As larger, top-down frameworks weaken or become less relevant, people naturally turn to the local — to communities where they have direct relationships and real influence. It seems clear that […]
The Architecture of the Cage: How Belonging Became a Transaction
This is a compilation of four essays with similar threads. They’ve been woven together into a single narrative that is both interesting and possibly concerning. Definitely worth the read. The […]
How to Really Change the World
I’ve been having a conversation on Substack about social movements and how change actually happens. And I realized that what I’ve been doing instinctively has a solid foundation in academic theory. So […]
Our Future Domain
Small players don’t win by trying to out-scale the giants. That game’s already decided. The advantage, for the 99%, is shifting upstream — earlier in the chain, closer to human […]
How We Lost the Nation-State
I’m not sure how far back it goes. Certainly the Vatican was one of the early players in exerting control over rulers of nations. And then came the financiers like […]
From “Chad” to “Slop”; How Society Has Evolved
Each year, the American Dialect Society chooses one word to represent the Zeitgeist of that year. If you line the words up and look at them, they start to feel […]
Real Scarcity is Coming
One aspect of the Western economic system has been the leveraging of manufactured scarcity. Markets have always played at scarcity to drive up demand and price. But that’s a very […]
Who’s Right About Economics?
Economists tend to fall into two camps, and if you listen to them long enough it begins sounding like a long-running family argument at Thanksgiving. On one side of the […]
The Nation Without a Land
A nation is more than a place on a map. It is a shared story, a common allegiance, a belief in something that binds its people together. But what happens […]
Short Essays Collection # 4
Humans Humans have always been shitty. Now we’re just shitty – at scale. What is Left As I continue to work my way through The Good Doctor, the episode I’m […]