Not Enough of You Fuckers Understand Real World MINIMAX
- john raymond
- Aug 5
- 3 min read
Let me say it plain: this is me calling you out for intellectual laziness. Yes, you—analysts, podcasters, commentators, think tankers, former spooks, Twitter threaders, “strategists.” If you’re still treating the world like a stable system governed by rules, norms, and bounded by surface-level rationality, then you’ve already failed in your thinking.
And if you think you can get away with “Game Theory 101” takes—like the ones you picked up in a classroom or from a couple of YouTube explainers—then you are not just actively misleading people. You are part of the problem.
We are in a catastrophe planning situation. An Armageddon situation. And yet too many of you are sleepwalking through this moment, pretending that the actors on the board are playing for stability, trade, influence, or balance. They aren’t. Putin is not playing by the rules. Trump is not negotiating in good faith.
The game board is being torched while you waste your time drawing payoff matrices with a dry-erase marker.
Let me explain something basic that too many of you seemed to have missed:
MINIMAX in the Real World Is Not Academic
In your textbooks, minimax means minimizing the maximum possible loss. It’s an algorithmic lens for optimal play under worst-case assumptions. But out here, in the real world, minimax is not theory. It’s survival.
And if you’ve got a proven enemy—someone who has shown, repeatedly, that they are willing to:
Undermine your elections,
Lie with impunity,
Jail opponents,
Sell out allies,
Enrich enemies,
Weaponize justice systems,
…then you start from the assumption that the worst possible outcome is the goal.
That’s how they play. It’s how Putin plays. It’s how Trump plays. It’s how Bibi plays. It’s how Xi plays. It's how every authoritarian architect of asymmetric destabilization plays: find the worst thing that could happen to your enemy, and make that thing happen.
And what do our analysts do? They interpret surface narratives. They weigh “cost-benefit” analyses. They talk about what Trump “really wants” or what Russia “would stand to gain.” All of this is premised on the assumption that we’re dealing with bounded actors inside a shared reality. We are not. We are dealing with cultic, psychopathic, collapsing regimes whose survival depends on destruction. Of norms, of enemies, of the future itself.
The Byzantine Generals Problem Isn’t Metaphor—It’s a Diagnosis
You want a framework? Here’s one: the Byzantine Generals Problem. Look it up. It’s the technical way of saying that trust is hard, especially when some actors are malicious and actively working to sabotage coordination. Sound familiar?
It should. Because that’s exactly what the MAGA movement is: traitorous generals in a distributed system, injecting false messages, undermining cohesion, preventing timely coordination. And the worst part? Half of you still treat these actors as participants in good faith democratic process. And by doing this, you are literally helping them destroy the republic.
Catastrophe Planning Is Strategic Literacy
You want to do real-world analysis? Start with catastrophe planning. Not optimism. Not “what’s likely.” Not “what’s pragmatic.” Ask instead:
What’s the worst thing they could do next?
What’s the thing we don’t want to believe they would do?
What’s the lever they’ve already placed that we’re pretending isn’t real?
And then plan for that.
Trump threatens people with the DOJ? Assume he intends to jail opponents.
Russia loses a fleet? Assume they will try to retaliate where Ukrainians least expect.
Israel escalates in Lebanon? Assume Bibi is trying to trigger something bigger, to stay in power.
China stays quiet? Assume Xi is waiting, not absent.
If your analysis doesn’t begin with the worst-case lens, you aren’t doing analysis. You’re writing bedtime stories meant to lull us to sleep.
I Had to Do the Work. Now So Do You.
I didn’t come to this overnight. I had to go back. To the basics. To the raw logic that predates empty talking points and mindless Twitter echo chambers.
I had to ask the hard questions about power, survival, propaganda, loyalty, systems theory, game theory, deterrence, betrayal.
And when you do this, this is what you find:
Regime security is the prime directive.
Asymmetric warfare is the dominant paradigm.
The enemy is already at war with you.
So now I ask: what the fuck are you doing still drawing balance-of-power diagrams as if you’re at a Model UN debate?
You need to wake the fuck up.
If you want to help people understand what’s coming, you need to stop pretending that anyone is safe. You need to stop assuming the system holds. You need to start from minimax—real minimax—and follow every path that leads to loss, collapse, betrayal, or silence.
Because that is where we’re headed.
And if we don’t beat the enemy there—first—then we will lose everything. Everything. Our lives included.
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