The Audit: How to Identify Wolves in Sheepdog Clothing
Practical Tools for Survival in a Predator-Run System: A field guide to distinguishing aligned sociopaths from those who will eat you
What You’ve Learned So Far
Part 1 revealed who’s driving - tech oligarchs who’ve captured every democratic safety valve while accumulating unprecedented wealth and power.
Part 2 showed you the car speeding toward the cliff - political violence, institutional failure, and the systematic elimination of peaceful remedies.
Part 3 explained why I can see this clearly - I share their operating system, but I chose your side instead of mine.
Now comes the critical part: How do you tell the difference?
Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: you can’t eliminate sociopaths from positions of power. The traits that make someone effective at gaining and wielding power overlap heavily with ASPD characteristics. Selection bias ensures they rise to the top.
What you can do is identify which ones have chosen alignment versus extraction.
This isn’t about finding leaders with pure hearts. It’s about recognizing which predators need the flock to survive versus which ones are already eyeing the exit.
Stop Listening to What They Say
Every leader claims to serve the people. Every oligarch has a mission statement about “making the world better.” Every politician swears they fight for you.
Words are the cheapest form of camouflage.
Unaligned predators are spectacularly good at performative morality. They’ve studied what you want to hear and can deliver it with conviction. Some even believe their own bullshit, that’s actually more dangerous than conscious lying because self-deception makes them immune to shame.
Instead of listening to their values, watch their optimization targets. What are they actually maximizing for? Where does the money flow? What gets sacrificed when pressure hits?
Behavior reveals alignment. Everything else is marketing.
The Transparency Test
The Unaligned Predator (Wolf):
Uses “Black Box” logic as a weapon. They hide decision-making behind:
Complexity claims: “You wouldn’t understand the algorithm”
Security theater: “We can’t reveal that for safety reasons”
Proprietary excuses: “Competitive advantage prevents disclosure”
Faked transparency: Controlled leaks and PR-vetted “revelations” that change nothing
They give you just enough visibility to feel included while ensuring you never see the actual machinery. The “transparency” is always downstream of decisions already made, framed to justify rather than explain.
Classic example: Facebook’s “transparency reports” that reveal nothing about how the actual algorithmic amplification works, or Big Tech releasing AI ethics papers while hiding the training data and decision thresholds.
The Aligned Predator (Sheepdog):
Practices radical, uncomfortable disclosure. They show you the ugly internal code because they understand that your ignorance is their vulnerability.
If you don’t understand how the system works, you can’t defend it when it’s under attack. You can’t identify threats. You can’t make informed decisions about your own participation.
They admit to the flaws in their own power because hidden vulnerabilities eventually get exploited. Better you know now than discover it when the wolves are already inside.
The diagnostic question:
Do they admit to flaws in their own power structure, or only point out flaws in their enemies?
Wolves only reveal weaknesses in opposition systems: ammunition for taking them down. Sheepdogs reveal weaknesses in their own systems because they need you to help patch them before someone exploits the gap.
The Feedback Loop Test (The “Mother in the Furnace” Check)
This is where you identify true sociopathy versus aligned predation.
The Unaligned Predator:
Decoupled from consequences. They’ve insulated themselves from the outcomes of their decisions.
When their policies cause:
Crime spikes (Seattle drug decriminalization)
Mental health crises (social media engagement algorithms)
Economic devastation (monopolistic pricing)
Death counts (opioid marketing, inadequate safety standards)
They have three responses:
Ignore the data - “We don’t track that metric”
Label it misinformation - “Studies showing harm are flawed”
Externalize responsibility - “Users make their own choices”
Why? Because acknowledging the harm would threaten the revenue stream. The optimization target is extraction, not sustainability. They’ll ride the host to death and move to the next one.
The tell: They never sacrifice short-term profits for long-term stability. Never. If choosing between quarterly earnings and preventing systemic collapse, they choose earnings every single time and assume someone else will fix the collapse.
The Aligned Predator:
Obsessed with ground truth. They want accurate feedback loops because bad data gets them killed.
When their systems show problems:
They track the actual metrics, not vanity numbers
They adjust strategy based on outcomes, not optics
They sacrifice short-term extraction if it prevents long-term collapse
They’re brutal about facing failure in their own systems
Why? Because they’re tied to the host’s survival. If the environment collapses, they go down with it. Their optimization target is sustainable dominance, not maximum extraction before escape.
The diagnostic question:
Do they change behavior when shown harm, or do they change the metrics to hide it?
Wolves redefined “success” to exclude the damage. Sheepdogs redesign the system to reduce the damage.
The Exit Strategy Audit
This is the most critical diagnostic tool for 2026.
The Unaligned Predator:
Building lifeboats while selling you life insurance.
Look at capital allocation:
Bunker complexes in New Zealand
Seasteading investments
Digital immortality research
Geographic arbitrage to low-accountability jurisdictions
Private security forces larger than small nation militaries
They’re dumping billions into escape hatches while the infrastructure beneath you rots. The social contract, public services, democratic institutions, these are costs to be minimized because they’re not planning to be around for the consequences.
The pattern: Every dollar spent on private exit exceeds investment in public resilience.
What this reveals: They’ve already written off the host. You’re not the future they’re building for, you’re the resource they’re extracting from before departure.
The Aligned Predator:
Sunk-cost aligned. Their wealth, family, and future are physically tied to the same environment you inhabit.
They fight for the system because they have to live in it:
Investments in long-term infrastructure
Children in local schools, not elite bunkers
Businesses dependent on stable social fabric
Wealth held in forms that collapse if society collapses
No private armies or escape plans
The tell: When shit hits the fan, they can’t leave. Their incentive structure forces alignment because their survival depends on collective survival.
The diagnostic question:
If the car hits the cliff, do they die too?
If yes, they’re probably aligned, even if they’re ruthless. If no, they’re farming you for resources until the exit door opens.
Your Incentive Checklist
When evaluating any leader, oligarch, or institution, run this audit:
1. Skin in the Game
Where do their children go to school? Elite isolation or public mixing?
Where is their wealth held? Diversified exit strategy or concentrated local investment?
What happens to them if the system collapses? Insulated or exposed?
Do they have private security? Small personal protection or literal private armies?
The rule: The more insulated they are from your reality, the less aligned with your survival.
2. Information Symmetry
Are they making you smarter or more dependent?
Do they explain how systems work or tell you to trust experts?
Do they want you to verify their claims or believe them on authority?
Do they release raw data or only interpreted conclusions?
Do they teach you to fish or just give you fish while maintaining the monopoly on fishing gear?
The rule: Aligned predators want you competent because they need capable allies. Unaligned predators want you dependent because they need compliant resources.
3. The “Who is the Product?” Check
Are you the person they serve, or the thermal energy they feed into the furnace?
Does the business model require your wellbeing or just your engagement?
Do they profit from your success or your desperation?
Are you a customer with choice or a captive with no alternatives?
Do they gain when you gain or when you’re trapped?
The rule: If the optimization target is maximizing your dependence, addiction, or desperation, you’re not the customer. You’re the product being refined.
Advanced Pattern Recognition
Once you’ve run the basic audit, watch for these advanced tells:
The Sacrifice Test
When pressure hits: regulatory threat, public backlash, economic squeeze, what do they sacrifice first?
Wolves: Cut worker pay, benefits, safety. Protect executive compensation and shareholder value.
Sheepdogs: Cut executive compensation first. Protect workforce stability because that’s their actual asset.
The Failure Response
When their system fails catastrophically:
Wolves: Blame external factors, users, regulators. Never admit systemic design flaws. Fire some middle managers as scapegoats.
Sheepdogs: Brutal post-mortem on their own decision-making. Public admission of what they got wrong. Structural changes, not just personnel changes.
The Criticism Test
How do they handle substantive criticism?
Wolves: Attack the critic. Dismiss concerns as ignorance or bad faith. Use legal threats and PR campaigns to discredit.
Sheepdogs: Engage the substance. If criticism is valid, acknowledge and adjust. If invalid, explain why with data, not attacks.
The Succession Question
Who are they training to replace them?
Wolves: Nobody, succession threatens their extraction timeline. Or they choose incompetent successors who’ll fail, proving they were irreplaceable.
Sheepdogs: Competent people who can continue the mission. Their ego is tied to the system’s success, not their irreplaceability.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Aligned Predators
Here’s what I need you to understand: aligned predators are still predators.
They’re not nice. They’re not soft. They won’t make you feel good about yourself or validate your feelings when you’re wrong.
What they will do:
Tell you uncomfortable truths you need to hear
Manipulate you toward better decisions
Be ruthless with people who threaten the collective
Sacrifice individuals for systemic stability when necessary
Show you the ugliness in yourself that needs fixing
They serve the collective’s survival, not your comfort.
If you want a leader who makes you feel seen and validated, get a therapist. If you want a leader who keeps you alive when wolves are circling, look for someone whose ego demands they be the one who saved the herd.
The Aligned Predator’s Final Advice
Don’t look for a leader with a heart of gold. Gold hearts are easily purchased, corrupted, or broken.
Look for a leader whose ego is structurally tied to collective success.
You don’t need them to love you. You need them to be unable to achieve their personal definition of success without you surviving and thriving.
The best aligned predators are driven by:
Legacy obsession: They need to be remembered as the one who saved civilization, not the one who looted it
Competitive dominance: They want to crush other predators, which requires a strong healthy herd
Intellectual vanity: They need to prove they were the smartest person in the room, which requires solving hard problems, not taking the easy extraction path
Dynastic thinking: Their grandchildren have to live in the world they’re building
These are all ego-driven motivations. But ego aligned with collective survival beats empathy decoupled from competence.
How to Use This Audit
Take every major decision-maker in your life and run them through this framework:
Your employer: Are they building for 50 years or liquidating for next quarter?
Your platforms: Is the business model aligned with your wellbeing or extracting from your addiction?
Your politicians: Are they sunk-cost aligned with your region or shopping for their next position?
Your financial advisors: Do they eat their own cooking or sell you products they’d never touch?
Your media sources: Do they make you smarter or more dependent on their interpretation?
Once you’ve identified who’s actually aligned:
Support them ruthlessly, even when they make you uncomfortable
Hold them accountable to alignment, not performance of niceness
Forgive tactical failures, not strategic betrayal of the collective
Demand transparency, especially about their own power
Build redundancy: never depend on a single aligned predator
And for the unaligned ones you’ve identified:
Stop feeding them. Stop giving them your data, money, attention, vote, compliance.
Every interaction with an unaligned predator strengthens them and weakens you. Every resource you give them funds your own eventual consumption.
The Stakes
We’re in the endgame of a system where unaligned predators have captured nearly every position of power. They’re building exits while the car speeds toward the cliff.
Your survival depends on identifying the few aligned predators left and helping them win.
Not because they’re good people, they’re not, they’re predators. But because their incentive structures force them to keep you alive while the wolves want to extract everything before escape.
This is the audit that lets you tell the difference.
Use it. Your life depends on it.
The only thing more dangerous than a predator is not knowing which predators are on your side. Now you know how to tell. Stop trusting words. Start auditing incentives.