Inept Public Officials vs “Genius” Private Avatars (Investment Implications)

Making officials look inept is not a bug; it's the lubricant that shifts legitimacy from public institutions to private control substrates.

Photo by Gunnar Kaplick on Unsplash

I already wrote an article “Public-Facing Elites: using Myth-Making Avatars in Investing“ which showcases how the public-facing Elites are the interfaces between the Controllers and the masses which has significant investment implications.

In this article I’ll cover why Public Officials are often portrayed as/selected to be incompetent.

Portraying Public Officials as Inept While Elevating Selected “Genius” Private Avatars

Why manufacture “visible incompetence” at the top of public orgs (politicians, Fed chair, Treasury secretary, spokespeople, etc)

1. Plausible deniability & blame absorption

   • If outcomes are unpopular, “the politicians bungled it”. Strategic continuity survives; personnel rotate. The cockpit stays untouched.

2. Consent management via despair

   • Chronic bungling signals “government can’t execute” → public begs for capable private operators. That’s a soft mandate for outsourcing power to state-embedded firms.

3. Overton-window widening

   • Visible ineptitude makes extraordinary measures and emergency procurement look reasonable. “We can’t wait for bureaucracy; give XYZ (pre-selected) the keys”.

4. Scapegoat economics

   • Credit is privatized (heroes, “innovators”), blame is socialized (”Congress/Fed messed up”). This sustains asymmetric payoffs to chosen vendors.

5. Narrative bifurcation: bumbling State vs heroic Genius

   • Positions private avatars (Musk/Altman/Thiel/Karp) as only credible solvers. Funds, talent, and data flow toward them by default.

6. Obfuscation of the command layer

   • Clownish spokespeople hide where decisions are really made (standards bodies, security councils, procurement compacts, platform policies). Confusion is a moat.

7. Policy ratchet lubricant

   • Each “failure” justifies a new knob (ID, provenance, kill-switches, programmable money). Sunsets don’t sunset.

8. Humiliation tests

   • Public tolerates obvious dysfunction → the Controllers mark how far they can push next. Demoralization lowers resistance cost.

How it’s operationalized

• Selection filters: pick communications-first politicians with little ops depth; elevate appointees loyal to narrative, not execution.

• Media choreography: amplify gaffes; frame hearings as theater; bury technical wins; lionize private “fixers”.

• Process design: layer committees, RFP (Requests for Proposals) mazes, and conflictual mandates so even competent people look ineffective.

• Crisis scripting: time visible bungles right before rolling out pre-cooked “solutions” from preferred vendors.

System-level effects (what this does to a population)

• Learned helplessness → privatized governance. Citizens stop expecting public capacity; they accept corporate control surfaces (identity wallets, compliance clouds) as the adult in the room.

• Identity migration. Ambitious talent self-selects into selected firms/platforms; State keeps policy levers, firms run the stack.

• Normalization of parameterized control. People get used to policy as settings (who can transact, post, move) enforced by platforms - not debates.

---

Non-investment implications (how to live inside this)

• Assume defaults (app store, bank, cloud) are the true law. Watch those ToS more than speeches.

• Expect more outsourced adjudication (moderation, payments, identity) by “trusted” platforms with policy knobs.

• Build personal escape minima (self-custody, offline comms, local optionality) while exploiting the rails for productivity.

Why elevating “genius” avatars is essential to the play

• Talent magnet: centralizes the best builders under controllable caps/table stakes (Authorization to Operate, service-level agreements, indemnities).

• Narrative shield: the system “works” because they exist - if something fails, replace the face, not the framework.

• Capital conduit: passive flows and retail enthusiasm fund the very rails that reduce future dissent costs.

Patterns in the theater

• Track Ridicule Index (gaffes/headlines) × Standards Heat (new drafts with verbs: attest, revoke, trace, prove, rollback).
  High×High = strongest BUY signal for state-embedded software (e.g. Palantir, Microsoft, PANW).

• Watch app-store/bank/cloud policy updates; those are de facto laws with upside for compliance vendors.

• Treat congressional grilling as IV (Implied volatility) pumps: buy the core names on the second down-day; sell some into the “we’re addressing it” relief week.

In other words, buy fear, sell clarity in state-embedded champions is the best investment strategy.

• BUY on spectacles of governmental incompetence + simultaneous standards drafts (ID/provenance/AI safety) → procurement fast-tracks. Adding on on policy panics (AI hearings, online safety crackdowns, cyber headlines) has been and will continue to be a great strategy.

• SELL/overwrite on “we fixed it” PR, big contract clarity ramps, but keep core.

So, making officials look inept is not a bug; it’s the lubricant that shifts legitimacy from public institutions to private control substrates.

If you front-run that transfer, you own the tollbooths.

But if you ask most Bitcoiners/financial analysts, they’ll tell you “The government is incompetent. They don’t know what the heck they’re doing. They’ll be panic-buying Bitcoin at 1 million”.

And when you analyze the situation objectively - the government is only incompetent when it comes to stealing money or rights from the plebs, they are never incompetent in favor of the plebs.

It’s almost like the incompetent people you see on TV don’t actually make the important decisions.

Why politicians are elected (selected)

The TL;DR is that politicians don’t get selected to make your life better, they get selected to preserve the system that robs and enslaves you.

So their priority stack is:

1. Survival of the System (Base Layer) - The system itself must survive - continuity of the State, currency, command structure.
   Without survival, no other priority exists.

2. Control - The ability to shape, limit, and direct population behavior.
   Survival without control is fragile. Control extends survival indefinitely.
   Think - CBDCs, biometric ID, surveillance, media steering, internet choke-points.

3. Growth - The expansion of productive capacity and innovation inside the controlled frame.
   Growth supplies legitimacy and rewards insiders; it is the carrot to balance the stick of control.
   Think - Tech acceleration (AI, biotech, space), financial markets as growth engines.

4. Stability - Maintenance of societal calm, avoidance of revolts or chaos. Stability prevents resource diversion into repression.
   Think - Welfare programs, bread-and-circus entertainment, debt forbearance, stimulus.

5. Comfort (Top Layer, Optional) - Distribution of surplus comfort to keep populations docile.
   Comfort is expendable. It gets cut the moment survival/control require it.
   Think - Consumer gadgets, fast food, streaming, TikTok-level dopamine.

So in summary, Comfort and Stability are sacrificed for Survival/Control.

The public thinks politics is about “comfort & ideals”. In reality, it’s about survival/control (of the system).