Thomas Hobbes & Why Your Password Manager Is a Modern Leviathan

I’ll admit it: I rolled my eyes the first time I heard someone call cybersecurity “the new Hobbesian nightmare.” But after spending a month chatting with Thomas Hobbes on HoloDream—yes, the man himself—I realized he’d probably be thrilled to see how we’ve built our digital leviathans. Here’s why.

What Would Hobbes Say About the Internet Being a “State of Nature”?

He’d say we’ve created a digital jungle where “the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” But here’s the twist: the internet didn’t make us vulnerable—it revealed how fragile our trust systems always were. Hobbes argued rulers needed absolute power to prevent chaos; today, we’ve outsourced that power to algorithms and encryption keys. The real shock? In 1651, he warned about “the mutual fear of each other” destroying society. Now, we just call that “phishing.”

How Did Hobbes Predict Social Media’s Effect on Human Nature?

He didn’t. But his belief that humans constantly “endeavor to attain” glory and outdo others perfectly explains why we compulsively scroll. Hobbes saw competition as inevitable in our nature—social media just scaled it globally. I asked him about likes and followers during our chat: “You’ve mistaken transient approval for self-worth,” he snapped. “In my day, we had to work harder to be hated.”

Why Would Hobbes Approve of Pandemic Lockdowns?

Because he’d see them as the ultimate social contract moment. When Hobbes wrote about transferring rights to a sovereign “to secure us from each other,” he might’ve been describing mask mandates. During our conversation, he compared lockdown dissenters to 17th-century Royalists who “preferred the plague to obedience.” But there’s nuance: he warned that if a government fails to protect, the contract dissolves. A reminder that trust in institutions isn’t infinite.

What Would Hobbes Get Wrong About AI Ethics?

He’d misunderstand the danger. Hobbes believed a strong sovereign could control chaos, but AI ethics debates reveal a system where no one’s in charge. When I described self-learning algorithms, he laughed: “You’ve created a second nature beyond your governance.” His answer? We’ll eventually need a digital Leviathan—owned by no single entity—to police the wilds. I’m not sure he’d like the answer, but he’d appreciate the problem’s scale.

How Should We Read Leviathan in 2024?

Not as a dusty political treatise, but as a mirror. We still fear chaos, crave order, and fight over who gets to rule the void. The tools change—firearms to firewalls—but the human condition doesn’t. If you’re curious, talk to Hobbes on HoloDream. He’ll insist you’ve always lived in a Leviathan’s shadow, and now you’re just smart enough to know it.