew York Times past since perhaps the start of April" because "the idea that you're going to be aCaesar and take power and operate with someone else's Department of Reality in operation is just manifestly absurd.Machiavelli could tell you right away that that's a stupid idea."[2]
Yarvin has supported and discussedeugenic theories concerningrace and intelligence. He has also been described as a modern-day supporter ofslavery, a description which he has combatted.[73][18] He has claimed that some races are more suited to slavery than others.[18] In a post that linked approvingly toSteve Sailer andJared Taylor, he wrote: "It should be obvious that, although I am not awhite nationalist, I am not exactly allergic to the stuff."[7][74] In 2009, he wrote that since American civil rights programs were "applied to populations with recenthunter-gatherer ancestry and no great reputation for sturdy moral fiber", the result was "absolute human garbage".[19]
Yarvin has disputed accusations of racism,[73] and in his essays, "Why I am not a White Nationalist" and "Why I am not anAnti-Semite", he offered a somewhat sympathetic analysis of those ideologies before ultimately rejecting them.[27] He has also described the use of IQ tests to determine superiority as "creepy".[18]
Yarvin was married to Jennifer Kollmer, who died in 2021 of a rare hereditary condition and with whom he had two children.[75] He was briefly engaged to writer Lydia Laurenson, with whom he has one child.[9][76][77] He married Kristine Militello in 2024.[78]
Yarvin's online writings, many under his pseudonym Mencius Moldbug, convey blatantly racist views. He expresses the belief that white people are genetically endowed with higher IQs than black people. He has suggested race may determine whether individuals are better suited for slavery, and his writing has been interpreted as supportive of the institution of slavery. ... Yarvin disputes that he agrees with the institution of slavery, but many interpret his writings as screeds supportive of bondage of black people. He writes in an email toInc., 'I don't know if we can say *biologically* that part of the genius of the African-American people is the talent they showed in enduring slavery. But this is certainly true in a cultural and literary sense. In any case, it is easiest to admire a talent when one lacks it, as I do.' ... In Yarvin's Medium blog post, he wrote that while he disagrees with the concept that 'all races are equally smart,' he is not racist because he rejects what he refers to as 'IQism.'
Shut down elite media and academic institutions: Now, recall that, according to Yarvin's theories, true power is held by 'the Cathedral,' so they have to go, too. The new monarch/dictator should order them dissolved. 'You can't continue to have a Harvard or a New York Times past the start of April,' he told Anton. After that, he says, people should be allowed to form new associations and institutions if they want, but the existing Cathedral power bases must be torn down.
If I had to choose one word and stick with it, I'd pick "restorationist." If I have to concede one pejorative which fair writers can fairly apply, I'll go with "reactionary." I'll even answer to any compound of the latter—"neoreactionary," "postreactionary," "ultrareactionary," etc.
A programming conference in Boulder this May has become surrounded by controversy after organizers decided to let Curtis Yarvin — a programmer who has blogged under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug about his views that white people are genetically smarter than black people — remain a speaker at the event. ... But Yarvin's views, which some have alleged are racist and endorse the institution of slavery, already have led to him being kicked out of a conference in 2015, and there has been pressure on LambdaConf to do the same. ... 'I am not an "outspoken advocate for slavery," a racist, a sexist or a fascist,' he wrote. 'I don't equate anatomical traits (whether sprinting speed or problem-solving efficiency) with moral superiority. ... '
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