The Immorality of Praxian Neoreactionaries.
Sep 01, 2026

In my recent series for Unlimited Hangout—the concluding Part 4 is due for publication shortly—I have explored the activities of a group of Silicon Valley-rooted oligarchs who state that they are in “control” of the Trump administration. Through a network of investment firms, such as Pronomos Capital, Paradigm Operations, Alameda Research, Arch Lending, GEM Digital, and Manifold Trading, they are also backing the creation of Praxis Nation in Greenland.
Praxis Nation touts itself as “the world’s first Digital Nation”, and the Praxis Nation Manifesto describes the Network Empire that those behind the project are hoping to build. Based on the concepts outlined by Bilaji Srinivisan in his 2022 book The Network State, this gaggle of Silicon Valley oligarchs want to establish “parallel institutions” that use “onchain infrastructure” to supplant “the global system’s core functions”.
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I noted that this group describe themselves as Praxians:
The people who support the Praxis Nation project self-identify as “Praxians.” The Praxis website claims there are more than 151,000 Praxians in 401 cities across 82 nations whose businesses are collectively valued at more than $1.1 trillion. Perhaps there are that many, but the businesses that constitute the bulk of the claimed $1.1T total valuation are controlled by a close-knit cartel of Praxian oligarchs who are relatively small in number. It is these oligarchs who are the focus of this article and whom I specifically refer to as “Praxians.”
Further, I found that the self-named Praxians are a subset of a wider US-based functional oligarchy. I wrote:
The primarily US-based Silicon Valley-rooted wing of the global oligarchy—the Praxians—extends beyond what many call the PayPal Mafia. In addition to Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, Alex Karp, Joe Lonsdale, and other formative PayPal Mafiosi, the cast of characters propping up the current US administration, who evidently share Praxian goals, includes the likes of Mark Andreessen, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Palmer Luckey, and others.
The Praxians favour Technocracy as a societal operating system and have adopted the ideas put forth in The Dark Enlightenment. They want to construct their Digital Nations as privately run smart city-states under the dictatorships of CEO “Technokings”. The Praxians are among the thought leaders of the associated Neoreactionary movement (NRx).
I say “thought leaders” ironically because reading the Praxis Nation Manifesto is like stumbling into an online chat room for Dungeons & Dragons enthusiasts:
We, the founding citizens of Praxis, declare our intent to ascend [. . .] and establish a new form of human civilization: the Network Empire. [. . .] As the warrior-kings once sought the sacred Grail, so too shall we build an empire where true power flows from heroic courage and alignment with the divine order. [. . .] We, the founding citizens of Praxis, hereby pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor in pursuit of these noble aims.
All of this would seem like peurile fantasy were it not for the fact that the Praxians’ “fortunes” amount to trillions of dollars and the global corporations they lead, such as Palantir, are providing services such as “NATO’s first AI-enabled warfighting command and control system” to be deployed “across Allied Command Operations.” Added to this, Praxians occupy a central position within the global oligarchy.

The Praxians have global support for their Network Empire project. The United Nations (UN)—an oligarch-led institution—sees an international network of city-states to be the most efficient way for it to impose genuine global governance. In an almost identical manner to the Praxians’ Network Empire strategy, the UN’s New Urban Agenda aims to construct city-states that use smart surveillance systems and programmable infrastructure—what the UN calls “frontier technology”—to control the behaviour of populations.
At the global level, in both the public and the private sectors, the Praxians’ ideas have widespread support. As ludicrous as their pretentious declarations and manifestos sound, dismissing the Praxians’ ability to implement their plans as the wishful thinking of a bunch of role-playing fantasists is, for the rest of us, a very big mistake.
For instance, Praxian fingerprints are all over current events unfolding in the Middle East. They had the means, the motive, and the opportunity to manipulate a regional war, and it appears they have capitalised.
The Hamas attack on October 7th and the Israeli government’s genocidal response have precipitated a wider conflagration across the Middle East. The Israeli government’s Operation Lion’s Roar and the US government’s Operation Epic Fury combined to form a joint attack on Iran in February 2026. The “war” is precisely what the Praxians evidently desired.
For example, in August 2024, Palantir CEO Alex Karp said that a US war with Iran was necessary for the US to “enforce” its will and “scare [its] adversaries.” In June 2025, arch-Praxian and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale was also eager to promote war with Iran.
The Praxians obviously hope to extend their Network Empire project to Iran. In June 2022, Joe Lonsdale said he was “really excited to invest in Iran if we can get this country to be some sort of republic”. The proposed post-conflict $300 billion Reconstruction and Development Fund for Iran is designed to provide an investment gateway for Praxians and their oligarch partners to seize Iranian territory.
Not only did the Praxians want a war with Iran, they hold significant influence over the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s) Iranian nuclear compliance verification system. When, in May 2025, the IAEA suddenly lurched from nearly a decade of ‘nothing to see here’ to reporting that Iran had an “undeclared structured nuclear programme” and that Iran possessed “undeclared nuclear material”, the Trump administration grabbed the gifted opportunity to supposedly justify bombing Iranian nuclear facilities and to start the 12-Day War. Thus providing further alleged legitimacy to the ongoing Iranian nuclear threat narrative.
With the Trump administration’s threat assessments almost entirely reliant on the technological intelligence (TechINT) provided by Praxians and their partners, in February 2026 Trump said that Operation Epic Fury was needed to “ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon.” To date, no one outside of the Trump team has seen any evidence that Iran presented any kind of imminent threat. The Praxians likely influenced any such TechINT assessment once again.
The relationship between the Praxian corporations’ development of high-tech weapons systems and the Israeli state’s genocidal response to the October 7th attack is symbiotic. Apparently absorbed by their nerdy fascination with technology and believing themselves “warrior kings” for a modern age, Praxians sit behind their desks and their fortunes in their secure compounds, fighting conflicts like teenagers playing World of Warcraft. Sadly, they’re not potentially complicit in the slaughter of fictional wizards or imaginary orcs but real men, women, and children.
It isn’t at all clear that the Praxians are morally or intellectually capable of recognising, let alone accepting, their own plausible culpability. We only need read their childish Network Empire Manifesto or grapple with the juvenile comments of neoreactionary accelerationists like Palmer Luckey to understand that these people have constructed an extremely dangerous, if abstruse, NRx cultural lore.
The majority of the Praxians say they are Christian Zionists or Zionists. It is clear, however, that Zionism doesn’t particularly interest them. Constructing the Network Empire is their primary goal, and it has nothing to do with Zionism. They seek to impose digital surveillance and behavioural control systems on populations of “customers” trapped within their privately run smart city-states. Their NRx-aligned ambitions are technocratic, not Zionist.
It is not for me to question anyone’s faith, but their actions make it hard to accept that Praxians are genuinely Christian. Their technology companies have evidently been key partners with the Israeli government in the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza. Perhaps, for the Praxians, the relentless killing is just an unavoidable byproduct of the digital transformation they so passionately covet. Though given the zeal with which Praxians like Alex Karp excitedly eulogise their companies’ power to kill, maybe they’re just malicious sociopaths.
Though virtually nothing the Praxians are developing will ultimately benefit the ordinary Israelis, Praxians are willing to exploit the Israeli state’s political ideology of Zionism to achieve their aims. The Praxians have adopted a strange new model of evangelical Christian Zionism. This darkly enlightened Christianity centres around the mimetic desire and scapegoat theories found in the hardline Catholic theology espoused by Peter Thiel’s philosophical mentor René Girard, which have then fed into the Praxian’s Christian Zionist rhetoric.
Despite the observation being based upon demonstrable facts, Joe Lonsdale preposterously asserted that anyone who pointed out that elements within the Israeli government were “trying to start a war in Iran” were antisemitic. Lonsdale countered his own baseless accusations by combining Girard’s memetic scapegoating theories with the weird crusader-like Christian Zionist ideals Praxians appear to venerate.

Calling on the mythical spirit of the “warrior-kings,” Lonsdale wrote:
Israel’s founding [. . .] required reclaiming an ancient warrior spirit. [. . .] Jews must now channel their inner warriors and speak out boldly. We are not ashamed; we will not run or hide. We can also look to our Christian friends for support. Scapegoating is at the heart of anti-Semitism—easing social tensions by blaming Jews for problems they didn’t cause. French Catholic philosopher and literary critic René Girard observed that societies have long united through the violent targeting of scapegoats, a cycle reflected in many ancient myths. Christianity offered a profound break from that pattern.[. . .] God reveals the evil of scapegoating rather than endorsing it. Jews and Christians share a belief in human dignity that anchors the West. Now is the time to stand together, defend one another, and uphold our shared values—refusing to let destructive ideologies prevail.
Lonsdale, and many other Praxians, have frequently used the tired Zionist ploy of falsely equating opposition to Zionism with racism against Jews—antisemitism. We need to ask why because Praxians are not interestsed in securing “for the Jewish people a publicly recognized, legally assured homeland in Palestine”—the overt political objective of Zionism.
Eschewing Zionism completely, the Praxis Nation Manifesto prophesises:
We’ll watch the flippening of Network States over Nation States in real time. Network States will coalesce neighborhoods and build cities. The next global superpower will be a Network State.
The blatant objective of the Praxians and the NRx is to empower privately run city-states and undermine nation-states to eventually render all nation-states superfluous—flippening. The Praxians and the NRx want to overthrow nation states, including the Jewish nation state in Palestine (Israel). They are not Zionists.
They spout Zionist rhetoric solely because it suits their current purposes. Embedding themselves within the Israeli state strengthens their foothold in the Middle East.
Praxians have extensive control over both US and Israeli defence technologies. The Trump team has inserted Section 219 into the forthcoming renewal of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to legally bind both the US and Israeli defence sectors, thereby uniting Praxian influence over them regardless of the state of US-Israeli international relations.
Further, the public’s preoccupation with Zionist political influence—especially in the US—diverts attention away from the Praxians’ Network Empire project. With considerable assistance from the mainstream media, Praxians have cast themselves as American patriots and Zionists. Consequently, people perceive the Praxians as nation builders and supporters of political nation-state projects. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Leading NRx thought leader Balaji Srinivasan wants Praxian city-states to secede from the US nation-state. In 2013, he outlined NRx hopes of reducing “the importance of decisions made in [Washington]” by creating “a society run by Silicon Valley [. . .] ultimately outside the U.S. [jurisdiction]”.
Srinivasan stressed that the NRx wants to make “location completely irrelevant.” If it progresses, the smart city-state envisaged for Gaza will make it an exemplar of the Network Empire.
Following the Zionist-inspired, Praxian-enabled total destruction of Gaza on the 17th of November 2025, thirteen members of the UN Security Council passed Resolution UNSC 2803 whereby the UN “welcomed” and “endorsed” the Trump administration’s 29th September “Comprehensive Plan” for peace in Gaza and the subsequent 13th of October “Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity”.
Though the US peace initiative for Gaza is supposedly the brainchild of Donald Trump, the plan conspicuously meets Praxian objectives. The UN has endorsed setting up “operational entities with, as necessary, international legal personality and transactional authorities” to implement a “Palestinian technocratic, apolitical committee.” This proposed National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) is more commonly referred to as the “Technocratic Committee.” The technocratic committee will be overseen by the “Board of Peace” (BoP).
In the Praxians’, sorry, I meant in Trump’s Comprehensive Plan, Gaza will be rebuilt to become one of the “modern miracle cities in the Middle East.” The so-called miracle cities include Masdar City (UAE), King Abdullah Economic City and King Salman Energy Park (Saudi Arabia), Lusail City (Qatar), Beirut Digital District (Lebanon), Smart Muscat (Oman), and Smart Amman (Jordan). All of them are smart city projects. They all use sustainable development as an excuse to enforce UN frontier technology on their people to surveil, monitor, and control their behaviour.
The goal is to construct New Gaza as an AI-data-driven, smart city-state where any Palestinians allowed to remain will be surveilled, tracked, behaviourally controlled and used as cheap labour until they are no longer required. The plan is to build a gleaming new city state—an archipelago of the Network Empire—literally on the crushed bones of the Palestinian families slaughtered using Praxian weapons technology and targetting systems.
Nowhere in the plan for New Gaza is Palestinian statehood seriously suggested. A Palestinian state is called an “aspiration of the Palestinian people”. Apparently, a Palestinian state “may” exist on some obscure “political horizon” but only after the Palestinians have “faithfully” complied with the “conditions” deemed necessary for “peaceful and prosperous co-existence” with the Israeli government: a determination to be made by the Israeli government.
Following war crimes they have endured, and given the horrendous prospects for Palestinians in New Gaza, the immorality of Praxians and their NRx devotees is stomach-churning. In October 2025, Jeffrey Mason, Head of Policy for The Charter Cities Institute, suggested that the “economic reconstruction and [future] governance of Gaza” is an opportunity to create a “miracle city” in Gaza as “the first US government-supported charter city.”
The Charter City Institute (CCI) is a UN-backed “non-profit think tank dedicated to building the ecosystem for charter cities [. . .] across the Global South”. The CCI’s “partners” include the Center for Global Development, whose funders include the Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the EU, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO), and Bloomberg Philanthropies—the driving force behind the Global Parliament of Mayors.
Mason observed that the “Board of Peace proposal bears some resemblance to the initial efforts to establish charter cities in Honduras, with panels of international experts overseeing the governing body.” He was referring to the Praxian city-state of Próspera, so the proposal isn’t the least bit surprising.
Apparently without any self-awareness, Mason wrote:
The reference to both “miracle cities” and special economic zones draws obvious parallels to charter cities, or President Trump’s call to build “freedom cities” in the United States. Hundreds of new cities, charter cities, and economic zones have been and are currently being built across the world to help accommodate rapid urbanization, drive investment, accelerate innovation, and adapt to climate change. Given the level of physical destruction in Gaza, the scale of reconstruction necessary constitutes the construction of what is essentially an entirely new city.
The “physical destruction of Gaza”—Mason makes no mention of the genocide of the Palestinian people—didn’t just happen. The overwhelming body of evidence indicates that it occurred because Israel and its partners, notably including the Praxians, used the strategy of an Israeli “Let It Happen On Purpose” (LIHOP) false flag attack on October 7, 2023, in an attempt to create a fake justification for the genocidal destruction of Gaza. These actions have led to the “opportunities” that Mason is so excited about.
Mason suggested that “declaring the entire territory [of Gaza] an SEZ [Special Economic Zone]” would be beneficial because “labor costs, manufacturing, and other operations based in Gaza” would be relatively cheap. This, he continued, is because the survivors have formed a “large population of young, working-age people in need of economic opportunities.” Well, they are certainly in “need” now, that’s for sure.
Without any reason or justification, Mason called the genocide of a practically defenceless Palestinian people “a devastating conflict.” Worried that the geopolitically “fragile region” might deter investors, Mason highlighted why the deliberated destruction of Gaza, the total obliteration of its infrastructure, and the mass slaughter of its indigenous people were such a good idea in the first place—this is my derisive phraseology, not Mason’s.
Mason said the plans’ “strong backing of the United States, Israel, European, and Middle Eastern partner governments”, “Gaza’s proximity to major global trade,” and its “proximity to Mediterranean trade routes”, suggested to him that another miracle city in Gaza would offer “the renewed potential for deeper trade and infrastructure integration across the region”. Noting that the Gaza project is reliant upon the continued enthusiasm of the governments of “the United States, Israel, and Hamas,” Mason observed that this is a project with “a multitude of potential failure points.” Broadly, however, Mason was hopeful that genocide will deliver “the first charter city supported by the American government.”
The Praxians and the NRx acolytes need not worry too much. For example, Hamas seems to be doing next to nothing to serve and protect the Palestinian people. Instead, Hamas appears to be acting as a proxy for the US and Israeli governments and is assisting the construction of New Gaza.
But most importantly, Mason has reason for optimism because, as he presumably knows, the New Gaza project is backed by a global parasite class that is exploiting death and destruction to build the future they desire. And New Gaza is very firmly part of their oppressive agenda.
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AI Transparency: I do not use AI to research or write any of my work. I use an AI grammar tool to check the first draft of the completed article for grammatical and spelling errors.
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This post is also available on my website.
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