Liberalism is indeed not at all fatalistic in this particular sense of the word you are using, because liberals believe in a linear, progressive movement towards ever growing prosperity and freedom. Your views, on the other hand, are very fatalistic. In your very first post you suggest that a future totalitarian state system should be designed to control a society of idiots, completely incapable of political thought or loyalty of any kind. There most certainly are types of "non-fatalist" totalitarianism - yours is not one of those. As to totalitarianism more broadly, I believe the concept of the organic state is superior to the totalitarian one precisely because of the totalitarian tendency to standardise and micro-manage in a misguided attempt to mitigate, control or avoid moral failure - a problem which requires a totally different approach. A further question to look at on this topic would be why any political activist, today or in the future, should bother to exert great effort in working for the future of what, according to you, would be an idiotic and contemptible mass without loyalty or will of any kind. I do not know anyone who would willingly and selflessy work for the sake of ungrateful idiots. This is a very fundamental problem with your view.

I am sure that our understanding of metaphysics differs in the next paragraphs, because I frankly have no idea what you mean by 'reject metaphysics'. I suspect you mean 'genuine inquiry into the nature of absolute reality' as you mention soon after without presenting it as an explicit definition, and if so, this serves no absolutely purpose whatsoever in the construction or longevity of any nation-state.

If we don't need to account for reality when constructing our societies, what's the problem with liberalism? It seems that your only problem with a world based on lies and pure power is that you want to control the lies and the power instead. Unfortunately, your political opponents have the power, and by the looks of it, according to your view, they are complete justified. Not to mention that some things, such as metaphysical inquiry, have an autonomous value that exists independently of any political ends, although metaphysics certainly could exert its influence over politics as well.

Humans have never made any serious advancement in metaphysics

This is incorrect. It would be more accurate to say that most humans have proven completely incapable to appreciate any serious advancements made in metaphysics. Great achievements abound, starting with the ancient world. Vedanta and Neoplatonism are even discussed in this very thread. I must also object to the rest of your four points. Points 2 and 3 falsely suggest that there is a disconnection between metaphysics and ethics (and by extension, presumably the rest of practical life). No such separation exists. To give a very basic example, Christian metaphysics and conceptions about God and the afterlife determined everything about morality, politics, culture etc. in the Middle Ages. I can partially agree with your fourth point - metaphysical inquiry is not immediately necessary for political success, although the outright rejection and hostility to metaphysics is not necessary either. There is also not much to "ponder", because a lot of the work is already done.

The issue with your cynical approach to metaphysics is that the normal relationship between metaphysics and social norms is that the latter are derived and justified on the basis of the former. Your desire to do the opposite may have some short term political benefits, but is fundamentally incoherent in the long term and undermines the very foundation of civilisation and the human personality. I do not think that you have seriously tried engaging with metaphysics, because if you had then I am sure you would know that "human reason" is not the only, or even the main tool in the examination of metaphysical problems. A study of metaphysics and epistemology is also very important in order to even define what it means to "know" something - the materialist scientific definition of knowledge that you have repeatedly used in your posts, for example, has a far narrower application that is commonly believed.

But as someone who is far more invested in the social sciences and for whom philosophy is merely a tool to perfect science, it should also be understandable that I do not accord much value to philosophizing, and accord much more value to science.

The insurmountable problem with this is that science is a branch of natural philosophy, which is itself a branch of philosophy in general. Science certainly has its rightful place, but it is still just a branch of philosophy, and is fatally dependent on the field of philosophy. There are many questions which science is completely incapable of answering, simply because that is not what it is meant to do.

Your last paragraph seems to go into the structure-agency debate and all sorts of things upon which I have no strong opinion.

But you should have an opinion on it, because the example I provided exposes a major problem with the physicalist perspective.

I will leave this as the last comment, because I suspect that there is a great deal of difference between our definitions here. We already have determined that your concept of 'soul' is Socratic and mine is Cartesian (a minimalistic conception, a non-spatial entity that exists, that thinks, that predates and outlives the body and which is probably far more streamlined than whatever the Socratics believe it is), upon which we have already wasted words, and thus I suspect that our exchange is deeply ridden with misunderstanding each other's positions regarding what actually constitutes 'metaphysics' and so forth. A proper debate would require strict definitions of every philosophical term used in order to ensure that we're actually on the same page.

In principle, I agree that a good debate would require precise definitions, but in this specific case I think you are being a bit disingenuous since it seems pretty clear to me that you understood exactly what I meant. Nevertheless, I am glad you enjoyed our exchange, judging from what you said earlier. I hope that you will reconsider your position on materialism in the future, or at least that what I have said will be useful to you in some manner or another.