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According to a report from the Authority for Psychological Defense (MPF), a government actor is financing an AI-driven bot network called Holiday, which has been used in 2025 and 2026 to spread disinformation and polarized opinions in Sweden by mimicking regular Swedish accounts on the platform X. (translated)

Why Good Times Make Weak People The pinnacle of tyranny is a society in which people are controlled without force because they love their servitude. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World explored this idea. Unlike Orwell’s 1984, its citizens are controlled not through terror but pleasure. Soma provides instant relief from discomfort—a “holiday from the facts.” Huxley’s people are not prisoners but satisfied customers: the State produces children, promiscuity is normalized, and entertainment fills every empty moment. As Neil Postman observed, Orwell feared that truth would be hidden from us, while Huxley feared that we would become so distracted that we would no longer care about it. The Softening of Man Good times can make bad times possible. When safety and luxury become normal, people can lose sight of the struggles that created them. Andrew Lobaczewski argued that prosperity can weaken profound reflection. Pleasure becomes dominant, while uncomfortable truths are dismissed because thinking about them requires effort. Those who think critically may even be ridiculed. This creates a dangerous cycle: societies lose the capacity for psychological reasoning and moral criticism, allowing catastrophe to develop unnoticed. Sterilizing Genius Nietzsche understood that comfort, elevated above all else, can destroy the qualities that made civilization possible. Struggle, ambition, discipline, passion, and courage helped create prosperity—but prosperity can weaken the virtues that produced it. The Odyssey illustrates this. The Lotus-Eaters simply lose the desire to return home. Odysseus must drag his men back while they weep to remain. He rejects Calypso’s offer of immortality and endless comfort, choosing the difficult path home. We admire that choice because comfort without purpose is not a life worth admiring. Nietzsche imagined the endpoint in Thus Spoke Zarathustra: a society where safety and sameness become the highest ideals, producing “no shepherd, and one herd.” Anyone who seeks greatness becomes an aberration.

Why Weak Societies Choose Tyranny The pinnacle of tyranny would be a system that allows politicians, elites, and bureaucrats to control a population without force or coercion because the people love their servitude. Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World, an eerily relatable dystopian novel, with this idea at the forefront. Unlike Orwell’s 1984, there is no overt oppression. The state does not have to stamp on human faces with its jackboots or erect an inescapable surveillance state. Rather, the people of Brave New World happily chain themselves with meaningless pleasure and distractions. The authorities do not rule through terror and rage, the central elements of 1984, but instead give the people everything they ever wanted. A pharmaceutical called Soma becomes the opiate of the masses. Mustapha Mond, the World Controller, likens it to Christianity without tears. While religion requires years of moral training, Soma allows citizens to achieve peace simply by swallowing tablets. It is the perfect escape from reality, a holiday from the facts. Lenina, the female counterpart to the protagonist Bernard, cannot comprehend why he refuses Soma, preferring discomfort to something that can remove it. When Bernard states, “I’d rather be myself, myself and nasty, not somebody else, however jolly,” Lenina sees this as a sort of pathology and repeatedly encourages him to take the wonder drug. Bernard explains, “I want to know what passion is.” He understands that there is more to life than merely being content, craving genuine experience, including suffering and intensity, rather than being emotionally regulated by the World State. Lenina’s bewilderment stems from her conditioning to regard unhappiness as a technical problem, encapsulated in the society’s common saying that “a gram is better than a damn.” The people of Brave New World are not captives but satisfied customers. Children are produced by the scientific state, relieving people of the responsibility of parenthood. This grants them the ability to engage in promiscuity, where everyone belongs to everyone else, while filling their free time with cheap entertainment and endless sporting events—what would be referred to as slop today. As Neil Postman observed, Orwell saw totalitarianism through the lens of fear, while Huxley saw it through pleasure. There was no need to ban a book in Brave New Worldbecause there was no one who wanted to read one. An abundance of low-quality information rendered censorship unnecessary because no one could hear the truth through all the noise. Huxley threw shade at civil libertarians who passionately opposed tyranny because they failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions. Humanity in its rawest form is portrayed by John the Savage, an outsider free from the World State’s conditioning. Upon coming face-to-face with this spiritually neutered society, he completely rejects it: “I don’t want comfort, I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin.” Huxley’s dystopia is not imposed on an unwilling population but instead requested by a hollow one. Which leads us to the question: How do people become so weak that they get on their knees and beg for totalitarianism? Good times make bad times possible. Once a certain level of luxury and safety is achieved, people start to resemble the hobbits from the Shire. They are so far removed from evil that they forget it even exists and become defenseless in the face of it. Andrew Lobaczewski, who studied the psychology of totalitarianism from inside Poland’s communist takeover, wrote: “During good times, people progressively lose sight of the need for profound reflection. They lose the capacity to differentiate human nature, and emotion begins to dominate intellect. Once a critical mass starts operating on the pleasure principle, any excess mental effort seems like pointless labor.” Lobaczewski warned that it is not as simple as some people losing the ability to think rationally. It is worse, because those people then shame anyone capable of doing so. A clever, liberal, and merry individual is a good sport. A more far-sighted person predicting dire results becomes a wet blanket, a killjoy. The ability to have uncomfortable conversations without emotion taking over is, in Lobaczewski’s view, an indicator of whether a society’s future will be good or bad. It is easier to think about pleasant things. This leads people to eliminate any data or facts that cause them discomfort. That becomes a habit and eventually a custom accepted by society at large. Once the general populace accepts that inconvenient truths should be left unsaid, it becomes incapable of reaching correct conclusions. After all, how could you ever describe a picture that you refuse to look at? “Catastrophe waits in the wings of the communities that lose the capacity for psychological reason and moral criticism,” Lobaczewski wrote. “It is on the other side of this weakening of thought that the processes of the generation of evil are intensified at every social scale until they give rise to bad times.” It is precisely man’s dreams of happiness that can lead to chaos and suffering. This hedonistic view of happiness contains the seeds of misery, feeding the eternal cycle whereby good times give birth to bad times. Friedrich Nietzsche viewed socialism as demanding comfort for the greatest number of people possible. To question whether it is good for the masses to live in comfort has become a form of heresy. This reveals the spiritual atrophy that so many suffer from. Considering only the weak believe comfort to be a virtue, it is what Carl Jung would describe as the infantile dream state of mass dependency: the desire to gently slip back into the kingdom of childhood, into the paradise of parental care. Except this lack of friction has consequences. The perfect state destroys the soil in which great intellect grows. Genius, struggle, passion, strength, and wisdom are required to build a safe and abundant society. Yet once a certain level of comfort is achieved, it can destroy the very virtues required to obtain it. Nietzsche observed that it is the warmest heart that aims to alleviate suffering and hardship but fails to realize that it thereby wills the destruction of its own foundation. Comfort breeds mediocrity, which is then called good. Small people want one thing above all: that no one hurt them. We have taken this pathology to such a degree that we now obsess over hurt feelings and call this virtue. Pleasure, in its proper place, is a byproduct of meaningful goals, not a goal in itself. Aristotle saw that pleasure and comfort distort perception and proper judgment. While they do not cause us to misjudge something like geometry or mathematics, they can destroy our ability to decide what is worth pursuing and, therefore, what to do. Consider The Odyssey. Homer depicts Odysseus’ men on the island of the Lotus-Eaters, where they taste the fruit and lose all desire to go home. Much like Huxley’s Brave New World, they are not imprisoned. Rather, they simply stop wanting anything more. Odysseus has to drag his men back to the ships while they weep to stay. This is what comfort can do to men. It empties them of purpose. We intuitively understand this but fail to apply it to our own lives. We must make the same choice as Odysseus when he refuses Calypso’s offer of endless comfort and immortality. He knows she is more beautiful than his wife Penelope waiting at home. He knows that he and Penelope will grow old and die, a fate he could avoid by staying with Calypso. No one who reads these stories wishes he had stayed. We want him to choose the hard way home because if he took the offer, he would stop being admirable. Yet staying is exactly what our modern society asks of us. We are told that the island is the good life. But what happens to the man who caves to this temptation? In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche imagines a risk-averse society taken to its logical endpoint. The elimination of all struggle produces a man so diminished that he fails to possess even self-contempt or higher aspiration. Safety and sameness become the highest goals, creating “no shepherd in one herd.” Anyone who seeks to be anything more than normal becomes an aberration to be dealt with. Or, as Nietzsche puts it, they have “made the wolf a dog in man himself, man’s best domestic animal.”

The Pinnacle of Tyranny The pinnacle of tyranny would allow politicians, elites, and bureaucrats to control a population without force or coercion—because the people love their servitude. Aldous Huxley’s *Brave New World* explores this idea through an eerily relatable dystopian society. Unlike Orwell’s *1984*, Huxley’s world contains no obvious oppression. The state does not need to “stamp on a human face—forever.” Instead, citizens willingly chain themselves to pleasure and distraction. Authorities do not rule through terror, but by giving people everything they think they want. Soma, a government-approved drug, becomes the opiate of the masses. Mustafa Mond, the World Controller, compares it to Christianity without the suffering. By swallowing a few tablets, citizens can escape reality—a temporary holiday from the facts. Lenina cannot understand why Bernard refuses Soma, preferring discomfort to something that can remove it. When Bernard says, “I’d rather be myself, myself and nasty, not somebody else, however jolly,” Lenina views his desire for authenticity as a kind of illness. Bernard wants to experience passion and recognizes that life involves more than contentment. He craves genuine experience, including suffering and intensity, rather than emotional regulation by the World State. Lenina’s confusion results from her conditioning, which teaches her to view unhappiness as a technical problem. This belief is captured by the saying, “A gram is better than a dam.” The citizens of *Brave New World* are not captives but satisfied customers. Children are produced by the state, relieving people of the responsibilities of parenthood. Their free time is filled with promiscuity, cheap entertainment, and endless sporting events—what might be called “slop” today. As Neil Postman observed, Orwell saw totalitarianism through fear, while Huxley imagined a society where oppression would be unnecessary because people would willingly surrender themselves to pleasure. There would be no need to ban books, because no one would want to read them. An abundance of low-quality information would make censorship unnecessary; the truth would be drowned out by noise. Huxley warned that people’s “almost infinite appetite for distractions” could make tyranny not only possible, but welcome.

Pepula Středula nemohl Chrchelku na tiskovce moc chválit, aby vypadal, že chce bojovat ještě dal. Zato hejtman Holiš v Interview je v majitelově prdeli tak hluboko, že se opírá patami o svěrač. Ovšem nepočítal s ofenzivou veřejnoprávnosti, skvělý Daniel Takáč. #politika #českárepublika #novinářství

On the national holiday marking the foundation of Hungary’s thousand-year-old Christian state, the Brussels-backed Prime Minister turns the Hungarian Parliament into a stage for his own self-celebration. Meanwhile, his government is preparing for the first round of austerity. https://t.co/hyyDdk6c7X #Hungary #Austerity #NationalHoliday #HU #BE

15’ | HOLI OTVÍRÁ SKÓRE 💥 Po dlouhém autu vypálil Mubarak Suleiman a jeho střelu usměrnil do sítě náš kapitán! ©️ 🔵⚫️ 0:1 🔴⚪️ #libsks https://t.co/xXPrG3f7nB #fotbal #sport #gól

Prosím, mohl by mi nějaký zástupce hnutí ANO vysvětlit, jak se změnila oproti minulému roku situace s hospodařením krajů? Proč ještě v roce 2025 všichni z ANO řvali, že Stanjura dal krajům na silnice 2. a 3. tříd jenom 2 miliardy, a teď všichni trapně mlčíte, když jim Babiš se Schillerovou dali košem. Jaká je prosím ta změna? Ví třeba @kolovratnikm, @JVildumetzova, @JosefBelica, @holisradim,...? #ANO #politika #hospodářství

Today I start the series of articles about my beloved place in Africa which is #Zanzibar island. I'll start from the question, many people ask themselves while planning the first trip there: Shall we go and visit Nungwi or Paje? Two very different faces of Zanzibar Both have beautiful beaches, both have excellent accommodation, both attract international travelers, but choosing between them isn't really about which one is "better". It's about asking: what kind of Zanzibar do you want to experience? If your ideal holiday means a beautiful resort, easy swimming, spectacular sunsets and long days on the beach, Nungwi or Kendwa may be exactly what you're looking for. But if you want something more active and social, Paje deserves serious consideration. Paje has become one of the best-known kitesurfing destinations on Zanzibar. Its huge tidal lagoon creates an unusual landscape that changes dramatically throughout the day. At low tide, the ocean retreats and reveals an enormous stretch of sand and shallow water. At high tide, the same landscape turns into a turquoise lagoon. But Paje isn't only about kitesurfing. The town has developed a surprisingly diverse food scene, with Swahili cuisine, seafood, international restaurants, vegetarian options, cafés and brunch spots. There are beach bars, live music, DJs and nightlife. And perhaps most importantly, Paje attracts a very international community of travelers. Kitesurfers. Divers. Backpackers. Couples. Digital nomads. Independent travelers. People who don't necessarily want a traditional package holiday. Paje is also a good base for exploring the southern and eastern parts of Zanzibar. Jozani Forest, Jambiani, the Blue Lagoon, The Rock Restaurant, Kizimkazi and many other attractions can be reached relatively easily. This creates an interesting difference between the two destinations. Nungwi is a destination. Paje is both a destination and a base for exploration. And that's why Paje may be particularly attractive to travelers who want to combine: beach + adventure + food + culture + nightlife. You can spend the morning kitesurfing, have lunch in town, explore the island in the afternoon, watch the sunset, listen to live music and return to your own apartment at the end of the day. Please let me know what is your experience with Zanzibar, which destinations are your favorite ones and why? Today I start the series of posts and I will go beyond Zanzibar as we go further. #Zanzibar #Paje #PajeZanzibar #ZanziDream #ZanzibarTravel #ZanzibarHoliday #Tanzania #Kitesurfing #ZanzibarKitesurfing #TravelAfrica #AfricaTravel #ZanzibarBeaches #ZanzibarTravelGuide #tourism #trip #Africa #Tnzania #italy #germany #france #netherlands #poland

Plavat si v průzračný Soči, u toho poslouchat punkový kapely, naživo hrající jen pár metrů od tebe, popíjet si pivko, ze stanového městečka mít výhled na vrcholky kopců Julských Alp a do toho sledovat spokojenou rodinku .. Tohle je přátelé ten pravý ráj. Punkrock Holiday 🤘 https://t.co/iXpgr0D9Jn #Punkrock #Soči #SummerVibes

The article by Guilherme Waldemar Oliveira Martins argues that the anti-tobacco policy in Portugal should be integrated and effective, proposing the transfer of operational competencies from the National Program for Tobacco Prevention and Control to the Institute for Addictive Behaviors and Dependencies (ICAD), in order to address nicotine dependence holistically, similar to other dependencies, thus improving public health outcomes. (translated)