This is essay #7 in the series The Revolution No One Sees Coming.
Of all the things No One Sees Coming, one of the greatest shocks will be the failure of finance to fix what’s breaking down. By finance, I mean 1) money in all its forms, 2) credit/debt in all its forms and most importantly, 3) the mental construct / belief structure of Modernity and Progress that credits Technology and Finance with the magical powers to solve all problems, regardless of their nature.
There is a very appealing but fatal circularity to this mythology: since Technology and Finance can solve all problems, we define all problems as being technological or financial in nature.
As this chart illustrates, this circular belief about “how the world works” neatly ignores everything that isn’t technological or financial in nature and therefore cannot be solved by Technology and Finance. Since we hold the powerful hammers of Technology and Finance, we see only nails that can be pounded down.
This mental construct in which AI--the penultimate Technology--and money can solve all problems is delusional, but so strong is our belief in this model of “how the world works” that we’ve lost sight of the abstract, symbolic nature of money and the reliance of all technology and money on planetary resources.
In this delusional state, we believe technology and money are powers in and of themselves, when what they really are is a reflection of hydrocarbon energy. If Earth held no accessible stored energy in the form of hydrocarbons, there would be no planetary scale technology and no belief that creating symbolic claims on future energy / resources--i.e. money--would magically generate future energy / resources.
This circularity finds its ultimate expression in technologically generated forms of money: cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, leveraged trading instruments, credit default swaps, and so on.
CHS NOTE: the Revolution No One Sees Coming will not just be a series of external events, it will be personal, as each of us will face situations we didn’t choose whose novelty and scale may exceed our previous experience. History is full of changes no one thought possible a few years earlier. No one else is writing about it like I am, so a subscription--which costs the same as a few sushi--is a unique value. Thank you for supporting my work, I would quit if it wasn’t for you.
