Hemlock Collective applies forensic systems analysis to document patterns of democratic capture in the United States. By treating institutional events as structured data points rather than ephemeral news cycles, we build a persistent research archive of democratic erosion.
Mission
This work serves as a reference resource for:
- Legal practitioners seeking documented case precedents for litigation
- Academic researchers studying institutional capture mechanisms
- Policymakers assessing systemic risks to democratic infrastructure
- Journalists requiring citation-ready source materials
- Fellowship committees evaluating democratic resilience research
Approach
We adapt engineering principles—drift detection, root cause analysis, and system resilience—to political analysis. Each case file maintains rigorous documentation standards with primary source verification and archival preservation.
The core theoretical contribution is the drift-design feedback loop: how opportunistic norm erosion (drift) creates vulnerabilities that enable deliberate systematic capture (design). This framework explains democratic collapse as an engineering problem, not just a political one.
About Jason Oh
I’m a systems architect who spent two decades building organizational infrastructure designed to resist corruption. As VP of Engineering at Shutterstock and CTO at Candid, I developed frameworks for career progression, hiring processes, and cultural operating systems that encoded fairness and transparency into institutional structure.
After experiencing systematic institutional corruption firsthand—watching frameworks I’d built fail not because they were wrong, but because I’d encountered actors deliberately operating in separate realities—I began documenting how organizational capture patterns scale to state-level institutions.
Background
- 20+ years in fintech, e-commerce, and healthtech (Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Shutterstock, Etsy, Candid)
- VP Engineering and CTO/CPTO roles scaling technical organizations
- Built compliance and governance systems for regulated industries
- Published 7+ years of organizational design analysis at Lucid Nonsense
Education
- M.S. Computer Science, University of Chicago
- B.A. English/Literary Theory, UC Berkeley
Current Work
- Deconstructing Project 2025’s Capture Architecture: Forensic analysis of democratic capture architecture
- Constitutional Reconstruction: Prescriptive framework for institutional immunization
- Case file documentation of real-time institutional capture
Early readers, including a leading constitutional scholar at the University of Chicago Law School, noted that the patterns documented here were already “accelerating” in real-time—a validation that prompted the transition from private analysis to public documentation.
Why “Hemlock”?
The name references Socrates’ execution for challenging Athenian power, a reminder that truth-telling has always carried risk, and that democratic institutions are fragile when confronted by concentrated power. It signals both warning and commitment to rigorous documentation.
Methodology
Our analysis draws on:
- Systems thinking (feedback loops, cascade effects, emergent properties)
- Organizational pathology documentation (20+ years preventing corporate capture)
- Comparative political science (Levitsky & Ziblatt, Ginsburg, Snyder)
- Primary source documentation (executive orders, court filings, legislation)
We acknowledge limitations: This is practitioner analysis, not academic political science. The value lies in applying cross-domain pattern recognition from organizational systems to democratic institutions—a perspective that complements traditional scholarship.
Contact
For inquiries, corrections, or collaboration:
- Email: editor@hemlockcollective.com
- Professional background: LinkedIn
- Organizational analysis: Lucid Nonsense
This site documents work in progress. All analysis is freely available to practitioners, researchers, and concerned citizens.