Like many on Tuesday, I awoke to the president of the United States threatening Iran with genocide. “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Trump posted, though specifying that he doesn’t want it to happen, even if it probably will, and oh well, who knows, we just need to stay tuned, it’ll be one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world. Naturally, nukes were feared, and an invoking of the 25th Amendment prayed for. It seemed at least some atrocity was possible, if not probable, and the internet erupted into pleas, protests, and memes. I was skeptical, but mistrusting of my doubts. After all, so much of the once unthinkable is now unremarkable. There are no longer any manmade horrors beyond our comprehension.
I’d planned to spend the impending Armageddon alone, but late that afternoon my friend Grift Shop, a cultural anarchist streetwear designer, texted me about a “Taco Tuesday” party—presumably referencing the pejorative abbreviation TACO, or “Trump Always Chickens Out,” the theory that the president always backs down from his threats. It was happening that evening, he said, hosted by Praxis Society in their new Tribeca loft, where they would be serving Chipotle and pregaming the annihilation of Iran and possibly the world.
“Interesting,” I replied.
“And they’re going to be live streaming during the bombings,” Grift added.
“God, that’s terrible… Well, I guess I’m down. These might be the last days before we’re all incinerated. Might as well be social.”
“Sick. They still haven’t approved my RSVP,” he clarified. “But it’s whatever, I’m going to pull up anyway. Eating shitty tacos in their WeWork feels like the proper way to watch Trump become the antichrist.”
Praxis, for the uninitiated, is the self-styled “world’s first digital nation”—an online community determined to become a real life city-state, otherwise known as a network state. Founded by Dryden Brown, a Californian surfer bro turned tech entrepreneur, Praxis counts 150,000-plus citizens, all unified by a shared mission to “revitalize” Western civilization and forge a new culture based on heroism, truth, and beauty. To achieve that end, employees are allegedly prescribed books by the Italian far-right occultist Julius Evola, and hiring practices are reportedly influenced by European beauty standards.
While critics deride Praxis as a reactionary fantasy, a Galt’s Gulch on the blockchain, the project has raised significant capital, with tens of millions in equity and hundreds of millions in additional commitments, counting Sam Altman and other key figures in the Peter Thiel ecosystem as investors. They’ve long sought land in the Mediterranean, and more recently, made ambitious proposals for Greenland, imagining the Danish territory as the ideal laboratory for otherwise high-risk tests, such as developing terraforming techniques in preparation for eventual Martian colonization.
Sure enough, an hour before the party, Trump announced a ceasefire. Another TACO. The end of the world was canceled, at least temporarily. What a relief. I wondered if the decision would faze the partygoers. I didn’t think so, and was right.
As I arrive at the loft there is, if anything, less energy than expected. Only 60 or so people, far fewer than the guest list. War is more exciting than peace, I suppose. Then again, it is a weeknight.
The place is massive, with exposed brick and white walls, but completely bereft of furniture: just an IKEA queen bed in a designated “Nap Room.” “Panda” by Desiigner is playing, and sunglasses-clad hypebeast edgelords are waving around tequila handles. In the kitchen, near the food, the coke keys are coming out. The gender ratio resembles the Russian army. People are whispering if this might become “the new Sov,” as in Sovereign House, the now-shuttered former downtown capital of degenerate right-wing hipsterdom. I see Grift and dap him up. He’s cut his hair and is wearing a hat that says CIGS INSIDE. Fitting, as everyone here is smoking cigarettes inside. We then shoot the shit for a little bit, and he tells me he’s got some new projects going, some new grifts in the works. “Word,” I reply.
“Earlier, I’d overheard him declaring that ‘It’s time for the wiggas’”
Then “Black Beatles” by Rae Sremmurd plays, and the photographer Plum approaches me. She says she doesn’t really know anyone here, but figured I’d be here, and I tell her that I’m not really sure how I feel about that. She laughs and says she understands, and that she isn’t sure how I do it. It hasn’t even been an hour and she’s already been scandalized. By some dude who yelled “It’s great to be racist in 2026!” and then proceeded to tell her that “the most anti-Semitic thing you can do is become Jewish.” I sigh. “Yeah, that seems about par for the course,” I reply. She says she made a crypto X account last summer after a friend said she could strike it rich with memecoins, and now she’s seen so much racist shit, it freaks her out.
I commiserate, and then “EVIL J0RDAN” by Playboi Carti comes on, and Plum leaves, and one of the dancing edgelords engages me. Earlier, I’d overheard him declaring that “It’s time for the wiggas,” and opining “We’re gonna need more white rappers if we’re gonna save civilization.” He looks up at me and says “Yoooo” and I reply “Hey, what’s up?” Cocking his head, he tells me he met me at Nightclub 101 last weekend, that he’s new in town from LA, and that I mog, I fucking mog. I reply thank you, that’s kind of him to say. Then he asks for my Instagram, grabs my phone to inspect our mutuals, and then informs me about what he’s done with various shared female followers. Oh shit, I fucked this one, damn, I want to fuck that one, fuck, boy, she sucked my dick in a Von’s parking lot. I can’t help but laugh even as I cringe. This is the elite vanguard meant to “revive” the West? As I’m trying to escape him, yet another person comes over and tells me I mog, then invites me to come mog on stream with him and Dryden.
I accept without hesitation, and “God’s Plan” by Drake plays. I’m led to the loft’s front corner, where a makeshift studio has been fashioned near the window with only a little mounted tripod and a pop-up table. The Praxis flag, a trippy navy and white geometric pattern vaguely reminiscent of Imperial Japan, or the Nazi Sonnenrad, is tacked to the wall behind Dryden Brown and a bunch of e-girls. We make cordial introductions, but don’t really chat much. I sit in front of the computer and they ask me some basic questions for the approximately 20 people watching: What’s my height, am I vaxxed, do I drink whole milk, do I take peptides. The streamers aren’t really interested in me, though. They’re interested in the girls, especially this Brazilian, who they keep hounding for her 23andMe data, probably to gauge whether she’s genetically pure enough to mate with. She balks, saying she’d never turn over that information to the government, and the online simps swoon even harder.
Eventually tiring of streaming, I withdraw, and float around taking pictures, mostly unbothered until a college-aged Latino kid introduces himself. He tells me the world’s going wrong, that everything’s going wrong, so wrong, so fucked, and our present political systems aren’t equipped to right this wrongness.
I tell him I agree.
“Say bro, you ever read Camp of the Saints?” he asks.
I hesitate, but nod yes, and he smiles, mistaking me as a fellow traveler. “That’s fantastic, so you get it. Great book. So prophetic. You know, I love it here, because well, I ‘hard R,’ and you can’t really do that too many other places. Gets real awkward.”
“Before heading out, I take a taco, thankful that TACO—and that doomsday—is again delayed”
I hallucinate a future where that might differ. Emulating Croesus of Lydia, our erratic emperor consults his modern Oracle of Delphi, Truth Social. The augurs are auspicious. “Press the button, king!” they tell him. “Own the libs!” And bidding for history, the madman does. Hellfire rains down on America’s enemies, burning them in an instant. He then tweets of victory, but there is no triumph, and soon after, our flames blow back at us. Markets crash as cities are vaporized. Devastation stretches to every horizon, and like The Road, cannibal gangs roam its wake. Nation-states are destroyed, and the old world order reduced to radioactive rubble.
But in this glowing hellscape, a dream is realized. The apocalypse is a buyer’s market, and on the shores of the Aegean Sea, Praxis is born. Gothic skyscrapers soar heavenward beside marble temples as heralds of a new civilization, the virtual turned physical. At the apotheosis of network spirituality, 3D-printed ambrosia feeds the citizenry, and robot cops cull criminality. Beneath a towering obelisk, Dryden Brown is proclaimed Consul for Life. Donning a purple toga in the hot fallout wind, he declares them eternal, and vows their city will last the ages. His legionnaires hail him with Roman salutes, their gold chains glinting against black tactical vests. The national anthem, “FE!N” by Travis Scott, thunders through the wasteland as gas-masked tradwives twerk amidst the ashes. That night, huddled in nuclear winter’s pitch black, these last men debate Virgil and ask Grok to generate a new Aeneid, the Drydeneid, mythologizing their founding in epic verse. “Is this too glazing?” one worries. “No!” the others shout. How could it be? Because of him, the West not only survives, but is saved.
But this is only a vision. For now, our civilization endures, and Praxis’ territory remains confined to their (admittedly spacious) Tribeca loft. Not long after, its lights shut off, and everyone is instructed to leave. Before heading out, I take a taco, thankful that TACO—and that doomsday—is again delayed.
Follow Nick on Instagram @manabovetown
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