It is quite simple to manipulate the masses. One may push a certain destructive agenda on war or decadence but put on a suit and call themselves a news organization. Then the manipulation is not so obvious. It is so subtle that it propagates through something that looks authoritative and credible, but it is truly just a mechanism to push a policy or agenda, to normalize and popularize it.

The masses love being tricked constantly, or at least the pattern that repeats supports that conclusion.

How are the masses tricked so easily? It is not a difficult thing to do once you study the history of power and the essence of human nature. The opinions of the masses shift with the wind. They are fickle. They do not have real principles or beliefs. They inherit the unchallenged assumptions of the group.

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“Men are so simple, and so subject to present necessities, that he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

Distraction is one of the greatest tools of those who rule. It appears in many forms and takes many shapes. Distraction is effective because it seduces the masses, it constrains their focus from things that truly matter to things that are trivial and are of no consequence to the bigger picture. What truly are the mechanics of distraction of the masses? Why is it so simple and easy to deceive the many from even the most detrimental decisions of the rulers?

Distraction is not as obvious as it seems. It works most effectively when it appears to be a major structural problem but in reality it is not major, it is moot. If the average mind were asked what they believe distractions away from power would consist of, they would say something along the lines of bread and circuses. This is true up to a point. A society that values satiating their appetites above all else is easily distracted and controllable. This mechanism can work for a time but if a society is solely built on appetites and the masses know nothing but hedonism then the society will eventually fall. They will fall because apathy and narcissism will overtake the average person to a point that they will not fight for their society or strive to create a better tomorrow. This will collapse a society fast and those in power who encouraged it will be destroyed in the process. That is why a ruling class must control distraction. If it moves too far in one direction it will destroy their very wellspring of power.

A far more effective strategy would be to allow a society to fall into a state of general hedonistic appetite and apathy for a generation. Then after they have created a distracted culture of hedonism they use a reactionary effect to balance out society again. Massive appetite and hedonism will distract a generation, and if those in power were to fund and promote the movement to fight back against this decadence then they have controlled another generation or two. The effects of appetite would be seen and felt throughout society. This reactionary generation will devote their entire lives to restoring society to what it supposedly was or the image that has been presented to them by those in power. If these ideals are battling amongst the factions of generations and the populace, those in power have successfully controlled and distracted two or three populations. While the populace was fighting decadence in a reactionary state they have allowed those in power to calculate their motives and feelings and reflect them back to the people.

The many consume. The few study. If you have read this far, you already know which one you are.

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The new generations have voted in people who they believe are aligned with their values when in reality most people in power or attempting to gain it reflect the people’s own supposed virtues back to them. This creates a sense of a new generation in power that will disempower and discard the old generation that had let their society fall into decadence. While this has been happening the cycle was understood and managed by those men truly in power. They have kept two to four generations distracted while they slowly gain more power and influence over key institutions and bodies of power. They divert attention from themselves to a society of indulgence and apathy, and after the society has drifted too far into apathy and decadence the reactionary movement is funded and promoted. The same people remain at the top. They have changed their professed beliefs to suit the masses that will vote them in.

This is one stratagem of power and how it retains and enlarges itself and its influence over a society. This is not a rule. This is an observation. Those in power must remain vigilant because many factors are unanticipated in such cycles of decline. That is why those who remain in power have many plans to retain and gain power, not simply one. And all of those plans are convoluted and not easily understood. That is why distraction is so important. Even if the populace understands one plan from studying history, there is always another unknown to them.

That is where the bread and circuses line truly works its brilliance. It is repeatedly taught throughout the education system that Rome fell because of decadence, that the people were distracted by sport and food. While that is a reductionist point and not fully accurate it serves a useful purpose. It creates a pattern or a heuristic for the populace. It creates the illusion that they can see through the plan of control. But as demonstrated above there are other plans that have never been taught or articulated in the education system of control. Distraction like power is not a rule set in stone but a fluid and protean movement that requires constant maintenance to maintain long term goals.

Many believe they know the patterns of control, but in reality they know nothing. Many believe they truly understand how societies and power and history work but in reality they understand very little. Distraction is not simply bread and circuses. Distraction is everything and nothing, it is ideological movements, it is reactionary movements, it is sport, it is the illusion of being sport, it is entertainment, it is the illusion that entertainment is a form of control. The masses do not fail to see power because it is hidden. They fail because present necessity has always been more important to them. This is why power seems inscrutable because most people never even understand where to start looking.

Many people do not truly understand philosophy. They simply believe they understand it. If a person was asked to name a famous philosopher they would likely say one of these names: Plato, Aristotle, Socrates. These men were all philosophers but they all came from the same time period, the same city, the same society.

Socrates is the most misrepresented thinker in Western history. Not because his ideas are obscure but because his ideas are dangerous. What modern institutions teach as the Socratic method and what Socrates actually did are two entirely different things. One is a pedagogical tool. The other dismantled the legitimating foundations of an entire ruling class until the ruling class ran out of patience.

But first, who was Socrates? Where did he come from? What qualifies him as one of the greatest philosophers in history? Socrates was not a man from extravagant beginnings or an aristocratic line. His parents were common citizens in Athens, his father a stonemason, his mother a midwife. He himself grew up and fought as a soldier in his early life. Hardly the ideal or even imagined image of one of the most prominent philosophers in history. This man had no technical training in philosophy, no formal education. He was simply a common man. What makes him so important?

If you were to believe modern western teaching methods inspired by him, you would believe he inspired critical thinking through a series of questioning. While that is partially true, institutions conveniently omit the most important and dangerous part of Socrates. This is why Socrates is so important. He had a methodology of questioning powerful credentialed elite Athenians that exposed their own ignorance and hypocrisy so thoroughly he was eventually exiled for it.

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To Whom This May Reach:

“Loyalty is a curious thing. It is perceived and taught as some characteristic that makes a person good and honorable. The general populace believes loyalty is essential and a baseline in all interaction and relationships. That is why they will continue to be betrayed countless times and be perplexed every single time. We can use this to our advantage quite clearly. The promotion of loyalty as a virtue does wonders for keeping the many in your employ, or those you bestow gifts upon, doing what is in your interest. It is quite something, truly.

Give a man an extravagant gift that costs little to yourself but is worth more than everything he owns and you shall possess him and his loyalties in perpetuity. That is, until someone else comes along and offers him something larger, more extravagant, and more desirable. But assuming that does not happen, if you simply remunerate those who work for you generously, they will adore you. If you simply shower those whom you wish to control and influence with gifts of extravagance and wealth, their fealty remains to you in every situation. That is why it is such a phenomenon.

We understand loyalty as a tool and a means to an end. Something that allows a person to achieve a goal through another person with relative ease. But to the many in the populace, they have always revered loyalty as a constituent of honor, or whatever moral edifice prevails at that time. It is perplexing to me how many do not see through the facade of loyalty. It is very simple in its mechanics. Give a person incentives and benefits to stay loyal to you and you will receive influence and power tenfold the investment in them, if you pick the right person. Give those in your employ a larger salary than all your competitors, it may wound the material bottom line, but in consequence you strangle those who are your competitors in your own industry. This in turn allows you to monopolize an entire industry without ever having to engage in any unsavory tactics.

The apparent virtue of loyalty must be perpetuated throughout society, otherwise our levers of power and dominion will be diminished slowly. If we allow our control to be diminished we will cede our society over to those who wish for nothing except its destruction and extraction. They will take our society and extract everything valuable from it, then vanish as if they were never here, leaving its corpse for those who have survived.

This is why we must decimate our competition through the cultivation of loyalty, otherwise those who wish harm upon us will receive power and decimate everything our families have built.”

Always,

The Guardian

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The first aspect, as the name implies, creates a story, a linear history for the order. The second aspect can be easily understood but not so easily acknowledged. The story creates room for mythology. It allows the best and brightest parts of the founding to be highlighted and treated as virtues and sacred causes. It simultaneously ignores the flaws of the order, as well as perhaps the real reasons for the elite backing of the founding.

The third and final aspect it serves is legitimacy. If the founding myth, with only the parts that paint the order in a favorable light or as a virtuous savior, prevails and gets repeated constantly until it feels wrong to question the foundations, it creates legitimacy. This is the most underrated and misunderstood factor of every political order, cause, or revolution.

If the legitimacy of an order is called into question, if its core fundamental assumptions are challenged, it is treated as an existential threat. If those assumptions can be challenged credibly and effectively, such that the cause and its legitimacy are questioned by those within it for an extended period of time, it will inevitably fall.

History shows us this time and again. Every order that has ever ruled has required a mythology. The ones that last are the ones with the institutional power to defend it.

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In reality, the people who hold power or take dramatic action to change societies operate in a pragmatic fashion. They do what needs to be done regardless of good vs. evil. They choose to support things that advance their interests instead of judging the results of those interests on moral grounds.

That is why the masses always lose. They are always trapped in a premise of good vs. evil, that is why the same patterns that appear throughout history happen again and again. The people in power, or those who hold positions of influence, do not judge the world based on the constraints of the inherited construct. They act in the world with unapologetic self-interest. That is why they win and the many lose. The many are trapped in a premise that does not apply to the few.

For instance, let us imagine a scenario where one is given the opportunity to serve in political office and is presented with a choice. Either take a corrupt political interest’s money and gain influence and power, or get voted out in the next election. One of the many, trapped in this simple construct of good vs. evil, will not take the money. They will fight very hard to win back the election, even exposing the political interest, but they will ultimately lose. Why will they lose? They do not have the money to back them, so their opponent will outspend them and decimate them in the election. Their opponent has taken the money and advances the corrupt political interest anyway. Now if it were one of the few, not trapped in this construct of good vs. evil, they would have taken the money and accumulated power and influence within a governmental institution. Either way, the interest wins. One either gets decimated for this construct or gains power because they are not constrained by it. This example plays out throughout every governmental body many times over, it also occurs in influential private institutions with a few different details. That is why it always appears that evil people are ruling over the masses. It is not because they are evil, it is because they are not constrained by the constructed illusion that governs the many. They will do what must be done to secure their own interests.

It has been thoroughly demonstrated that those constrained by the inherited construct of good vs. evil will lose to those unburdened by it.

Most will never accept PT not because we are wrong but because they are scared to shatter their illusions and accept reality. That is why we are for the few. The masses will never accept us. The Few will see what the masses refuse.

KNOWLEDGE. REALITY. TRUTH.

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Cicero spent his career exposing corruption and defending the republic on moral grounds, he was outmaneuvered at every turn by men who simply did what was necessary. When Octavian and Antony consolidated power he had no answer for it, his principled opposition meant nothing against their pragmatic calculus. He could not see the situation for what it was, only for what he believed it should be. He was executed in 43 BC and the republic died with him.

Cato the Younger is perhaps the clearest example in all of history. He refused every compromise Caesar offered, held his moral line absolutely, and chose suicide over living under Caesar’s rule. His perception of the world was so thoroughly shaped by republican virtue that he could not conceive of operating outside it. He died unconquered in his own mind but Caesar won. The construct held Cato perfectly and Caesar not at all.

The Girondins believed the French Revolution could be guided by moderation, legal process, and moral restraint. Their perception of what the revolution was supposed to be blinded them to what it actually was. The Jacobins had no such constraints, they acted, consolidated, and eliminated. Robespierre did not debate the Girondins, he destroyed them. By 1793 they were arrested, tried, and executed by the very revolution they helped birth. The interest of the Jacobins had advanced because they were not constrained.

Now one must at this point have wondered why “construct of good vs. evil” has been used so thoroughly rather than a simpler word such as morals. The reason this has been the choice of phrase is because it truly is a construct in the mind of the average person. Most people are limited by their own experiences, perception, and what was inherited from society or their parents. All these factors shape how a person translates the world. The issue with these factors is that the world is a complex place, and these simple mental models or inherited beliefs cannot sufficiently describe or account for every situation. The masses translate their own versions of good vs. evil with extreme simplicity, if you say something enough times they begin to perceive it as reality, if you give them enough examples with no alternative data except that which supports your point they are easily fooled into thinking a certain way, if you frame or constrain a situation to a specific point in time and tell them nothing before it they see it the way you have shaped them to see it and rarely do they ever look back for more context because your point already seems sufficient.

It can be clearly understood that the many have a constructed sense of good vs. evil, not a true moral sense. What is called morals is routinely performance, or the ubiquitous nature of thought on a specific topic. This is clearly a construct that is severely affected by what they see in the media and in their lives every day. If one can shape a person’s environment just enough they can get them to support something that is clearly evil to many outside that person’s environment, with a few rhetorical or semantic tricks.

The construct constrains the masses, power and those unaffected by this construct easily achieve power because they are unimpeded by the artificial boundaries that so many mistake for reality. That is why evil men appear to be in control of everything. Not because they are evil, but because the masses’ limited understanding and perception allows them to rise, the few do not accept the same constraints as the many. If one is seeking true advantage in a society built on artificial constructs and lies, he must first be willing to throw off the constraints the many artificially wear. Once he has achieved this, he will rise as the few always have.

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This is the final installment of “The Hollow Empire” series. It encompasses what the entire series has been about thus far and puts into words what it truly means for the future of empires. This is the most modern and ambitious chapter of the entire work because it makes specific claims that can only be seen as idealistic. This entire work was created before PT had clearly articulated positions and frameworks. This is the furthest behind the thought architecture of PT you may ever see.

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The Eternal Cycle: How All Empires End

Empires do not fall by accident.

They follow a pattern older than parchment, older than coin, older than stone.

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To My Dearest Friends,

Education is a gift to all who receive it. It allows even the poorest farmer’s son to become greater than his father will ever be. He may attain an illustrious profession such as a lawyer, a doctor, or a scholar. It raises even the dim among them up from their modest roots to a contributing member of society and the common good. It allows every citizen who has access to its enlightenment and depth transcend their family’s legacy. It transforms those who are poor and a drain on society to become wealthy, important, or even influential and powerful. Universal education is the greatest endowment we have ever bestowed on society. We have allowed the populace to claw themselves out of poverty and become part of the elite class or a contributing member of a middle class. We have gifted all poor families an opportunity to reach up from their lowly profession and financial standing into a life of contribution and relative wealth compared to their ancestors.

Our fathers would have loathed the benevolence of universal education because they believed the people must be kept uneducated and ignorant to maintain power and control. The previous generation was deeply self-interested and contemptuous of the many. Now we are in power, and we believe that the betterment of all men and their ability to strive for a better future should be theirs. We have built universities and institutions of higher learning accessible to all. We have invested in the banks that give out small loans so every man or woman can make something better of themselves. The ability to gain status, wealth, and importance has never been an easier task for the masses.

Yet the many still hold deep contempt for us. They blame us for their self-imposed corruptions. Their short-sighted nature allows politicians who are presumably of the people but only self interested in reality, to hold offices that could make their lives better, but these things take time. We have not built the architecture of universal education in five or even ten years. It took many years to build the mechanisms, architecture, and institutions to make higher education a place for the entire populace, not just the privileged. Yet the people, being fickle and short-sighted in nature, vote for politicians that offer short-term solutions to issues that will take generations to solve. In doing so they also create new problems that, if they continue, will eventually become irreversible.

We have given the many access to education and the ability to become something greater than what they were, yet they still hold contempt and hatred for us. We have given them institutions that teach long-term planning, philosophy, and the art of building something complex, and they have in turn become more short-sighted, more susceptible, and more prone to vote in men who presume to be of the people, but we all know they are nothing more than charlatans wanting influence and power without earning it. Any educated person can see this, but the many, even when educated, perhaps do not understand things quite as we do.

If we allow short-term solutions that cause long-term problems to become the status quo, society will eventually hollow out and destroy itself. We have given the many an education in history with many examples of this such as the French Revolution, the fall of Greece, the fall of the Roman Republic. Yet they are seemingly unable to see that these things are being repeated before their eyes. They are still quite susceptible to funded movements built around a specific ideology or issue that will hurt society in the long term. They cannot see the actors behind the movements, or perhaps they do not want to. They are swept up in the emotions of the moment and seemingly forget their formal training and logic, the very training given to them in our institutions of higher learning. They are attempting to drag society down slowly, without awareness and without foresight. For our fathers warned us of their nature but our fathers lacked the imagination and capability to see the good it will provide.

We believed the education we had given them would be enough to make the entire society better, but it seems they have become more susceptible, not less. Now everyone knows history in a sense, but they misuse it and ignore its lessons. They take the teachings of the philosophers we mandated to be taught and twist them.

Even so, our introduction of universal education has helped every person in this society to read, write, and understand the ways of the world better. It has granted literacy to the common man like no other society before it. It has, even with these present difficulties, produced a gain in the common good for everyone. There are far fewer poor men and many more contributors and community builders. This will help the future societal good immensely. The men in the middle, those who are wealthy but not elite, are building communities and local institutions, and in doing so they are allowing the future of our society to become brighter. They are teaching their children how to read earlier. They are instilling values in every person in their communities that allows a society to flourish. It is undoubtedly one of the greatest gifts we have ever bestowed on the world.

While some still attempt to undermine us and many still hold contempt for us, they will see eventually that we have given them something invaluable to their future and to our future as a society. We have given them every essential tool they will ever need to flourish. These corruptions and disturbances herein mentioned must be addressed now before they spread and rot the beautiful society we have built granted the many. We cannot allow funded ideological biases into our institutions of higher education. We cannot allow short-term promises that cause long-term structural damage to become the status quo. We must protect this gift and remain vigilant against any and all who try to poison it. If we do not, society will rot, and it will be the fault of the elite few who could see this in advance and yet could not control or did nothing about the spiral into destruction.

Sincerely,

The Benefactor

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This is the fifth installment of “The Hollow Empire.” The Hollow Empire series is a foundational key to understanding the thought architecture behind PT. This entire series is part of our Foundational Works collection — a precursor to PT before we articulated our sharpest ideas on Substack.

This chapter explores a very misunderstood theme in history. It shows the slow collapse of the British Empire. It shows the template for every empire after it. It is a blueprint for managed decline.

As mentioned above, this is part of our Foundational Works series. This series is exclusively reserved for paid subscribers. If you truly want to separate yourself and be among the few, this series is for you. You can read the introduction to this series for free below.

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Britain The Empire That Outsourced Its Soul

Britain did not fall like Babylon. It did not burn like Rome. It did not convulse like France.

It decayed while remaining organized.

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Flattery is a far more dangerous weapon than any blade or army. It can be used to destroy anyone simply because people are fickle and vain.

They love when a person inflates their ego or gives them high praise. Flattery grants them the ability to do multiple things that raise their self-image and their perceived reputation among a group at once. First, it allows them to feign modesty. Second, it raises a person’s status in a group. Finally, it allows them to feel good about themselves, raising their personal ego and self-image. All these effects combined make flattery essentially irresistible to most people. It allows them to cultivate the perceptions others hold of them without any effort. An inflated ego distorts a man’s perceptions and reality.

That is precisely the point. Flattery can be used to uplift a person and make them more productive and useful, but it can also be used to destroy people. If a person understands flattery effectively, he can use it against his enemies until they are too vain or prideful to see anything challenging or potentially destroying them. That is the genius of it. One can use a mechanism that usually promotes productivity and recognition for actions to destroy those who oppose him. History is very clear on this mechanism and how it destroys men.

In his earlier years, Frederick II was exceptional precisely because he was not able to be flattered. He read his generals’ mistakes openly, revised his tactics, and treated honesty as an asset. Prussia’s rise was built on a king whose ego had not yet outpaced his judgment. Decades of unbroken dominance produced a court that had learned what Frederick rewarded. Deference. Confirmation. The performance of his genius reflected back at him. By the time of Kunersdorf, his commanders knew his tactical instincts were wrong. They knew the positioning was exposed, that the assault was being launched against the strongest point of the Russian line. Nobody said anything. Frederick attacked.

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Prussia lost 40% of its engaged force in a single afternoon. He wrote afterward that he did not believe he would survive the shame of it. The battle did not break Frederick II because his enemies were strong. It broke him because decades of flattery had quietly hollowed out the feedback apparatus that had made him formidable in the first place. The man who had built Prussia on clear-eyed aggression was destroyed, temporarily, by the same court culture he had allowed to form.

Bismarck didn’t control Wilhelm I by threatening him. He controlled him by building his ego up with a story. The story was that Wilhelm was the man Germany had waited centuries for, a unifier and a patriarch. Bismarck fed that image consistently and Wilhelm consumed it because it was partially true, which made it even more effective. While Wilhelm wore the myth, Bismarck built the actual architecture of European power. Alliances, the isolation of France, the managed tensions across the continent. The emperor got the statues. Bismarck got the power and the ability to execute his will on the continent. Then Wilhelm II came into power and Bismarck only lasted eighteen months. Not because he was smarter but because he didn’t need Bismarck’s story. His ego was self-constructed. Bismarck had no lever. There was no story to tell, no gap to flatter his way into.

Flattery is effective. This mechanism is clearly seen throughout history, not only in these two examples alone. It is also seen by logically analyzing the effects of it on a person’s perception and status.

Flattery provides an edge to destroy or control your enemies. A man who is susceptible to flattery, which is most men, is easy to control. Not because he is weak or ignorant but because he is taken by stories of his greatness, real or imagined, and he will identify himself as that man. If you repeat this process long enough you will be able to control or destroy him. Controlling a man through this mechanism takes far more effort because you must constantly feed his ego, manipulating and shaping his decisions to benefit your self-interest. Destroying a man through this mechanism is far easier. If a man has an inflated ego, feeding it further will make him feel invincible until he becomes so vain and prideful that he causes his own downfall. He may perish attempting to prove his greatness, or he may fall because he believes he cannot fail. He believes he is chosen, which makes him reckless. Or his self-image becomes so distorted from reality that those he surrounds himself with sycophants and enemies. There are many more situations and strategies that can be used or employed from this mechanism. As history teaches us, there are many men who have been flattered to death and infinitely more men willing to flatter a man to death.

There is a ceiling to this mechanism. Flattery only works on men with a gap between who they are and who they need to believe they are. Find that gap and you own them. If that gap does not exist or you cannot find it, you will find it very difficult to control a man this way and may expose yourself as a potential traitor.

A man who gains the most advantage will understand this mechanism and its limits. He will understand that this is not a rule but a strategy, a potential mechanism to assert power, assume control, and destroy his enemies. He also understands this mechanism may be used against him. Be the man who gains advantage. Never be the man who is flattered to death.

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This is the fourth installment of The Hollow Empire, part of our Foundational Works series. This chapter is the blueprint of how revolutions devour themselves and reemerge as tyranny recast. It demonstrates that revolutions are not inherently virtuous, they are crucibles of power, and what survives them is rarely what was promised.

This chapter teaches invaluable lessons on the nature of power and the insidious vanity that corrupts those who seize it.

As part of our Foundational Works series, this installment is reserved for paid subscribers only. This series offers key insights into the intellectual and philosophical foundations that shaped PT before we ever published a single essay.

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France: The Revolution of Guillotines and the Empire of Napoleon

France collapsed not in silence—but in applause.

The Enlightenment did not pierce the veil of empire. It embroidered it.

Before the Revolution, the Kingdom of France was already hollow. Versailles stood as a monument to opulence wrapped in delusion—a palace so far removed from pain that it might as well have been built on another planet. Gilded ceilings. Endless gardens. Protocols measured in bows per minute. It was not a capital. It was a theater.

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"Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual." — Friedrich Nietzsche

Morality among the masses is fake and performative. It is a political instrument. Institutions and the powerful have long understood that the most efficient way to neutralize opposition is not force, it is obfuscation and framing. Frame ambition as greed. Frame the desire for power as corruption. Frame those who would challenge the existing order as evil, and you have accomplished something no military might could ever dream of achieving. You have made men police themselves. Every man who calls another’s ambition immoral is doing the work of the powerful for free.

This is how the few so effectively control the many. Opponents are neutralized without confrontation. Assign them a moral failing, declare them evil, and the battle is already half won. The moment a man’s reach for power is reframed as evil, the audience stops asking whether he is right and starts hating him.

The deeper problem is what passes for morality among the masses themselves. Most of it is not morality. It is performance born directly from limitation, masked as virtue.

A man who is humble because he has nothing is not humble. He is without options. A man who is gentle because he lacks the strength for anything else is not restrained, he is incapable. He is not displaying virtue. He is covering a limitation with a more socially acceptable name. The appearance may look identical from the outside, but the reality is entirely different, and that difference is everything. The man appears virtuous to those around him, but in reality he is constrained by his own weakness and lack of standing.

It extends further. A person who has never held power over another, never possessed the means to cause genuine harm, never stood where self-interest and principle directly conflict, that person has not demonstrated moral character. They are untested. Their goodness is a product of circumstances that have never forced them to reveal their true character. They perform virtue not because they have chosen it, but because the herd demands the performance as the price of belonging. The avoidance of exile is not morality. It is survival dressed as virtue.

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This is why moralizing is so universally practiced. It costs nothing and asks nothing of a person’s character or conviction. A man with no power, no leverage, no real capacity to affect anything can still perform virtue publicly and collect the social reward attached to it. He calls another man’s ambition greed. He calls another man’s dominance cruelty. And the herd affirms him for it, because moral condemnation is the one form of power available to those who have no other kind.

The truly moral man is different. He is the man who holds power over another and does not abuse it. Who possesses the means to take and chooses not to. Who stands at the point where self-interest and principle collide and comes down on the side of principle at real cost to himself. That is a moral act. It is rare because the conditions that produce it are rare, and rarer still because self-interest has become the dominant currency of broken societies.

The masses condemn those above them as corrupt, cruel, and evil. But this condemnation comes from men who have never stood where those they judge have stood. They have never held the power, never faced the temptation at that scale, never been in a position to know what they would actually do. In all likelihood they would be no different. The evil they assign to those above them is almost certainly the evil they would commit themselves given the same position, the same pressure, and the same opportunity. They are not more moral. They are simply untested, performing virtue among the herd as though that performance would hold once real power was placed in their hands.

The masses are not moral. They are just as corrupt, cruel, self interested, and evil as those they condemn.

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This is the third installment of “The Hollow Empire,” and arguably one of the most important chapters and pieces of work in our entire catalogue.

This is the third part of our “Foundational Works” series, where we are publishing our earliest formulations of our frameworks and assumptions. The tone and voice may sound different in this chapter and throughout the entire Foundational Works series, that is because this was written before our frameworks for PT were established.

This is valuable content because it holds universal principles and laws that are not commonly understood or assumed, it also shows the earliest articulation of our ideas. This is why it is reserved for our paid subscribers only. It is part of this publication’s core foundations and it is reserved for those who trust and support us, not gated arbitrarily, but earned.

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The masses have a penchant for platitudes that compress complex topics into moral slogans that simulate depth rather than provide it. A simple sentence such as “Those who cannot think for themselves are ruled by those in power.” But the reality is that sentence simulates depth while being an incomplete thought. If one cannot think, one will not be able to form any opinions or beliefs for oneself. That is evidently accurate. It is also probable that the people in power who have already captured institutions and the modern education process are shaping what the masses believe. This platitude appears to be profound, but in reality it is a compressed idea that is incomplete.

In reality, this sentence means something far more disturbing than most will admit. The masses are fickle; they will support something because it is popular, with no basis except that it aligns with their inherited ideological foundations. Many people presume to be free thinkers, but in reality they simply have a deeper understanding than most about how their thoughts are formed. Still, their thoughts are inherited and never truly examined.

For example, a man may reject one political orthodoxy only to adopt its fashionable inverse, believing himself independent while merely relocating within the same conceptual framework. Or he may critique institutions yet retain the very moral premises those institutions supplied, never questioning the soil from which his dissent grows.

That is why this sentence is dangerous. People believe they think independently when, in reality, only a small percentage of the entire populace can think freely. The group of free thinkers being so small is a symptom of mass media, approved ideological pathways, and entrenched societal norms. It takes courage to think freely because one must be able to see things outside of personal convictions. That is difficult for the masses. One must be able to think beyond current societal norms and sanctioned ideological stances.

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Many people cannot do that because they have been trained in the manner of thinking that the current power structure imposes. The masses are taught to punish and exile taboos and seemingly morally hazardous ideas. This happens in every society throughout history. In Athens, Socrates was executed for corrupting the youth and questioning sacred assumptions. In various modern regimes, dissenters have been ostracized, deplatformed, or socially exiled for challenging prevailing ideological doctrines.

One can infer from the above that a group thinks what it is told to think, not what is necessarily accurate. Groups think along approved ideological pathways, not based on foundational examination of their assumptions about the world. This is the issue. Groupthink collapses nuance in every discussion and moralizes it. It reduces complexity and creates a false dichotomy of virtuous versus evil within a society.

The masses do not demonstrate an ability to think. They repeat inherited ideas or approved mass narratives that sound correct but have never been examined rigorously. That is why platitudes like the one above, which simulate depth, are not dismissed as incomplete thoughts but treated as profound metaphysical insight. They appear intelligent and elevated, yet they remain unfinished. That is a designed way of thinking.

If one can hear a platitude, feel depth, and fail to recognize its incompleteness, they integrate those unexamined assumptions into their worldview. They then test new ideas against these assumptions through heuristics. For instance, many people believe they can think independently because they occasionally disagree with authority, yet their disagreement operates entirely within boundaries authority has already defined. They mistake deviation within a corridor for freedom outside the structure.

Heuristics are how most people interpret the world. The problem is that these heuristic models are often incomplete, not because the individual is malicious or unintelligent, but because modern thought does not reward depth or actively encourage the challenging of fundamental beliefs. It rewards alignment with common tracks of thought, such as liberalism. Any attack on liberalism as a train of thought is treated as evil.

Modern thought places self-identity at the center of most discussions. When reality or an assumption destabilizes a person’s sense of self, they collapse the argument into virtuous versus evil. An attack on identity is treated as an attack on the individual, and it is met with swift denial and reinforcement through crude but self-reinforcing mechanisms.

This is why free thought will always be rare. Modern thought, and the process of examining metaphysical realities, has elevated the self above truth. Most people are unwilling to destabilize identity in pursuit of truth. The many would rather live within a comforting illusion than confront a harsh reality.

The following is the entire second chapter of "The Hollow Empire." This book is part of our Foundational Works series. Its purpose is to show the earliest formations of our ideas.

The voice and certain aspects and concepts in our thinking may be inconsistent with our tone and voice now, but that is intentional. These are the earliest foundations of the thought processes of PT. This chapter explores how Athens became hollowed out and broken. You may remember the glory age of Athens, but you may not remember its fall. This chapter illuminates key themes that "The Hollow Empire" explores.

This series, as was mentioned above, is part of our Foundational Works series. This is reserved exclusively for paid members only. If you would like to explore this series, please subscribe below.

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(If you would like to read the free introduction in Part I you can access it below)

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The word manipulation is almost always spoken by losers. Not someone who was wronged. Someone who was outmaneuvered. There is a difference, and most people will never admit it.

When influence works against you, it becomes manipulation. When it works for you, it becomes leadership. Vision. Diplomacy. Strength. The act is identical in both cases. Only the outcome changes the label. The act of blaming manipulation is an admission of defeat. It is not a moral position but a political one. It is the last weapon available to those without leverage, and it is used with the same strategic intent as any other tool. The difference is that it requires no competence. Anyone can accuse, or moralize without having any power or leverage at their disposal.

The prince who cannot afford to be seen to act directly in sensitive matters acts through others. The statesman who cannot afford to be wrong or given a bad reputation in public shapes the conditions before the decision is ever made. This is governance. Some may call it corruption but that is simply a position of someone with less leverage. And those who refuse to acknowledge reality will never possess the ability to escape it. They simply become a useful tool once they refuse to engage in reality and instead choose delusion.

Moral language has always functioned this way. It does not restrain power. It makes the illusion of morality feel powerful. When those without authority cannot compete through competence, because they lack leverage or power they reframe competition itself as immoral. They cannot admit defeat so instead of accepting a loss they reframe the entire game as corrupt. They assign guilt to those who understood the game better and played it without apology. The accusation is the strategy. And like all strategies administered from a position of no leverage, it rarely changes the outcome. It only allows the person or peoples to believe they are morally superior not because their position has been examined for virtue but because it grants them the appearance of virtue while attacking their opponents with leverage and power.

History proves this right time and again. Most people are not trained in understanding history as continuous; they are trained to retain information of specific events. That is why history and its true meanings may elude them.

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Machiavelli watched the Italian city-states destroy themselves not through cruelty, but through naivety. Princes who moralized about their methods lost their thrones to men who did not. He did not celebrate or endorse this as is commonly attributed to him; he simply recorded it. The lesson was not that virtue was worthless, but that virtue without force was an invitation to attack. The ruler who could not manage perception, shape incentives, and move people through calculated influence would eventually be moved himself, by someone less conflicted about doing what was necessary to take power. The Prince was not a manual for monsters. It was an autopsy of the mistakes of the idealistic, written so that they did not have to be repeated. Many presume to moralize this work and that does nothing except increase the advantage of those who understand what Machiavelli truly wrote.

Caesar understood the same logic before he ever crossed the Rubicon. His rise was not accidental. He managed relationships with precision, extended mercy where mercy built loyalty, applied pressure where pressure clarified allegiance, and shaped public perception of himself long before he needed it to survive. He did not wait for Rome to recognize his virtue. He made the conditions under which recognition of his leadership became inevitable. When his enemies finally moved against him, the groundwork was already laid. He had not manipulated Rome but governed it to recognize his will. The distinction his enemies refused to make is the same one people refuse to make today.

Napoleon did not rebuild France through transparency. He rebuilt it through the deliberate alignment of incentives, the management of loyalty, and the precise application of authority where it produced results. Former enemies were reintegrated not out of generosity but out of calculation. Their competence was extracted, their opposition was absorbed or managed. Their resistance to Napoleon and his reign became expensive rather than viable. None of this was hidden. It was simply not articulated honestly, because honest articulation would have required admitting that influence and manipulation occupy the same territory, separated only by who is applying them and the power they possess. That is the only distinction worth making. It is simply about your position and what influence, leverage and power you can exert to make your will reality.

A physician who reframes a patient’s avoidance to produce compliance with treatment operates on the same mechanisms as the figure who manufactures resentment to produce compliance with ideology. The mechanism is identical, the purpose it achieves is not. Condemning the mechanism without evaluating the purpose of it is not moral clarity. It is intellectual laziness dressed as principle. It is the avoidance of the more difficult question.

Most people do not want that responsibility. It is far simpler to condemn the act and collect the social approval that follows. It is far more simple to call something manipulation and feel righteous than to ask what it was for, whether it worked, and whether the outcome justified the method. Simplicity is a comforting illusion. It is also how people surrender their understanding of the world to those who understand reality.

The powerful and those who gain advantage from understanding power have never been confused about this mechanism. They evaluate their methods, then they ask whether the approach was useful and served their purposes and whether restraint would have served them a greater advantage. They do not moralize about influence. Weakness and those who have no power moralize because moralizing is free. It costs nothing and produces the feeling of virtue without requiring any of its substance.

Power operates and moves and It shapes conditions before they harden against it. It manages what it cannot control directly and controls what it cannot afford to leave to chance. It does not announce its methods because announcement is for those who need approval. And approval, like all things granted by others, can be withdrawn and used against power.

The distance between those who shape events and those who describe them afterward is not talent or luck. It is the willingness to see influence as a tool, evaluate it honestly, and use it without the theater of pretending otherwise.

Most people never engage with reality. They spend their lives defending their illusion and calling it moral while power moves to use them.

The Hollow Empire” is foundational work written months ago, before our frameworks were clearly articulated and before our Substack existed. It was originally part of our Codex I eBook series. Now it is time for our most valued members to see it in full.

This book examines how empires hollow out from within long before external collapse becomes visible. The Introduction is free, but the remaining chapters are reserved for paid subscribers. This is not to exclude our free readers, but to honor those who supported this work before it ever reached Substack. The value of this series is immense. You will see history in a whole new scope.

Some of the language and assumptions in this work reflect earlier articulations of ideas that have since been refined. Where ideas differ from our current frameworks, understand that these foundations shaped the ideas and frameworks as they exist today.

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INTRODUCTION: The Illusion of Permanence

They all thought they were different.

From Babylon’s gilded gates to Rome’s marble halls, from the disciplined march of Athenian ideals to the iron reach of the British Empire—each believed they were immune to the fate of those before them. Each believed their power was not just dominant, but divine. Permanent.

This is the first lie every empire tells itself:
That permanence is a reward for greatness.

But history does not reward.
It repeats.

It does not honor ambition.
It exposes it.

And it does not forgive those who forget the laws written not in ink, but in ash.

The Pattern

There is a pattern to all collapse.
It is not political. Not economic. Not even military.

It is moral.
And it begins in the soul long before it infects the senate, the crown, or the market.

“The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home.”
— Confucius

Civilizations rot the same way men do—quietly at first, then all at once.
First, they abandon discipline. Then they outsource responsibility. Then they crucify the truth.

By the time the walls fall, the fall has already happened.

The Cycle of Empire

• It begins in hardship.
  A rising empire is lean, brutal, obsessed with survival. It exalts duty over comfort and virtue over opinion. Its enemies are clear. Its values are unshaken.

• It matures through conquest.
  Expansion feeds glory. The borders stretch. Infrastructure flourishes. Culture blooms. But within that success lies a seed—the illusion that the pain is over.

• It declines in comfort.
  The children of warriors become the worshippers of pleasure. Luxury is no longer the reward—it is the identity. Virtue is replaced with value. Truth with tolerance. Strength with sensitivity.

• It dies in delusion.
  Institutions remain, but the spirit is gone. Armies are still funded, but the will to fight is not. Debate continues, but without consequence. Collapse is not noticed until it is irreversible.

And yet every empire, without fail, believes it will be the one to break the cycle.
As if eternity were earned, not feared.

The Religion of Progress

Modern minds scoff at these warnings.
They have built their own altars to efficiency, equity, and the myth of linear progress.

They do not believe in sin, only statistics. Not character, only policy.
Their gods do not judge, they manage.

But the truth remains, brutal and unchanging:
There is no innovation that can save a civilization that has lost its will to suffer for what is right.

“To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.”
— Richard Henry Lee

The death of empires begins when morality is privatized and pleasure becomes the new public good.
What follows is not war. It is decay—disguised as peace.

What This WORK Is…

This is not a work of history. It is a weapon.

A mirror held to every throne and every citizen who thinks they are untouchable.

We will not simply recount the fall of civilizations.
We will dissect them.

• Babylon: killed by excess.

• Athens: killed by ego.

• Rome: killed by comfort.

• The French: killed by revolutionary fervor.

• The British: killed by civilized decay.

• And the modern West? That is interesting…

Each section will pull from the actual words of those who ruled, advised, or warned.
Their words are not ancient, they are still happening.

A Final Warning

Empires fall. But they do not vanish.

They live on in the minds of their descendants, either as warnings or as blueprints.
The only question is whether you inherit the decay or recognize the pattern in time to break free from it.

“The evil that men do lives after them.”
— Shakespeare

The hollow empire is not a place.
It is a condition.
And you may already be inside it.

CHAPTER 1: Babylon The Empire of Excess

Before Rome became marble, before Athens dreamt of democracy, before the empires of steel and steam, there was Babylon, an empire so wealthy, so ornate, that it seemed more myth than memory.

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Most people believe freedom is about money. They believe that if they had enough money, they would never have to listen to any single person again except themselves. They think that money will buy them freedom of choice and luxury that will elevate their status. They think money is the answer to all the problems in the world. This common societal norm is a belief that is idealistic and ignorant. In reality, even among the wealthy, the largest limiting factor is a person’s own perception. This is not just among the wealthy but also among the masses. This is why true freedom is rarely achieved in any modernized society today.

Even the wealthiest and most powerful people are stupid. They believe their perceptions rule the world, not reality. They believe whatever they want will be achieved simply because they have money. This is also a common occurrence among the masses’ perceptions as well. They believe that a change in the political order or a change in economic systems will grant them true freedom. This is false. This is not how reality and power function. But they cannot see that because power and its effects on society are never thought about. They are hardly ever thought about in the circles and factions among the masses. In the factions of the wealthy, they believe money is power, but that is simply not true. Money can be power, but it must be wielded by those who understand how power and influence truly operate; otherwise, their wealth can be diminished or taken by someone who does. The reality is that most wealthy individuals are not smart; they simply have the right people around them to operate with such power and influence. The same goes for institutional authority. The people at the top are rarely intelligent, but the people who understand leverage, outcomes, influence, and games of strategy make the institution seem or be authoritative and powerful.

This reveals something very interesting about the functions of how power operates at the heights of modern society. Power is not granted because of resources, because of status, or because of position of authority. It is granted by intellect. Money means nothing without somebody directing it who understands the mechanisms of modern power. Status means nothing unless it is utilized by someone who recognizes how status can create opportunities to influence and change the order of society. Positions of authority in institutions and government are meaningless without those who understand how to utilize those positions to advance interests effectively. Those who understand how power truly works have an advantage in every society.

The few do not let insight pass.
They act while momentum is present.

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Power is a fluid mechanism for exerting one’s will. It must be understood and evaluated from every angle in every situation to find the best possible angle to produce leverage, outcomes, or advance interests. That is why the real power brokers in a society are nameless, faceless, and formless. They are intelligent, and they understand that to be known is a severe disadvantage. Once they are known, their movements can be tracked by those who seek power or seek to gain from their proximity to power. That is, of course, one strategy. Others reveal themselves fully and flaunt their reputation of power to show public dominance and exert their influence openly with no real challenge. The advantage to this strategy is, of course, your enemies seeing what you want them to see. You can take specific actions to produce reactions from your enemies who believe they are moving to uproot you, but in reality you are setting a trap for them. This may seem contradictory and may even start to become convoluted. That is because power is fluid. It does not have a specific form; it takes only the form it needs to appear as. That is why those who study power, and are intellectually able to understand it and how it truly operates in reality rather than in comforting moral illusions, have an advantage in every society.

“The reputation of power is power.”

— Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

Most people cannot understand power because they are simply intellectually unable to see it effectively. The masses are not known for their ability to hold two competing issues in their mind without an obvious conclusion. That is why you get false dialectics in every part of society, not because they are specifically manufactured, but because that is how mass human thought forms into two binary choices rather than complex systemic issues that don’t resolve neatly. Those who understand and are intelligent enough to hold such competing, seemingly contradictory thoughts are rare. They are the brokers of power; they understand things that are not so obvious to others.

This is why egalitarian thought will always be incomplete. Reality is not fair. The intellect people possess is not fair. The ability to have sound reasoning and logic and translate that into strategies of power is not evenly distributed. That is why hierarchy and inequality form in every society, not because of systemic issues, but because of the greatest divide in all human systems: intellectual superiority. Those who can truly think with reason and logic and come to their own conclusions are rare. It is a very popular thing to say in modern society that you come to your own conclusions. That is a trite saying that means nothing. Most people cannot come to their own conclusions because they cannot reason. They cannot reason because they don’t even understand their fundamental worldview.

Now, for some this will be possible; some are simply unable to think so deeply. But for the few, this is deeply possible. To be able to reason soundly and logically with support and come to your own conclusions is feasible. But to accurately do this, one must understand their basic beliefs and worldview. Otherwise, their lines of reasoning and thought are subject to persuasion from those who seem smarter or those who hold more dominant, societally accepted assumptions. That is what sets apart the intellectually superior. They are able to base their line of thought on their own concluded worldview. They are able to hold it without deviation because they understand their basic beliefs and the foundational building blocks of their logic.

This is a rare ability: to challenge your own fundamental beliefs critically and reinforce them without destabilizing your sense of self and identity. Those who are intellectually superior will become brokers of power and leaders, not because they are better, but because their perceptions are not limited by baseline societal assumptions that are easily manipulated to fit a narrative. They can see beyond the veil of emotional and logical manipulation. They will be able to behave fluidly and adapt to situations and understand how power works, not because they are inherently better, but because their perception is not limited like everyone else’s.

Freedom is not money. Power is not status. Both are tools. Tools are only as effective as the mind directing them. Without that mind, money is spent. Status is displayed. Authority is performed. None of it produces real leverage. That mind is not purchased. It is not inherited. It is built through one process: examining and challenging your own foundational beliefs until your reasoning belongs to you alone. Until your conclusions are yours and not borrowed from whoever shaped you last. Most people never begin that process. The discomfort stops them. They return to inherited assumptions because society rewards conformity with comfort. Those who continue gain something no market shift or political change can touch. A perception that is not limited by what everyone else assumes to be true. That is the entry point to real power. Most people spend their entire lives believing it was locked behind money, status, or position. It was never there. Those who understand reality and these fundamental truths will rule. Those who reject this will always be limited and controlled by mass perception and their own limitations.

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Loyalty is treated as a sacred moral virtue. Loyalty is moral and virtuous on its own in theory. A true friend or companion who will not leave when it is convenient. A person who would never even think about betraying you, even if it improves their life considerably. A person who would honor their word to you, even if it risks their well-being or life. Loyalty is a true moral virtue, and anyone who possesses this quality is worth more than a vast amount of riches and wealth.

Theories are kind and a comforting thing to think about, but reality is what the world actually operates on, not theory. In reality, it is understood intrinsically by everyone, whether they consciously know it or not, that loyalty is conditional. A person will not be loyal for nothing; they must have an incentive to become loyal and to stay loyal to you. That is how the world operates in reality. Reality is not an ideal situation, but it is one everyone lives with. In reality, human nature is self-serving, attempting to extract the best possible outcomes for itself, no matter the cost to others. If one cannot accept this fact, they are blinded and incapable of understanding how reality functions.

If one carries a baseline worldview that most people are good and moral, they will never be able to see power at work. Power, in gaining it and maintaining it, embodies the very essence of human nature: self-interested outcomes that care not about the effects on other people and those around them. This has been demonstrated throughout history many times.

Alcibiades was Athens’ most gifted general. Celebrated, trusted, and politically powerful. When Athenian rivals moved against him, he defected to Sparta, Athens’ greatest enemy, and gave them the intelligence needed to devastate his own city. When Sparta became inconvenient, he defected again to Persia. He never served Athens, Sparta, or Persia. He served Alcibiades. The city that celebrated him was nearly destroyed by him. Loyalty had nothing to do with it. Survival and advantage did.

Cardinal Fouché served the Revolution. Then Robespierre. Then the Directory. Then Napoleon. Then the Bourbon monarchy after Napoleon fell. Every regime change, Fouché survived by selling the previous regime to the next one. He was never loyal to a cause. He was loyal to his own continuity. Each master believed they had his loyalty. None of them did. He outlasted them all.

Pompey and Caesar were allies for years. They shared power, resources, and political cover through the First Triumvirate. The moment Caesar’s position weakened relative to the Senate, Pompey aligned against him. Years of alliance dissolved the instant the incentive structure changed. There was no betrayal in Pompey’s mind. There was only the next calculation.

History is not subtle about this. The incentive changes. The loyalty disappears. Every time.

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The world is not fair. Those who pretend it is are ruled by those who understand it isn’t. Outcomes define reality, not equality. A man who believes the world is fair will play by the rules taught to him. He will obey when he is told to obey. He will work when he is told to work.

The man who understands reality gains advantage. He recognizes that equality of leverage does not exist. He studies structure. He studies incentives. He uses leverage and influence to shape outcomes that benefit him. The concept of equality is often raised as something to make people feel good, but in practice it functions as a stabilizing belief. It comforts more than it describes.

A man who works for a living may earn a good wage, but a man who understands systems and shapes outcomes may earn ten times the working man’s yearly wage in a day. For a person to shape outcomes, they must first understand that life is not equal in leverage or starting position. Life is not equal or fair, and neither are the systems that rule men. Some are born into great wealth, others into strong families, and some into both. Conversely, some are born in poverty, some without a family, and some with disease. This is how reality functions.

The pattern repeats across the domains of man-made systems.

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In a courtroom, is a rich man equal to a poor man? You may believe so, but the rich man can afford many lawyers, while the poor man may only afford one. Who is more protected and less likely to be convicted? The answer is obvious.

In politics, whose influence carries more weight? The rich man’s vote counts the same as the poor man’s, but the rich man may donate tens of millions of dollars to a candidate. The poor man, if fortunate, may donate one thousand. Who is taken more seriously? Again, the answer is clear.

Influence follows the same structure. A wealthy executive can shape public opinion through media ownership, advertising, and institutional networks, while the average man’s voice rarely travels beyond his immediate circle. Might follows it as well. A state with a powerful military dictates terms; a weaker state negotiates within limits imposed upon it.

This is not meant to divide along class lines. It is meant to demonstrate that equality of leverage is not reality. In certain political and economic systems, the ability to become wealthy, powerful, or influential may be more feasible, but that is not the point. The point is that the world does not function as fair. Reality does not function as fair.

Those who cling to the illusion of fairness will be ruled by those who understand structure, reality, and power. Hierarchy appears in every system. The notion of equality may be comforting, but comfort does not determine reality, power does.

Those who understand this will gain an advantage. Seeing the world through the lens of power, leverage, and influence is infinitely more valuable than devoting your life to defending something that is fundamentally flawed: egalitarianism. Most people will not accept this; they will rationalize, moralize, or even slander the argument. This only increases the advantage of those who do understand. Those who understand this refuse to defend illusions. They study how systems actually distribute power and position themselves accordingly. The result is undeniable advantage: better outcomes, greater leverage, and insulation from forces that control the masses. This is how power functions, not as evil but as reality.

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