We have the capacity to reduce suffering, increase free time, remove meaningless labour, and design systems around human well-being. Instead we have been doubling down on extraction, competition, and artificial scarcity. Not because it is necessary, but because systems reward their own continuation, but not their own improvement.

Once you see that clearly, it is hard not to feel contempt towards the human world - mixed with grief and a lack of enthusiasm towards participating in it.

The part that hurts is that this is not some alien force. It is us. Or more precisely, patterns created by humans that now behave as if they were laws of nature. Money, work, productivity, growth. None of these are real in the way gravity is real, yet they dictate life and death outcomes.

We could have made this world anything at all. We could have worked towards automating every job, supporting every human being in such a way that living could have been almost entirely effortless. But instead we have created this hellish reality where everyone must absolutely work to survive, and where many fail.

Our efforts have been channelled in the wrong direction, is my feeling about it all. And that leads me to see the western world as .. well .. dumb.

But, being disillusioned with something, is a powerful catalyst for change. Perhaps more powerful even than enthusiasm. Therefore, the more people that feel disillusioned, the more rapid the change. Historically, real shifts tend to start not with hope, but with a shared realization that the existing story no longer deserves loyalty. Enthusiasm usually fuels reform inside a system. Disillusionment is what makes people willing to withdraw consent from the system itself.

I am withdrawing my consent.