The Global Socioeconomic System Has To Go!
Our economic religion is an omnicidal heat engine that foments war. Maybe we all need a hobby.
We know we are a war-making species; it’s uncontroversial. But why are we so engaged in organized violence? It’s a fascinating subject. Check out this conversation with Jim Rutt and Richard Overy.
I’ll say it upfront: the kind of global market economy we run fuels today’s hyper-disaster unfolding worldwide. So, what do we need to do to stop the hyper-disaster? Please read on.
Again, I must provide some context. The post gets more fun after the context bit.
Extinction
“Sixth Extinction” refers to the ongoing, human-caused mass extinction event rapidly depleting Earth’s biodiversity. Scientists estimate that current extinction rates are about 1,000 times higher than the natural background rate, a pace that rivals the five previous mass extinctions in Earth’s history, the last of which wiped out the dinosaurs. (Golly, gee, we’ve all heard about that.)
Human activity is the primary cause of this crisis. Habitat destruction, through deforestation, urbanization, and agriculture, is a leading driver, eliminating living spaces and disrupting ecosystems. Global heating exacerbates the problem, altering ecosystems and weather patterns faster than many species can adapt. Overexploitation, such as overfishing and poaching, further decimate populations. Pollution from chemicals and plastics contaminates environments and harms wildlife. Global trade and travel introduce invasive species that disrupt the ecological balance and can outcompete native organisms.
The consequences of the Sixth Extinction are dire. The loss of biodiversity weakens ecosystems, making them less resilient to change and unable to provide essential services like clean air, water, and food. This can lead to increased natural disasters, reduced food security, and economic instability. Moreover, species extinction represents an irreversible loss of genetic information and evolutionary potential, potentially hindering future adaptations and innovations in the natural world. The Sixth Extinction ultimately threatens the stability of the planet’s life-support systems and the well-being of human societies.
The “polycrisis” (have you not heard of it? ad nausium)is a term used to describe the interconnected nature of today’s global challenges, where multiple crises converge and amplify each other: It’s like a tangled web of problems, making it challenging to address any single issue in isolation.
People need help understanding complex, systemic problems. It’s natural to avoid learning about issues with many layers of complexity, and it’s uncomfortable to think about complex systems, their formation, and what emerges from them. Nature is full of complex emergent systems, and people also create complex systems. Gosh darn you, K.I.S.S. The complex systems running our world are inaccessible simply because things are too complex for us to comprehend.
I am so tired, I just can’t get my head around this, and quite frankly, I don’t give damn.
Thousands of people are working on describing the Polycrisis across dozens of domains. Thousand of people are talking about the challenges we are facing today. Thousands of people are having the conversation to educate us about complex things we find difficult to understand and don’t want to think about. People have warned us for hundreds, no, let’s include the wise folk, for thousands of years.
We have known about various existential risks to civilization and life for many decades. Solving these problems has never been politically desirable or expedient because there are no incentives to do so. We are incentivized to tell a story.
Get up on the table, Senator. Tell me a story, and make me believe it.
Climate change: Rising temperatures, extreme weather events, sea-level rise, and biodiversity loss.
Resource depletion: Overexploitation of natural resources like water, minerals, and forests.
Pollution: Air, water, and soil contamination from industrial activities, plastic waste, and chemical runoff.
Inequality: The growing wealth gap, social unrest, and political polarization.
Conflict & War: Geopolitical tensions, armed conflicts, and refugee crises.
Misinformation & Disinformation: Erosion of trust in institutions, the spread of conspiracy theories, and difficulty discerning truth.
Social Disintegration: Declining social cohesion, increased loneliness, and mental health challenges.
Financial instability: Debt crises, economic shocks, and volatile markets.
Supply chain disruptions: Global trade imbalances, shortages, and inflation.
Technological unemployment: Automation and AI replacing human jobs.
Cybersecurity threats: Data breaches, ransomware attacks, and disruption of critical infrastructure.
AI risks: Unintended consequences of artificial intelligence, algorithmic bias, and job displacement.
Biotechnology risks: Potential for misuse of genetic engineering and synthetic biology.
Pandemics: Global health crises like COVID-19 highlight vulnerabilities in healthcare systems and global interconnectedness.
Food insecurity: Climate change and conflict exacerbates food production and distribution challenges.
Interconnectedness makes the polycrisis particularly challenging, requiring integrated and collaborative solutions. Are we working and investing enough across nation-states to solve these problems? No, not nearly enough. Instead, we are doubling down on doing everything that has caused this dire predicament. And, you know, this “thing of ours” is ancient. It is nothing new.
Hedge Funds, private institutions, corporations, and their shareholders own everything and want more. You work a lifetime to pay off debt. If you don’t own many financial assets, you are not a Player; you are not even enjoying “the good life.” Plebs and proles are becoming more insignificant by the day.
1. What hedge funds generally own:
BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street are primarily known for their index-tracking ETFs and mutual funds. This means they hold a broad range of stocks and bonds that mirror major market indices like the S&P 500, Russell 2000, and Bloomberg Barclays Aggregate Bond Index.
For example, BlackRock’s iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV) and Vanguard’s Total Stock Market Index Fund ETF (VTI) are incredibly popular, holding stocks of large US companies.
Blackstone is a major player in alternative investments, including:
Private equity: They buy and restructure entire companies.
Real estate: They own massive amounts of commercial and residential property.
Infrastructure: Investments in things like roads, bridges, and utilities.
Credit: They provide loans and other forms of financing.
Hedge funds like Bridgewater Associates, Millennium Management, and Citadel tend to have more complex and varied portfolios, using a range of strategies:
Stocks: Both long and short positions in public companies.
Bonds: Government, corporate, and high-yield bonds.
Derivatives: Options, futures, and swaps to manage risk or speculate.
Commodities: Gold, oil, agricultural products.
Currencies: Trading on fluctuations in exchange rates.
Private investments: Venture capital, private equity, and real estate.
2. Where to find some clues about what these corporate institutions own:
ETF Holdings: For ETFs, you can often find their top holdings listed on the fund provider’s website or on financial data platforms like Bloomberg or Yahoo Finance.
13F Filings: Institutional investment managers with over $100 million in assets under management must file Form 13F with the SEC quarterly. These filings disclose their holdings in US equities, but with a delay of about 45 days. You can find 13F filings on the SEC’s website or through various financial websites.
Financial News: Keep an eye on financial news sources. They often report on major investments and acquisitions made by these firms.
The specific assets these firms own constantly change; having an utterly up-to-date list at any given time is impossible. These corporations own the media platforms. Google “BlackRock owns everything” and look into the results.
These corporate institutions manipulate markets.
We worry about the price of gas and eggs.
Nothing is equal.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be Jennifer Gates? Ms Gates is a Nepo baby, short for nepotism baby, a medical student, and an accomplished equestrian.
Nayel and Jennifer look like friendly people with lovely smiles.
Olympic equestrian Nayel Nassar and Jennifer Gates — the eldest daughter of billionaire Bill Gates and his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates — welcomed their second child, daughter Mia, in October 2024. The couple's first child, daughter Leila, was born in 2023.
Their abode is big, expensive, and probably a gift from Jennifer’s dad. It’s a triplex penthouse at 433 Greenwich Street, Tribeca, N.Y., N.Y. The triplex is 8,900 square feet with 316 square meters of outdoor space. That’s huge for an apartment, even by NYC standards! It has six bedrooms, six full bathrooms, two half bathrooms, and a plunge pool. The previous owner was Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton. He earned that pad. Bill reportedly purchased the triplex for around $51 million in 2021, with some estimates putting the current value at $76 million. Talk about making money while you sleep in your Tribeca apartment.
Of course, Jennifer and her siblings grew up at Xanadu 2.0, a 66,000-square-foot mansion in Medina, Washington, estimated to be worth $131 million.
Bill doesn’t have a mortgage. We paid for it. He’s a Player.
Jennifer Gates is pursuing her own career path and interests beyond her family’s wealth. Even wealthy children need something to do.
People need help understanding complex, systemic problems. Turn on the news, and you’ll see a clip of Assad’s heavy underground door leading to an escape route from the Presidential Palace. From that information, we learn that Assad was extremely wealthy; we saw images of prisons, i.e., he’s a dictator, and so on. There is no context in the report. Context is complicated. Assad is a bad guy, while Western billionaires are innovative geniuses. I always disliked Windows.
Captured labor. For-profit cells. Immigrants. Migrants. In the olden days, indentured servants and sl_ves. Today, free folks pay their debts until they go to heaven.
I had a dream this morning.
Dreams are hard to describe, but the story was something like this:
I was organizing people to do something, and it was working. People were enthusiastic and actively involved, and we were getting things done—initially. Later, people showed up to continue the “project,” but this time, everyone was competing to lead the venture (many cooks in the kitchen) and treating me like a jerk for being there. (What a nightmare. hehe)
I was okay with that, took a step back, and eventually decided to move on when someone in the dream said, “We don’t want you to go; we just want to do things differently.” I felt like what they were doing wasn’t what I wanted, so I moved into another phase of my dream where I was in some Roman Empire World simulation with Arnold Schwarzenegger. I am sad I didn’t wake up and write down the details of that part of the dream. It was vivid and profound. Darn it!
Go ahead, make my day, and analyze my dream. LOL
We know what the problems are.
Good people worldwide are working on profitable solutions to our problems, and even more people are discussing “the polycrisis.” Many people know a lot about global heating, peak oil, geopolitics, inequality, pollution, etc. Hundreds of platforms are disseminating information about all the nasty things plaguing our world. Reporting on problems employs a lot of people—not as many as the defense industry. We are all information addicts at this point, so there is a large market for information on everything that bothers or interests us. It’s been like this for ages. Day after day, more books and papers will be published, and “Tube” channels will discuss our “predicament,” and so on. The few of us who care will continue to consume this information voraciously. We think it’s an intellectually healthy habit. I know I did.
I have spent since 2008 delving into our “predicament.” Before that, I consumed the canned news we are all used to and read popular books and magazines, stuff that I thought was entertaining or would help me get ahead.
Now, I feel like all the educators and opinion-makers are having a fascinating time at the center of something big. While many smart folks “have the conversation,” we all sit around listening and reading information about problems and “solutions,” which have nothing to do with the true causes of the hyper-accelerating catastrophe we are experiencing.
So let me repeat it: This socioeconomic system has to go. We need a global rebellion, revolt, insurrection, mutiny, or uprising. We must overthrow the current economic archetype/model. Culture is the technology we need to accomplish this kind of dramatic change.
People who understand the polycrisis, predicament, or hyper-catastrophy call it what you will need to teach people how to seize power.
A brief detour.
I’m working with actors now, rehearsing scenes for a film I am making that’s intended to be a pilot of sorts for a streaming series I want to make. I’m looking to secure creator and producer credits and have been writing episodes for quite a while. The other day, I talked about books with an actor I was working with. I have a list of materials for actors to help them prepare for their roles. The actress mentioned that her mom often scolded her about watching too many shows and not reading enough. She said she learned a lot from these shows. Young people today learn things differently than in the 1950s, for example. People have many more resources today, and audio, visual, and video materials have increased since the Internet and the World Wide Web became accessible to more and more people. Streaming video was a game changer. Do you remember video rental stores?
Landman
Landman is one of the best streaming series I’ve seen in a while. I have watched the first five episodes. The speeches concerning energy and the oil business are gripping and profound.
“Landman” is the latest creation from Taylor Sheridan, the prolific mind behind hit shows like “Yellowstone” and “Tulsa King.” This gritty drama, currently airing on Paramount+, plunges viewers into the high-stakes world of oil exploration and land acquisition in the Permian Basin of West Texas.
The series centers around Tommy Norris, played with gruff charisma by Billy Bob Thornton. Tommy is a “landman,” a fixer for an oil company that negotiates leases and secures mineral rights from landowners. It’s a cutthroat business where fortunes are made and lost overnight, and Tommy navigates this treacherous landscape with a mix of cunning, intimidation, and old-fashioned Texas charm.
“Landman” doesn’t shy away from the complexities of the oil industry. It explores the boom-and-bust cycles, the environmental impact, and the clash between old-school wildcatters and modern corporations. The show also delves into the characters’ personal lives, showcasing the toll this demanding and often dangerous work takes on their families and relationships.
With its strong performances, tense plotlines, and authentic portrayal of a little-known corner of the American economy, “Landman” is shaping up to be another compelling entry in Taylor Sheridan’s growing television empire. It’s a show that grapples with timely issues like energy dependence, economic inequality, and the changing face of the American West.
If you’re a fan of Sheridan’s previous work or enjoy a good drama with a strong sense of place, “Landman” is worth checking out. Just be prepared for a wild ride through Texas oil’s rough and tumble world.
This is Tommy explaining the land deal to the cartel thugs:
“First they’ll hire Halliburton to build files on you fucking assholes the FBI dreams about having, then they’ll send thirty tier one operators from Triple Canopy to bust you like fucking pinatas. And if any of you dipshits make it back to Mexico they will blow up your house with a drone. While your family is in it. … It costs about six million to put in a new well, they’re putting 800 of them right fucking here … That’s 4.8 Billion in pump jacks. They’ll spend another billion on water, housing, and trucking. At an average of 78 dollars a barrel they will make 6.4 Million dollars a day. For the next fifty fucking years. The oil company is coming. No matter what.”
Spoiler Alert!
“They use clean energy to power the oil wells?” Rebecca asks.
“They use alternative energy,” Tommy snarks. “There’s nothing clean about this.”
“Please, Mr. Oil Man,” Rebecca quips. “Tell me how the wind is bad for the environment.”
“You have any idea how much diesel we had to burn to mix that much concrete? Or make that steel? Or haul this shit out here and put it together with a 450-foot crane? You want to guess how much oil it takes to lubricate that fucking [windmill]? Or winterize it? In its 20-year lifespan, it won’t offset the carbon footprint of making it. And don’t even get me started on solar panels and the lithium in your Tesla batteries.
And never mind the fact that if the whole world decided to go electric tomorrow, we don’t have the transmission lines to get the electric to the cities. It’d take 30 years if we started tomorrow. And unfortunately for your grandkids, we have a 120-year petroleum-based infrastructure. Our whole lives depend on it. And hell, it’s in everything. That road we came in on. The wheels in every car ever made, including yours. Tennis rackets, lipsticks, refrigerators, and antihistamines. Pretty much anything plastic. Your cell-phone case, artificial heart valves, any kind of clothing that’s not made with animal or plant fibers. Soap. Fucking hand lotion. Garbage bags. Fishing boats—you name it. In every fucking thing.
And you know what the kicker is? We’re gonna run out of it before we find its replacement … the thing that’s going to kill us all [is not the carbon emissions], it’s running out before we find an alternative. And believe me, if Exxon thought them fucking things [windmills] were the future, they’d be putting them all over the goddamn place. Getting oil is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. We don’t do it because we like it. We do it because we’ve run out of options.”
At the company’s board of directors, shareholders’ meeting:
Bob: Our concern isn’t combustion engine regulations so much as it is the--
Shareholder or Director: It’s not a concern, Bob?
Bob: It’s not the concern. I mean, 60% of American electricity still comes from fossil fuels, 39.8 from natural gas alone, and that number is climbing. Now, nuclear, that’s maxed out, unless they build more reactors, and that’s not gonna happen. Nuclear’s not an option for climate change advocates, even though it’s our cleanest and most reliable form of energy. Wind is twice as expensive as natural gas, and solar, four times as expensive. Plus, on its best day of the year, a solar power plant generates electricity for about eight hours. All our electric vehicles are doing is exporting their emissions to the power plant. Our greatest potential for growth is in exports. China only consumes 14% of the world’s petroleum reserves. India is at 4.9%. Russia, a little over 3%. We feel that our lobbyists’ focus should be on easing the regulations on exports. Our LNG exports to Europe last year climbed to 64% of total exports--
(clears throat)
Bob: Excuse me, if I may. What you’re not seeing in the States is this rabid opposition to fossil fuels of any kind. To their use, to their extraction-- 38% of the UK’s electricity came from natural gas piped in from Norway...
Steve: Gentlemen... But-but one quarter’s from wind, which I agree is unreliable and expensive, but-- and this is an important “but”
Bob: Energy consumption is not a social issue, Steve...
Steve: The hell it’s not. It’s deeply social. And we must endeavor ourselves to educate the world about our commitment to cleaner ener--
Monty: Steve, will you shut the fսck up? My God. This is why I don’t come to these things. Y’all have been in so many shareholder meetings, you forgot what it is we actually do for a living. We are well diggers. We don’t, nor can we ever, control how our product is used or what it is used for. There’s nothing I can do to make an engine run cleaner ’cause I don’t build fucking engines. I don’t care what the governor of California says about electric vehicles. I don’t care how many career college students block London traffic or spray-paint a fucking sculpture. I care that the price of oil stays between $76 and $88 a barrel. That is what we should be discussing. The world has already convinced itself that you are evil and I am evil for providing them the one fucking thing they interact with every day, and they will not be convinced otherwise. Stop wasting your time, and stop fucking wasting mine.
Director two: Gee, Monty, tell us how you really feel.
(laughter)
Bob: You better start caring, Monty. I mean, your children are going to inherit an oil fortune, but your grandchildren won’t. What they inherit, you’re gonna have to start building now. I know the party’s not ending tomorrow, but... it is ending.
We need leadership.
The Players of The Great Game don’t care about people; they don’t care about life. Of course, the healthier Players care about their people and children to various degrees, but within the myopic vision of The Great Game. Winning is always more important. You can’t have a family, friends, or allays unless you win. They care about profit and power over other people’s interests and the health and integrity of living systems.
People are mystical markets that propel the Player’s activities. Players create a profitable need or fill a need to win the Game, to have more control, power, influence, prestige, and money (an instrument of keeping score) than their competitors. You, my dear reader, are price setters, programmed desire machines driving markets with the market Masters, the grand manipulators of markets.
This is not to say there are no benefits to being servants of The Great Game. There are many, and we thrive on the rewards we can achieve as workers and service providers. I’m not suggesting this “thing of ours” is all bad. I’m a worker, and I enjoy life. I’m only pointing out that the way the Game is played now, with its petrochemical energy and our modern machines and technology, is destroying our habitat and the playground of the Players of The Great Game. The Game must change, or it will end, and that’s bad news for ten-year-olds.
The Players of The Great Game, whether they can see it or not, are war-mongering criminals incapable of making peace. Criminals? WTF? Who creates the legal code? The Players. So, Players can never be criminals. Brutal competition, not survival, but conquest, motivates them. Players are born and bred for their ambition and wet work. The culture of The Great Game is a criminal enterprise. I know it doesn’t look that way because we have laws, rules, and law enforcement. A legal structure/system makes creating and playing The Great Game easier and more secure. It also makes it a bit less violent and provides careers for service personnel of The Great Game.
People are part of the energy cycle of life and have radically impacted and reshaped the world since the beginning of civilization thousands of years ago. Much has been written.
The Players of The Great Game have always been master manipulators and adept at capturing energy, particularly people’s energy. Belief has always played a significant role in this. Players need religious ideologies and culture to capture the attention and belief of the people they exploit, and because we are apes, it’s not hard to develop and use these mind-control tools.
If you can’t fight to seize power, prepare yourself. You are living through a catastrophe you can’t avoid because you don’t have the power or resources to insulate yourself and your loved ones from it. Knowing this shouldn’t frighten you; it will only make you stronger and inspire you to understand what you are up against.
The only way to have power if you are not a Player is to organize mass action against the complex system we believe in. And how do you give up your beliefs? It’s hard. When one’s beliefs are gone, the space created must be filled with knowledge.
Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort a person feels when their behavior does not align with their values or beliefs. Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when a person holds two contradictory beliefs at the same time.
If you want to live a heroic life, what might you do?
First, deprogram yourself through education. Next, imagine a better way of doing things and fight to make it happen. We will likely fail at bringing the Great Game down in favor of something better, but it will be a noble and epic undertaking that will produce legendary heroes and strong, resilient, loving people.
OK, let me be honest; it may also produce some horrifically cruel leaders of nasty gangs.
Change can be messy, but we can’t avoid it. The poly-whatnot is a transformation over which we are not in control.
But as all the gurus, educators, and hosts say on all the platforms, things are FUBAR, and something needs to be done. Smart folks also know that The Great Game is self-terminating. It will fall.
What will you be doing during the fall? Will you play golf for the next ten years and enjoy the show? I won’t criticize you for that. Life is short, and you worked hard to get that club membership.
My suggestion to all of us who enjoy learning about our socioeconomic operating system and the negative externalities that plague our world is that it is time to shift gears and become, oh gosh, leaders of the revolution. And don’t worry, we’ll all get the attention we crave because the revolution will be live on screens, everywhere, all the time—until our world goes dark.
But come on, let’s be a Stoic and get “real” about this. We don’t have the power, i.e., agency, or the “will,” i.e., the desire to make those kinds of sacrifices. Making life-threatening sacrifices if you are “living large” is irrational and self-destructive.
Billions of us will die. Who cares about “long-termism?”
Maybe it’s time to find a nice hobby. My dad played golf. Perhaps it’s time for me to buy some clubs.
Perhaps it’s not time to be so concerned about the transition we are living through. Things might not get bad for Americans and “The West” for several more decades, and by then, we might have technical and engineering fixes for the threats to The Great Game.
But I can’t help it; I’m not convinced that preserving The Great Game for another fifty years is good.
What makes me fret is the thought that The Great Game might indeed be the pinnacle of civilization, as good as it gets, and I am crazy not to embrace it.
As I said earlier, I enjoy learning about and understanding how The Great Game works, so there’s that.
