A system that comes to depend on synthetic signaling for its “information” is doomed to Model Collapse, as its signaling has completely detached from the real world. That we inhabit a post-truth world seems to accepted wisdom. But that’s only half of it. We also live in a post-trust world. In a post-truth world, everything […]
Cloaking a fake “market” with artifice to maintain its asymmetrical distribution of wealth and income also cloaks its detachment from the real world. I often refer to the dynamics of self-correction and self-liquidation. Systems that use feedback to rebalance extremes are self-correcting: rather than accelerate as they approach a cliff, they […]
To claim that jostling for the biggest share of federal power and largesse–in a word, greed–magically serves the common good is a convenient cover for an oligarchy masquerading as a “democracy.” Is a “democracy” that’s for sale still a democracy, or is it something else? The question arises from the nature […]
In the Realm of the Banality of Evil, saying yes is always easy. The hard part is saying no, for reasons that have nothing to do with getting ahead. The Epstein files have unleashed a flood tide of bleatings of innocence and accusations of guilt by association. This is just what we’d […]
That I don’t have an analysis or insight to offer doesn’t mean I don’t care. It simply means there are limits on what we know, and what we do know suggests circumspection. War seems to demand some response–opinion, analysis, insight–lest it seem that we’re uncaring or detached from events so […]
Moral flexibility accumulates. Over time, it leaves you compromised. This is a guest essay by correspondent 0bserver. This series focuses on the realities of self-employment. In my view, everyone is self-employed to some degree now, whether they’re aware of it or not. At some point, I learned to draw a line. I […]
This is the quiet truth of institutional work: improvement doesn’t buy freedom. It buys responsibility without ownership. This guest essay by longtime correspondent 0bserver describes the core dynamics of work in America and the global economy: if we don’t own our work, we only “rent” our income and the life it […]
Those acting with impunity are confident that their powers or god-like because they appear so in the human realm. But there are limits to everything in the human realm. One of the first things we learned about the Internet is that anything sent via email could readily become public and anything […]
We no longer care who’s behind the curtain because we’re in charge of our own lives now. The Good News is people are realizing We’re On Our Own and starting to take action accordingly. This article describes how people in one low-income county are localizing self-reliance rather than remain dependent on government […]
How much private credit has been put in place but isn’t in the official credit total is unknown and very likely unknowable. That means total systemic risk is also unknowable. Everyone wants to lend us money now, even though they’re not banks: the insurance company Progressive offered us a loan, PayPal […]