Daniel Schmachtenberger l An introduction to the Metacrisis l Stockholm Impact/Week 2023
What this covers
An introduction to the Metacrisis by Daniel Schmachtenberger, founding member of The Consilience Project. Moderated by Niklas Adalberth, founder of Norrsken Foundation. Recorded live during Stockholm Impact/Week 2023.
Stockholm Impact Week is an annual Summit hosted by Norrsken and the City of Stockholm, dedicated to defining the critical issues of our time and enabling solutions to them.
Read more about Norrsken Foundation: norrsken.org Read more about Stockholm Impact/Week 2023: impactweek.se
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Schmachtenberger argues that civilization faces imminent existential collapse driven by incompatible dynamics: exponential technology, planetary boundaries, and a financial system requiring infinite growth that is already misaligned with human and biospheric survival, requiring fundamental transformation rather than incremental reform.
- The market functions as a misaligned superintelligence optimizing for monetary extraction while destroying unmeasurable forms of value (ecological, relational, spiritual) that sustain life
- Advanced dual-use technologies (AI, synthetic biology) now enable catastrophic capabilities accessible to non-state actors, radically accelerating harm distribution beyond governmental control
- The embedded growth obligation in interest-based monetary systems is mathematically incompatible with finite planetary boundaries, making incremental reform insufficient and requiring systemic redesign
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Jevons Paradox shows that even 'green' batteries and renewable energy can paradoxically increase overall environmental destruction if used to accelerate consumption and economic growth, as gains in efficiency are consumed in increased activity.
“even though we have added so much wind and solar still were of a world record of coal consumption... even though we have added so much wind and solar still were of a world record of coal consumption... if we do produce the world's greenest batteries with green energy but meanwhile create an ecological disaster in DRC Congo or Indonesia set a sufficient solution”
Until World War II, human civilization did not have the technological capability to destroy the biosphere; the destruction required industrial-scale technology, meaning all of written human history until WWII occurred at a scale where ecological damage was not civilization-terminating.
“when we look at the history of warfare we didn't have the ability and War to destroy everything until World War II and World War II was a minute ago in historical terms and at the end of World War II there were about two billion people on the planet which was already a 4X jump from what there was for all of human history till the Industrial Revolution right until until the Industrial Revolution we didn't have the type of tech that could destroy the biosphere because you can't overfish the oceans with fishing rods right you'd have to overfish the oceans you have to have massive industrial fishing equipment”
Digital-era technologies like GPT and Threads achieved 100 million user adoption in 5 days, radically faster than industrial-era technologies like the steam engine, and with potentially more concentrated impact.
“when you look at the speed at which GPT got used by a hundred million users or threads than in five days getting used by 100 million users compared to how quick it took the steam engine to be used by that many people but also the impact of it”
Approximately 90% of Nazi defendants at Nuremberg trials initially claimed they did not believe in what they were doing and thought it was terrible, but when asked if they tried to stop it, all said no, citing orders and lack of choice.
“one of the things they were asked was if they believed in everything they were doing and something like 90 percent of them said No at first they believed the kind of propaganda of uh the Jewish attack on their population and whatever but as it got into gassing children uh something like 90 of the people who were doing that said no I totally didn't believe in it and I thought it was terrible and then when they were asked did you try to stop they all said no and they quoted German phrases that translated to something like officers orders I didn't have a choice”
The United States' foundation involved the genocide of 100 million Native Americans, and modern democracy and Western civilization in America are built on this genocide plus massive slavery and species destruction.
“I think about when we're talking about the impending catastrophes I think about the 100 million Native Americans that were genocided for my country to exist just a minute ago in historical terms and we like to have we talk about like the values of Western Civilization but you know modern democracy in the United States occurred on 100 million person genocide and massive slavery as well as the destruction of the species”
Large language models that have been jailbroken or leaked have the capability to answer questions about synthesizing pathogens, identifying highly virulent organisms, and calculating lethal dose calculations for under $100k, which is nuclear-weapons-level catastrophic capability that spreads at internet speed without centralized control.
“the relationship between those and biological development tools the ability to synthesize genomes of pathogens and things like that and just asking questions to an AI that can talk to you that knows all of chemistry that is published on Wikipedia and online knows all of biology knows all of current technology which would normally be a radically huge team needed to do that and being able to ask questions like which companies provide Gene synthesis tools that are not government monitored where I can buy Gene synthesis tools without triggering uh oversight and what are the most virulent pathogens and how many people could I kill for a hundred thousand dollars and questions like that and it answering and this is totally nuclear weapons level catastrophic capability but unlike nuclear you just have to have an information packet to be able to use it the knowledge of how to do that travels the speed of light on the internet radically decentralized can't be limited to G8”
Industrial agriculture is subsidized by governments despite being the most toxic form of agriculture due to depleting soil minerals and using pesticides/herbicides designed to kill life, and this makes regenerative agriculture unable to compete even when both systems are environmentally assessed, because the subsidy choice is driven by lobbying power not rational comparison.
“the most toxic forms of Agriculture that deplete all the minerals in the soil and use pesticides and herbicides I.E poison that was designed to kill life and spray it all over our food and spray it in the ecosystem in billions of tons of year that is subsidized by the governments of the world I.E it's not even Market competing with regenerative agriculture it's being subsidized to to not even allow Fair competition of the other things when it is omnisciental because it's it claims it's the only thing that can produce enough food to meet food security for national interests no the real reason is because they're better at lobbying than small farmers are”
Pfoa (fluorinated surfactants/forever chemicals) are now present in rainwater globally including Antarctica at levels above EPA and EU safety thresholds, affecting not just human health but soil microbes and algae, representing a crossed planetary boundary with unknown cascade consequences.
“if everybody many people in here saw the article that came out about six months ago in the American Chemical Society Journal about pfos the fluorinated surfactants and rainwater everywhere in the world but they are in rain water like these fluorinated surfactants which affect their endocrine disruptors and carcinogens and neurotoxins they're in every drop of rain water all around the world that has been studied including snowfall in Antarctica and they're at levels that are above the EPA and EU thresholds that's not we're getting close to planetary boundaries that's we have crossed them and the Cascade of tragedies we don't know yet”
The discovery that humans can split atoms (nuclear fission), reverse engineer brains into neural networks performing exaflops per second, modify genomes and create synthetic life never existed, and function as the major geologic force shaping Earth (anthropocene) demonstrates that humanity possesses power requiring wisdom to steward safely.
“we know how to split an atom now wow like we go back through the high school physics of how small an atom is and the fact that we have figured out how to split an atom to actually how to do Fusion right how to how to do this at the level of the nucleus of an atom and we know how to modify genomes of species and make new synthetic life that never existed before and the fact that we know how to reverse engineer brains and make these massive neural networks that can do exoflops per second of calculation this is UN the fact that we are the major geologic Force shaping the surface of the planet at this time in the anthropocene”
A financial system requiring exponential growth to avoid collapse through interest payments is fundamentally incompatible with biosphere sustainability because exponential growth eventually hits planetary boundaries, but the system requires 3% more money every year regardless of actual goods and services available.
“the financial system as we know it would collapse so we have a financial system that the world the how we meet our basic needs depends upon that is so obviously incompatible with the biosphere... the monetary system still requires there to be three percent more money next year and then three percent more on that which is a compounding curve which goes exponential to not debase the value of that currency that means you have to exponentiate real goods and services which means rather than the money following the real economy it's driving it right... embedded growth obligation is totally incompatible with planetary boundaries”
From an economic perspective, AI and software appear to solve planetary boundaries by enabling exponential economic growth without proportional resource consumption, creating dangerous incentive to accelerate AI development without adequately addressing dual-use and existential risks.
“from the economic perspective of what um every speaker today was talking about exponential curve goes up software seems like the answer to planetary boundaries right because we get to keep getting more economic growth without having to use as many resources per dollar awesome we're definitely moving forward as fast as possible with AI and the US and the hope that it'll fix the stagflation and allow us to deal with the economic situation but it's dual use it's Omni use it's basically meaning you develop it for one purpose but it enables everybody to do every purpose that they have”
Human population grew from 500 million pre-Industrial Revolution to 2 billion by WWII (4x increase), then to 8 billion presently (4x again), corresponding to and requiring exponential increases in resource extraction, technology deployment, and cumulative environmental damage.
“all of human history only brought us to half a billion people until the Industrial Revolution and then we're like oh look how awesome the hobber Bosch mechanism is but corresponding to we can feed a lot more people is all of the planetary boundary issues we're hitting now just a couple hundred years later because we went from half a billion to 8 billion overnight but we went at World War II we were up to 2 billion but only 2 billion that means we went from 2 billion to 8 billion since then”
Approximately $100 trillion dollars exchange hands every day in markets, all involving energy-intensive mining, fracking, extraction, and pollution, with all currency depending on military enforcement and central banks maintaining the system.
“you have something like a hundred trillion dollars exchange hands every day and as has been made clear all of that involves energy that is involving Mining and fracking and extraction and pollution on the other side it also even the services sector depend upon products so all of it has a materials footprint it all requires central banks it all requires militaries nobody gets to make money in that contract hold without the military that holds the monopolies of violence”
Costa Rica is among the highest performers on ecological metrics partly because it eliminated its military and thus did not need to deploy large military budgets, and lacks extractable natural resources or critical geopolitical infrastructure that would require military protection.
“the best country on Kate's chart was Costa Rica they don't have a military also because they don't have extractable natural resources um and they don't have some critical and international thing like a Panama Canal or whatever so they they don't have to have the resources allocated to Military and that kind of thing”
Monitoring and internalization of externalities (making companies legally responsible for their environmental and social costs) and changing corporate fiduciary duty from profit maximization to goals compatible with ecosystem and human viability are examples of transitional work within existing market frameworks.
“insofar as governments start actually forcing monitoring of externalities and making it illegal so the externalities have to be internalized in the cost equation that would be a good example insofar as they start to change the fiduciary responsibility from profit maximizing to things that are not ecocidal and biocidal and lifestyle in the process of you know economic viability those would be transitional”
We are at the end of human civilization defined by the characteristic that power-oriented civilizations with greater violence capability consistently destroy peaceful alternatives, a dynamic that has defined all of written history from Egypt to Sumeria forward and is now incompatible with exponential technology at planetary boundaries.
“I do believe we're at the end of History like eminently in the lifetimes of everyone in this room or at the end of History meaning we're at the end of a human civilization defined by the major defining characteristics that what we call written human history from early Egypt or Sumeria or whatever was defined by which is the it didn't if you had a peaceful civilization and Genghis Khan wanted that area or Alexander the Great one to that area your peaceful civilization was wiped out and the same is true if you have a if you want to internalize all of the cost of carbon your country is going to get destroyed geopolitically by whoever externalizes that cost and concentrates the profits the the thing that has been more successfully dominant extracted more grown its population more increased its violence capability wins and that thing with exponential Tech at planetary boundaries self-terminates”
Degrowth or localization creates strategic problem that many actors prefer war or competition to reduce other populations rather than accept lower material consumption, and this makes degrowth strategically dangerous because it removes the economic interdependence that prevented kinetic superpower war.
“if we start to degrowth there are a lot of people who are like no I would rather not have less I'd rather there be less of other people's people and I think that we can win the war so one of the challenges to degrowth is that that has been the only thing that's prevent the the growth equation has been the only thing with these kinds of uh people and patterns that have prevented World War III kinetically”
The Iraq War killed approximately 4.5 million people based on false justifications (weapons of mass destruction known to be fabricated), yet no prosecutions occurred, demonstrating that institutions do not hold power-oriented actors accountable for mass murder.
“the Iraq war that started all of the recent rounds of Wars because of the weapons of mass destruction that we knew they didn't have where are the prosecutions for that because four and a half million people were murdered as a result of that”
The global market system (called 'Moloch,' 'superorganism,' or 'mega machine') has agency despite being composed entirely of human actions and must either die or be converted into something fundamentally different for human continuance; this requires eliminating global fungible currency with embedded growth obligations.
“the Hitler were all in relationship to today is this thing right we can call it moloch but this kind you can call it the superorganism you can call it the mega machine and that thing has to die a thing has to die or the biosphere will die but it's not actually animate it is running on and made up of Human Action... that thing there is no Global fungible unitary currency with its own internal Financial mechanisms like interest that create embedded growth obligations there's no system that has those structures that is compatible with human continuance so that thing has to change”
Species are being driven to extinction at rate of approximately 13 species per day currently, and this extinction is a direct result of industrialization, resource extraction, and habitat destruction enabled by exponential technology growth.
“and extinctive 13 species a day”
Physics and biology set hard constraints that cannot be negotiated or changed, whereas human history is based on institutions that have adapted; being realistic about planetary boundaries requires being 'unrealistic' to human institutional history.
“he was grounded in the reality of human history as it has been so far and I was trying to ground in physics and biology because we don't get to change those in the same ways and the two aren't compatible so I have to be unrealistic to history as it has been so far if I want to be able to think about how to make a human technological civilization compatible with the biosphere and itself and its own continuity”
Action should be motivated not by anger, depression, and fear, but by love for sacred life and understanding that one lives in a time when individual actions have higher possible consequence than ever before in human history, creating an obligation to act meaningfully.
“don't act out of anger depression and fear act out of that sense of the Sacred and that you are in service to a life that is beautiful to a life with a capital l a world that is beautiful and that you're at a time when there is a higher possible consequence of your action than there has ever been for humans and there is an obligation in that and there is a meaningfulness in that that you don't want to waste”
When Schmachtenberger pointed out that 'everything in DC is revolving doors' was incompatible with safety regulation, his friend responded 'that's why we're going to go extinct', but the friend insisted that being realistic to historical patterns of governance meant accepting regulatory capture rather than demanding structural alternatives.
“he got so frustrated at me he's like Daniel everything in DC is rotating doors and I'm like I know that's why we're going to go extinct and he got so frustrated he almost had to hang up because he's like you're being so unrealistic because this is how regulation and the world works and I'm like you're being so unrealistic you're pretending a biosphere can continue to exist”
No country, company, or individual wants climate change, species extinction, or autonomous AI weapons, yet civilization is orienting toward all of these outcomes because the underlying drivers are not visible preferences but rather structural incentives embedded in how the economic and competitive systems work.
“no literally no country no company in the world wants climate change no nobody is like climate change is the world that I want but we're orienting to it so fast and we can't stop and nobody can stop it because we all want stuff that requires energy that is driving that thing and nobody wants species Extinction and nobody really wants to live in a world with automated AI weapons but we're all racing to build them so what the is actually driving the world to a world that literally nobody wants”
The meta crisis framework distinguishes from polycrisis not merely by listing interconnected crises but by identifying underlying dynamics driving them toward global catastrophic risks, particularly emphasizing advanced technology risks that polycrisis framing may underemphasize.
“the meta crisis which is just a slight distinction in terms of the it's not just there's a lot of different crises and that they're moving towards Global catastrophic risks but that they have underlying dynamics that give rise to them that have to be addressed um but one of the other distinctions is a different way of taxonomizing the problem space and the issues of advanced technology get some more emphasis”
The global market functions as a decentralized superintelligence running parallel processes on 8 billion humans and corporate/state structures to incentivize searching for new ways to make money and optimizing on existing ways; whoever succeeds at this system gains more power and then lobbies to change laws and cultural values, suppressing opposition.
“you can think of the global market as something like an AI in an intelligent system that is running parallel process on human compute on human beings and you know how radically powerful parallel process in the cloud is being able to run a lot of parallel process on computers did a lot more than centralized supercomputers could do so this is running parallel process on 8 billion human beings and the clusters of Corporations and countries and whatever to incentivize them all to search new ways to make money and to optimize on existing ways and whoever gets good at that system gets more power in it and in turn lobbies and changes laws and changes cultural values of the media they create and whatever that makes a system better for them and anyone that opposes that system is also opposing those who are doing well at it so that there is agency to suppress that”
Chinese soldiers who murder nuns and priests and destroy Tibetan culture are, like most historical enforcers of atrocity, primarily people who love their children and consider themselves moral before being placed into institutional contexts that demand inhumane actions.
“when I'm thinking about all of the Chinese soldiers who are going into Tibet murdering nuns and Priests and destroying that culture and that similarly they were mostly people who loved their kids and were moral people before being called into that situation”
The path from depression to agency requires recognizing that one has capacity and agency, figuring out how to act effectively (not doing things known to fail), and allocating time and effort to learning and attempting solutions rather than waiting for others to solve problems.
“there's like okay well I'm here and I have some agency I have some capacity I can do something about it I don't know how to yet but I'm not going to let myself do anything other than figure out how and then act on that and then when it's insufficient figure out how...I want people to feel the depressed depression and the outrage and the fear because it means that they are not just deadening themselves and fragmenting inside and then I want them to not allow themselves the cognitive dissonance to forget and just care more about the messages that came in today that totally don't matter in comparison and then I want you to realize that the you can't focus on the bad guy over there and and then you also can't let yourself stop or not act because you don't know how but you also can't act doing things that you know won't work so you have to learn you have to try to to figure it out”
Individual regenerative action (making one's own life regenerative, making Sweden regenerative) is insufficient when the fundamental driving forces of civilization are destructive, and people should instead focus on what would transform the entire arc of civilization.
“I don't want people to think about how to make their own life regenerative because it doesn't matter I don't want people to think about how to make Sweden regenerative I want people to think about what it would take to turn the entire Arc of humanity factoring what is currently driving it and that everything else that you could do doesn't matter at all because the end of the possibility space of all meaningful human activities is eminent if we don't do that”
Individual awareness and willpower alone cannot counteract the continuous psychological conditioning from social media feeds, bills, media narratives, and institutional obligations; therefore, one must actively change the information environment and social connections influencing consciousness.
“your social media feed will continue to show you the same and your bills will continue to call at you and your media will continue to show you all the things that it does that are all wrong and your existing obligations will continue to push on you and that you will not be able to counter that by memory and will alone you'll have to change the feed of what's coming into your awareness where this comes into your awareness every day”
Most people leave impact-focused events and continue working jobs doing mostly the same things, remembering the message for only minutes before returning to default behaviors driven by bills and digital distraction.
“probably doesn't matter at all that most everybody will leave and probably continue working the jobs that they work doing mostly the same types of things and they will remember what happened like okay we're destroying the atmosphere we're boiling the oceans we're killing all the other species we're doing it at the cost of colonialism we're on the way towards Extinction and that will last in people's minds till they scroll for a minute until a bunch of messages come in and until the bills need paid at most”
Tibet before Mao's invasion had a civilization with deeper consideration for sentient beings and deeper interiority, but this did not prevent its destruction when a more power-oriented civilization wanted to end it.
“when we talk about having a civilization that has deeper consideration for other sentient beings and deeper interiority and Tibet was pretty great at that and it didn't lead it didn't lead to their civilization continuing when a more power-oriented civilization wanted to end it”
Schmachtenberger categorizes necessary work into three time horizons: triage (immediate work using existing market/government structures to reduce harm), transitional (reshaping existing systems to be less pathological through changed incentives and monitoring), and long-term (fundamental redesign of governance, economic, education and meaning systems adequate for stewardship of advanced technology).
“we have to use markets and governments and whatever for that because that's where all the power is but we have to use them very differently... I call this triage and that needs done in a lot of sectors there's transitional work which is to make the existing systems less pathological... and then long term is totally rethinking okay we know how to split an atom now wow... what kind of civilization what kind of economic system what kind of governance system what kind of education system what kind of religious systems of conditioning the sacred and meaning are necessary to be able to Steward the power of synthetic biology and artificial intelligence and nuclear attack”
Money functions as a fungible value token representing optionality rather than intrinsic worth, enabling the holder to acquire any form of value, but this creates incentive to measure and exchange only fungible value while destroying unmeasurable forms of value (relationships, meaning, ecosystem health, beauty) that are most important on deathbeds.
“think of it as money is a kind of token for Value it's a kind of token for game theoretic optionality where it has no intrinsic value but it has a maximum optionality to get me any type of value I want I can get militaries with it I can get media influence I can change people's minds I can get materials... if you think of money as a proxy for Value but only value that is measurable extractable and exchangeable and all the types of value that on your deathbed you'll really care about are not measurable extractable and exchangeable we'll destroy all those types of value in the pursuit of these types”
For people who understand that the current system is structurally incompatible with continuance, continuing to operate within that system creates cognitive dissonance because they cannot operate within an omnicidal system without being complicit.
“for people in here to have a future where you don't live in cognitive dissonance if you if you get that then you can't operate within that thing anymore you have to say how do I change that thing I can't operate within it because I can't I can't be complicit with an omnicidal thing”
Counterfeit currency is illegal because adding money without indexing real goods/services debases currency value; this logic shows that money must be proportional to real goods/services, yet modern systems do precisely this constantly through quantitative easing and other tools.
“which is why counterfeit is always illegal because if you just added a bunch more currency that wasn't indexing the goods and services you'd be debasing the value of the currency but as soon as that the financial system you start to realize okay well now I have some of this money that is an optionality token”
Being well-adjusted to a profoundly insane society is not a good measure of mental health; in a system that is creating catastrophic harm, sanity requires appearing radical by society's standards.
“I'm reminded of the the krishnamurti quote that being well adjusted to a profoundly insane Society is not a good measure of Health good measure of Mental Health it will seem like I'm trying to radicalize you and I am but I'm not trying to radicalize you I'm trying to talk about the only thing I feel is sane at all in a world that is completely batshit crazy”
The startup ecosystem celebrates 'unicorns' (billion-dollar companies) regardless of whether they destroy the planet or society, creating perverse incentive to maximize valuation over impact, whereas impact entrepreneurship should prioritize solving world's greatest challenges.
“in my vertical of startups we celebrate unicorns the companies that reach a certain valuation a billion dollar valuation no consideration whatsoever if they destroy the planet or Society in doing so if we put people to debt or we create addictive mobile games which destroys people's ability to pay attention and so on all about reaching a specific valuation so this was the birth or idea behind North Korean Foundation instead put the spotlight and capital and networks behind impact entrepreneurs so startups that are actually tackling the world's greatest challenges”
Practical immediate action is to change one's daily information feed and social environment to ensure that truths and meaningful things receive primary attention, not default content, by curating social media, deleting apps, changing peer groups, and actively consuming content that reminds one of what is most real.
“a practical thing I would say is that your social media feed will continue to show you the same and your bills will continue to call at you and your media will continue to show you all the things that it does that are all wrong and your existing obligations will continue to push on you and that you will not be able to counter that by memory and will alone you'll have to change the feed of what's coming into your awareness where this comes into your awareness every day so put Nate's podcast put the work of the other people that are awaking you up or reminding you of things you know put that on your daily feed somehow because the whole we are the average of the five people we spend the most time around our Consciousness is influenced by what we're paying attention to make sure that what is most the truest thing you know is what is getting your attention the most change who is around you and change the information feed coming to you such that what is most true and meaningful is what you're getting reminded of the most”
Regulating AI and synthetic biology that enable nuclear-level catastrophic capabilities requires preventing regulatory capture, but a public-private partnership model where companies regulate themselves is structurally incapable of preventing harm because of pervasive conflict of interest.
“I said we can't have any revolving doors in this the people who are regulating the tech cannot have a vested interest in the tech not getting heavily regulated and he got so frustrated at me he's like Daniel everything in DC is rotating doors and I'm like I know that's why we're going to go extinct”
War and economic competition are co-evolutionary structures that have defined civilization; understanding the role of conflict and military power is essential to understanding ecological crisis, and the Keynesian solution of radically growing the economy post-WWII prevented superpower kinetic war by creating mutual economic interdependence.
“markets and War co-evolutionary structures they're both structures of how to grow and Empower populations and rival risk conflict with each other um in fact you can think about what we call War as kinetic Warfare com zero-sum type competition using bombs and guns and stuff and you can think about what we call economics as economic Warfare political Warfare diplomatic Warfare narrative Warfare”
A practical immediate action is to lobby for removal of perverse subsidies on toxic agriculture and replacement with subsidies for regenerative agriculture, which would change market topology without changing underlying market logic, creating conditions for market-based competition.
“what's an immediate thing to do do you need lobbying do you need people who know how to lobby as well as big Ag and big Pharma and big oil and big Tech who go and Lobby for opposite purposes to remove the perverse subsidies that are going to those and move them to the things that would be better that are still Market viable things so that the market topology changes a small amount of lobbying money can produce a lot of State money change which can produce a lot of Market change because you've changed the topology of the market these are examples of not changing the underlying Logics of the market but working with them to change the world in the timely things I call this triage”
People should allow themselves to become depressed about the reality of ongoing atrocities (factory farming, sex trafficking, species extinction) as a sign they have not deadened themselves emotionally, and this depression should be distinguished from hopelessness by recognizing the depression comes from deep valuing of life and nature.
“I think people should let themselves become depressed foreign I think if they are not they're they're so schismed inside they're not it's hard to even think of people as humans if you can know the reality of what's happening in factory farms and just be stoked it's not not my problem if you can know how many kids are in the sex trade globally if you can know what the destruction of species looks like and you aren't depressed there's something really wrong with you”
The Nazis and most power-oriented actors are not monolithic evil but rather ordinary people following incentive structures and social roles; the phrase 'the complicity of the weak with the wicked' is more accurate, as most people will not actively oppose systems that provide income and social position.
“the famous quote lots of people have said a quote like this that it's the complicity of the week with the wicked that allows the evils of the world to happen most of the Nazis were not Hitler but Hitler couldn't have done without a lot of people who obeyed most of the Mongols were not Genghis Khan most of us are not the people that make the choice to make up reasons for Wars that are false flag for truly economic and geopolitical reasons but we will still not get in the way of that thing happening”
Early market theory assumed people want real goods and services and would rationally choose the best product at the best price, with money as neutral medium of exchange; this theory broke when money became an optionality token enabling loans and interest, creating fundamental separation between money supply and real goods/services.
“the theory of the market was people want real that will improve their lives and barter is just... very simplified kind of Market apologism uh early Market Theory all the Smith and Friends says people want real goods and services that will improve the quality of their lives how many cows are worth how many shoes is really hard so we make a unit of currency that's easier to carry around... the intelligent rational human will pick the thing that meets their need the best and the world will get better right like that's the gist of the idea and it's supposed to be then that the money is indexing the real goods and services so how much money is there has to be that within that market you kind of know how much goods and services to know how much one unit of currency's worth”
The speaker reached financial independence and became extremely wealthy through a successful fintech startup (buy-now-pay-later platform), but upon achieving his stated life goal realized it produced complete emptiness rather than fulfillment, triggering reflection on what society celebrates.
“seven years in I reached my goal in life which was to be financially independent I could change my fake Rolex into a real one I mean how great isn't that but as everyone understand I mean a fake Rolex showed the same time as a real one and looks exactly the same and I could only eat five times per day and so once nothing's changed I thought I would reaching everyone now but I just felt complete emptiness”
Sweden has 34x more impact startups per capita than the world average, and this concentration reflects successful impact investing and capital deployment in the Nordic region.
“Sweden today have actually 34 times as many impact startups as the world average and this have been feeling great to me I mean such a good like recognition and feeling and feeding my ego”
Nicholas Adelbert founded Norskin Foundation after achieving financial independence and recognizing the emptiness of wealth maximization, shifting focus from supporting startups based on unicorn valuations to supporting startups addressing the world's greatest challenges.
“seven years in I reached my goal in life which was to be financially independent I could change my fake Rolex into a real one I mean how great isn't that but as everyone understand I mean a fake Rolex showed the same time as a real one and looks exactly the same and I could only eat five times per day and so once nothing's changed I thought I would reaching everyone now but I just felt complete emptiness”
Norskin Foundation has invested in North Volt to create 'the world's greenest batteries' using renewable energy, but this does not solve fundamental problems of whether impact investment can address a $100 trillion/day system driving planetary boundaries.
“thanks to the resilience Center get a tune very uh North Vault creating the world's greenest batteries that we're very proud of here in Sweden”