Underthrow

Subscribe and support at Underthrow.org I would like to thank you, dedicated readers, for the feedback on Accountability Loops . Given your encouragement, I think Underthrow show listeners could use a dose. -MB My deddy used to say that the 11th Commandment is “Thou shalt have air conditioning.” When your thermostat is in good order, it reads the room, checks the target, and acts to close the temp...

Subscribe and support at Underthrow.org -- Imagine . A group of explorers finds an island no one has ever settled. They share a peculiar passion. They love a certain kind of game. They call it Cooperation—the art of working together, as effectively as possible, for mutual gain. So they plant a flag on the island. They name the place Coopertopia. And they send out a call: Come build with us. Others...

Subscribe and support us at Underthrow.org. For human beings , there are only two means of getting others to do what we want: persuasion and compulsion . Persuasion is peaceful. Compulsion is not. So, a principle surfaces: Given that compulsion deprives others of happiness, we shall endeavor to use persuasion in all of our human relationships. This is part of a philosophy developed by an entrepren...

Subscribe and support at Underthrow.org. Did you know that in developed countries, we have built the most educated, most liberated generation of women in human history? Yet women report being profoundly unhappy. Birth rates are collapsing. Most educated men say they want equal partners, yet feel a crushing pressure to out-earn them. Most women hold high standards for a potential partner even as th...

Subscribe and support at Underthrow.org The more we learn about the universe, the stranger things get. That’s because, when physicists follow their best theories all the way down—refusing to flinch or wave their hands—they arrive at two radically different pictures of reality. The first says there may be multiple universes, which means you could be one of uncountably many versions of yourself, bra...

Subscribe and support at Underthrow.org Pick up your phone . How many apps do you have? Fifty? A hundred? You downloaded every one of them. Now imagine waking up tomorrow and finding only two. A red app. A blue app. The device insists it can run anything you want—but somehow, only red and blue are available. You can’t uninstall either one. You can’t install a third. Wouldn’t you want to return tha...

Every day, strangers are in your ears . They come through your phone, your television, your group chats, your feeds. They speak with conviction. They speak with urgency. They talk as if they are telling you the truth. Most of them are not—and not always lying, either. They are performing. The first step to thinking clearly in this century is learning to tell them all apart. There are ten major voi...

Support and subscribe at Underthrow.org. H.L. Mencken said it best : “Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.” The old satirist wasn’t just being clever. He was being precise. Here’s the thing: We elect representatives. But those representatives have a giant credit card. They have maxed it out and sent us the bill. We pay through taxation and inflation, but get almost no...

Subscribe and Support: Underthrow.org When it comes to generating content, the producer usually has to make a tradeoff. Staying on top of trends in the news cycle is good for clicks, but the cost is the loss of opportunities to deliver more timeless messages. Produce something evergreen, and you might offer a message humanity needs, but they’re not interested in hearing. Society’s profound need to...

Subscribe and support at Underthrow.org When we put together this week’s video, I had the next generation in mind. The message fits nicely with the launch of The Chrysalis Project , a community and course for men under 30. You see, all the evidence says young men are struggling, whether drowning in digital currents or falling behind in their lives and careers. Thanks to my co-founder James Harriga...

You love freedom. You respect the rule of law. But over the years, the political class has eroded your freedom and enacted laws that are at odds with these. Political elites have also set the conditions under which freedom and the rule of law will continue to erode. They pass laws that serve their interests and those of their favor-seeking donors. That means power goes on the auction block. This i...

Subscribe and support at Underthrow.org I don’t care for the term ‘futurist,’ but whatever minor fame I have enjoyed in my life has been due primarily to being a forward-looking optimist. But in recent years, I’ve had a drearier outlook. The pace of liberatory change has been slower than I hoped, and I’m coming around to the view that we have lost our unifying creed, our basic principles, our civi...

Subscribe and Support at Underthrow.org Humans Reorganize: A to B Game A vs. Game B is the conceptual heart of the second half. Game A is our current operating system — 10,000 years of agriculture, science, democracy, and financial markets, with profit as the sole pruning rule for what gets built next. Game B proposes replacing that pruning rule with two rules focused on human flourishing and ecol...

Subscribe and Support: Underthrow.org This week’s guest is Jim Rutt — technology veteran, former CEO of Network Solutions, longtime board chairman of the Santa Fe Institute, and chairman emeritus of the California Institute of Machine Consciousness. Jim is also the host of the Jim Rutt Show , one of the sharpest long-form podcasts for serious thinkers. Our conversation today ranges from the hard p...

Subscribe and support us at Underthrow.org Economist and commentator Peter St Onge joins host Max Borders for a wide-ranging conversation covering the current economic outlook, monetary policy, healthcare reform, tariffs, and the long-term implications of AI and automation. Here are the key takeaways. The Economy Is Better Than the Headlines Suggest St. Onge opened with a surprisingly optimistic n...

Subscribe and Support: UNDERTHROW.org What does it actually take to become a mature, resilient, self-aware human being—and why does it matter so much right now? This week , Max Borders sits down with Michael D. Ostrolenk —master coach, psychotherapist, and founder of Resilience Optimized . They explore some of the most pressing questions about personal development, masculinity, and what it means t...

Subscribe and support Underthrow.org Editor’s Note: At root, I am committed to a doctrine of Respect for Persons. To the extent that we must live with a violence-monopoly government, law enforcement agents should be trained to respect the life, liberty, and property of every person they encounter. To the extent that citizen protestors seek to exercise their right to express themselves or protest,...

Underthrow.org : Subscribe and support! In today’s episode , Max sits down with screenwriter and co-founder of The Story Incubator , Erin O’Connor, for a fascinating exploration of how storytelling can bridge political divides and repair our fractured culture. O’Connor argues that America has “shattered into warring factions” and entered what political scientists call “lethal mass partisanship.” B...

Garrett Baldwin writes at “ Me and the Money Printer ” on Substack, where he analyzes liquidity flows, insider behavior, and the mechanisms of modern finance that traditional media ignore. For anyone saving for retirement, this is a must-see. Subscribe and support us at Underthrow.org. For most Americans , the financial system operates like a black box. We hear about interest rates, inflation, and...

The conversation continues with Brian Rivera and Mark McGrath— The Whirl of Reorientation —explaining John Boyd’s OODA Loop framework (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) and its application to organizational performance and decision-making. Then Brian and Mark discuss the influence of Marshall McLuhan on their work as organizational consultants. Key Themes: John Boyd Boyd’s Core Question: How do we win...

This is a special edition of the Underthrow podcast. Too many things are happening in the world for this episode not to get out to you. —MB Many of our readers have wondered what “underthrow” means. It’s like overthrow, only more gradual, peaceful, and processual. But sometimes bad people in power get what’s coming to them. And it ain’t pretty. مرگ بر دیکتاتورها —The Iranian People Right now, we a...

Today’s conversation features Brian “Ponch” Rivera (CEO of AGLX Consulting ) and Mark “Moose” McGrath, co-authors of The Whirl of Reorientation , discussing how they apply insights from Austrian economist F.A. Hayek and military strategist John Boyd to help Fortune 500 companies build decentralized, high-performance teams. Key Themes of Part One Austrian Economics in Practice. The guests explain t...

I’ve begun work on a serious project. I’ll be helping to pilot a fellowship society for men ages 18-28. The idea is to help the most promising men find solidarity with other men and mentors, not just so they become more virtuous, excellent, and successful. They will also pursue paths of mastery and adopt a code. If you know of a promising candidate, please feel free to send them this link or conta...

I’m Niklas , the guest on this week’s Underthrow podcast. Max Borders asked me to reach out because he thought this would resonate with you as a reader, especially if you’re already familiar with Prospera , the free city in the Caribbean. I’ve spent the last 3.5 years in Prospera building a VC fund and now leading Infinita—a biotech-focused district that hosts events and pop-ups. We’ve welcomed Na...

Ernst Jünger’s Anarch represents a figure of radical inner freedom who maintains sovereignty over himself while outwardly conforming to certain social conventions. Unlike the anarchist who rebels against external authority, the Anarch acknowledges no fundamental obligation to any ideology, state, or collective cause. He simply chooses his own course while strategically navigating the world’s power...