Welcome to Patchwork, Please Mind the Gulch
In Moldbug’s great political fever dream — Patchwork — the world is shattered into thousands of neat, individually-governed corporate city-states, each ruled by a CEO-king with a Terms of Service longer than the Magna Carta. Every citizen is a customer. Every law is a product feature. Every injustice is a UX flaw to be patched in v2.3.1.
"Don’t like your government? Exit."
— Curtis “Just Move, Bro” Yarvin
This is the core tenet of Patchwork:
You are not a citizen. You are a user.
If your jurisdiction becomes dystopian?
Don’t vote. Don’t organize. Just switch providers.
Try GovPrime™, where executions come with free shipping.
It is libertarianism by way of a SimCity speedrun, where the highest ideal is frictionless sovereignty and the lowest crime is bad customer retention.
“Exit, Not Voice,” or Why Your Suffering Is a Feature, Not a Bug
Yarvin doesn’t believe in political participation.
That would imply you deserve a say in how you’re ruled.
Instead, he gives you the dignity of choice between overlords.
If your patch bans gay marriage, charges you to breathe, or institutes facial branding for dissenters? That’s fine. Just exit.
Of course, “exit” assumes you:
Have the resources to leave.
Have somewhere better to go.
Aren’t blacklisted, geofenced, or caught in a drone tether.
Patchwork, in short, is freedom-as-fiction — a fantasy where mobility replaces rights, and governance is A/B tested on live populations like ad banners.
The Dystopia of User Experience
Patchwork governance doesn’t require justice — it requires efficiency.
Everything is streamlined:
Courts become Support Tickets.
Arrest warrants come with “Accept Cookies” banners.
War is rebranded as Brand Realignment.
In this vision:
The child labor patch has better ROI metrics.
The eugenics patch just had stronger onboarding.
The privacy patch was deprecated.
Every crime becomes a service interruption.
Every rebellion becomes a churn event.
You don’t fight injustice.
You file a Jira ticket and hope it gets triaged.
Feudalism 2.0, Now with Docker Containers
Yarvin calls this “neo-cameralism,” referencing a 17th-century Germanic model of state-as-firm, but what he’s really offering is feudalism with fiber optics.
In old monarchies:
You were born into serfdom.
In Patchwork:
You subscribe to it.
But don’t worry — you can upgrade to Elite Vassal™ for early access to water and roads.
This is not governance.
This is streaming your own oppression and paying for it monthly.
FAQ from the Patchwork Citizen Support Portal
Q: Can I vote in my patch?
A: No, but you can submit a feature request.
Q: What if my patch becomes corrupt or violent?
A: We recommend switching to a patch with better reviews. Or dying quietly.
Q: Can I unionize?
A: That’s considered an exploit. We’ll be patching that soon.
Q: Are there patches without CEOs?
A: That’s communism. Please delete your account.
The Reality Moldbug Fears
Patchwork isn’t the future.
It’s a compression artifact of a collapsing worldview.
It’s what happens when someone sees democratic messiness and thinks:
"Clearly, what we need is Uber but for sovereignty."
But real governance isn’t an app.
And real justice doesn’t come with a subscription model.
What Moldbug dreams of is not utopia — it’s a sociopolitical UI that hides the suffering beneath the dashboard.
Patchwork is not freedom.
It’s managed consent at the edge of a geofence.