Speaking of crises, so long as they’re able to manufacture one, they’ll find you a solution to sell you. We’re ruled by the insane, long have been at least in some regard, and that fact alone pushes a very bleak prognosis for humanity, in my opinion.
Money promotes psychopaths to the top, They being the Ones who will do ANYTHING to get and keep the power over Others money provides. And money, the accounting for the energy We add into a system, is an archaic tool...
And, there are far more egalitarian ways of using units of storage of value. For one, usury should have never been allowed to exist. I’m a bit extreme in my musings, but seeing the devastation it has wrought on the majority of the world, even suggesting usury as a viable strategy should be considered an existential threat to humanity and dealt with as such.
Money, or currency, is a societal creation to make trade easier. Usury is making money off of money and complicates the system with some unfairness and distortions. The greatest power is relations between and among people, currency is a "platform" that greases the connections, or should be.
I am aware of that. My whole body of work aims almost exclusively at showing why it is a detriment to Humanity in these times of abundance, where Our share of Our planet’s wealth is being put into “trusts” with the moneyed psychopaths in control on Our planet (by virtue of money) as “trustees” (“Own nothing; control everything.” —John D. Rockefeller) and We kept as Their money-controlled slaves.
We can obsolete that psychopath-promoting tool and use social currencies for motivation.
Thank you for your reply Amaterasu : your post was a little hard to understand...IMO money is just printed crypto (backed up by the full faith and credit of USA in our case). it's useful, but not mysterious.
We need to define "money." My definition: anything We use to account for Our energy(/time/work) added into a system. This can be goods/services (trade/barter), shells, beads, metals (coins), paper (bills), electronic bits, or anything else We use to prove We added Our energy in some way.
With free energy tech comes the point to "money" vanishing, and with the automation of needed work no One WANTS to do comes no need to bribe People to do it.
We don't need to even bother with "units of storage of value."
Our planet is vastly abundant, and the only thing that keeps Us from partaking is being unable to afford Our share - We each own a share of Our planet's wealth... - is money, the accounting for the energy We add. And We could not use Our share in 20 lifetimes.
We also have free energy tech - but the moneyed psychopaths in control on Our planet (by virtue of money) avidly hide and suppress it. I say this because I PERSONALLY KNOW We have free energy tech.
We now can automate all necessary work no One wants to do.
Well, I’m not saying we 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 to have it, only that it’s a tool. Before there was money, do you know how the psychopaths controlled people? Through control of grain surpluses. You have to have food to eat, so they’ll control your access to drinkable water, to food. This is how the first states began.
Perhaps We best agree on a definition of "money." Mine is: anything used to account for Our energy added into a system. And food and water fall into that arrangement. They pay Their bullies with it to control the People.
Goods, services, shells, beads, sticks notched and split, metals (coins), paper (bills), electronic bit... Or anything else. You spend time bullying People and the "lord" accounts for it with grain and water.
Oh, I’m aware we’ve been in an age of abundance for a while. What we’ve long had is artificial scarcity. What I think is happening here is that you’re blaming structures, I’m blame the structures architects. I think we’re both advocating for roughly the same thing: a return to autonomy and abundance.
Well, it’s a negative feedback loop. It’s a tool they engineered to shift the focus of control from decentralized work to capital accrual. What came first, the psychopath or the system they made? Answer is obvious.
Well, yes, but the point is that money is an archaic tool, which enables psychopaths, and We might want to obsolete that tool, freeing Humanity from Their grips, irrespective of how things came to be as they are.
Barter is another form of money. Proving We added Our energy in some way into the system. And with 80% of Us doing nothing but pushing money around, what would all those People do for barter?
Any system can be captured. Economic, militant. Even decentralized structures can be infiltrated and captured if people aren’t vigilant. Tools can be used for whatever purpose. It’s the hand that turns it that decides whether it is for good or evil.
Perhaps You might read some of what I offer... And yes, tools depend on the One wielding them, but when a tool is VERY dangerous and is archaic, would it not be best to put the tool down?
If Napoleon Chagnon is to be believed, money is not necessary. Humans naturally gravitate towards, admire, desire and identify with bullies and tyrants.
Money simply makes it that much easier for the psychopaths and sociopaths to rise.
I dispute that Humans naturally gravitate towards, admire, desire and identify with bullies and tyrants. The moneyed psychopaths in control on Our planet (by virtue of money) did an experiment in the 1960's where They promoted love, peace, and acceptance. To Their horror (and to Our honor!), They discovered that We embraced it with gusto!
As They had no need for love, peace, and acceptance, They brought out the psyops to create the general view that Humanity was not worth loving. First the Manson psyop, then "serial killers," "school shootings," and "influencers" that groomed Us to hate groups.
People admiring and being sycophantic towards pathologics is a sign of ponerization. It’s not clear thinking, and requires and already broken person. If everybody refused the pathologic, if everyone saw and understood the threat they posed, and dealt with it summarily, humanity would have flourishing. Now, only a select few experience true flourishing.
People as a rule don't admire or be sycophantic towards Ones They do not perceive as psychopaths. Like Trump. So many are so indoctrinated into believing that the governmafia is there for Them, and will not see the evidence that it is not. They only see the promises He makes, and not what is actually going on.
It would destroy Their quality world. If You're unfamiliar with what a quality world is, read William Glasser's Choice Theory. The moneyed psychopaths in control on Our planet (by virtue of money) use Our unwillingness to shift out of the perception We have of things irrespective of evidence.
This is why I am glad My father taught My never to believe ANYTHING. Rather, to place probabilities of truth to any data I receive, based on how well they explain what I see. and adjust My probabilities as new data come along that better explain what I see. And... Never give 100% true or 0% true (false) because there's always the possibility there are data I don't have.
In this way I have never attached to anything, unlike most People, who place true/false evaluations and build Their view of things, Their quality world on Their initial assessments.
And those moneyed psychopaths in control on Our planet (by virtue of money), as I said, use that to Their advantage.
Trumps immediate circles are those who have loyalty to that transnational cabal, same with the last (x) presidents. They aren’t their for the American people, they’re their for transnational corporations, central banks, finance, and all the peripheral cliques of psychopaths are trying to gain in wealth and status at the expense of the rest of humanity. It’s all dominance hierarchies ever were or did.
The US interests in oil and animal ag, and our complicity in continuing to support them, did indeed create the climate crisis. And they do indeed sell us solutions that don't solve it but allow business as usual to continue.
The rulers aren't insane, they're just bent on maintaining hegemony, and have got us supporting them in doing so.
The system that maintains business as usual is the white western patriarchy that we're all brought up under in conditioning and education. It rewards dominance (or submission) over women, people of colour, animals and the planet.
Call it insanity if you like, but the people who do the best in it, though its biggest victims, are intelligent, skilled and effective.
The ability to crush one’s natural compassion and soul does indeed make it more likely to succeed in the patriarchy. However, very few people have any inherent ‘sociopathy’ or difference in their brain development. If they are ‘insane’ as in mad then we are all mad for going along with it.
There’s a difference between insanity in terms of pathology and being ponerized (subject to the environment and pressures of pathocratic societies for extended durations).
That’s a common misunderstanding of psychopathology. Being insane doesn’t mean you can’t be all of those things. In the case of High Machiavellians, as you’ve pointed out, they excel at those things. The problem is what they are intelligent, skilled, and effective at accomplishing is counter to human flourishing. And that is what makes their particular brands of madness so dangerous to humanity.
Then yes, we are all insane while we continue to support these people by continuing to burn fossil fuels, eat animals and take pharmaceuticals. We are either stupid or complicit or just prioritise our comfort.
Well, we’ve all been brainwashed from birth, for starters. We were born into pathologically controlled and engineered societies, called pathocracies. The degree of ponerization varies from place to place, time to time, but you have different type of people in in a pathocracy: psychopaths and their ilk at the top, supported and empowered by high Machiavellians. Here’s a great video that uses its own taxonomy to explain the whole process:
I assume there are varying levels of psychological profiling. I have probably had all of the psychological profiles in one form or another, but managed to stay out of jail. I’ve been vilified and praised, probably more of the former.
With Money as the principal measure of success however, staying above the comfort gained by the power of money is a difficult road to avoid.
I often ask, would would you do if you were offered a pile of money for your support? Knowing that wealth resolves many existential issues, if the amount was right, I know what my answer would be.
I value my autonomy more than any amount of money. Also, I’m aware of deviance amplification. But the existence of deviance amplification doesn’t negate the existence of psychopathology. In fact, deviance amplification is evidence of ponerological capture. Money is the principle measure of success for people incapable of thinking beyond it, and most people are incapable do to a combination of social engineering (ponerizational elements), and the reality that, as you’ve stated, they can force compliance with capital via control of access to vital necessities and the threat of force by the state. These elements show the degree of ponerization we are at. I understand the “why” of someone becoming complicit, but I understand also how myopic it is and the cumulative effect of everyone being thusly captured. Death is better than a world brought to slavery and subjugation, and as hard as that might for many people to internalize, the alternative is this state of semi conscious existence most people experience compounded by the knowledge that they have “sold their soul” for a life of ease.
Manufacturing consent is a powerful tool used in many ways by those who rule - using religion was one such tool. Change happens when enough people suffer at the hands of their rulers to produce change and that’s usually a gradual process. However, those who dictate and weald their power are dangerously driving humanity to extinction!
I strongly suspect you’re correct. Suppression of technology has long been a rumored thing, all the way from
Carburetors that get 300 miles a gallon to cars that run on water, and in every instance with these psychopaths, if you’ve start with an assumption insidious intent and action, you’ll be right far more than your wrong, or at the least closer to the truth than not.
Oh. Well, we’re all uneducated in various areas. I could run a lathe if my life depended on it, or fly a helicopter. My own views and arguments either stand or fall on their own merits, but I like to think I take adequate diligence in their musings, but even then, someone smarter than me may have a vantage position that lets them see things that I at present cannot. I’m always open to input and good faith conversation, but those things are at a premium online.
"There is no way to compete and consume our way out of the hole we dug through competition and consuming".
If you read intelligent insider assessments like those of Gary Marcus, AI is poised to be a digital backhoe deepening/widening that hole. And as always, American greed leads the pack — ask the question: why does the US require 10-times the number of data centers as do the Chinese? Greed kills: the Biosphere, the proles, and anything else getting in the way of a world devoted to serving only a class of elite sociopaths.
The problem isn't AI. The problem is people who choose to use it to harm other people. In that sense, the problem remains what it has always been: human beings.
I don't think there's any realistic way to stop AI from happening. Trying to do so is like protesting the arrival of the combustion engine, electricity, or the automobile. Once a transformative technology reaches a certain point, it becomes part of the world. The question is not whether it will exist, but how it will be used.
AI itself is not the force that makes the future dangerous. The force behind every destructive use of AI is human intent. A wiser species might use such a tool to reduce suffering, solve problems, and build a better world. Humans, unfortunately, often find increasingly creative ways to use powerful technologies to hurt and kill each other. And heck if there is one thing humans are consistently good at throughout history it is that: killing.
So if you're looking for something to blame, blame the creator, not the machine.
Did you read my comment about the value of Gary Marcus' writing being mostly about his skepticism regarding your humans — "the Altmans and Thiels and Musks"(quoting from my comment above). In other words, having referenced the greed as the problem in my original post, I clearly agree and have made clear that the problem IS the humans, the source of that greed. Before you go critiquing comments, perhaps reading them more carefully might be in order.
Thanks. I enjoyed the post. Doing what you love: the antidote to the mediocrity which has infected us. To my system biologist's mind, the respective roles that organisms play in the Biosphere is a measure of their love for the health of the whole. Soil fungi love concentrating trace minerals for tree roots, which in turn love the relationship by which they "pay" the fungi in sugars (biofuel) for the favor. Etc.
Oh, and the trees "pay" with information, as all organisms in a REAL system do -- in the trees' case, info exchanged through air and soil.
Lots of references to systems in this thread (especially above, but genuine CASoS (complex adaptive system of systems) tend to be found only in natural systems, human systems lacking critical components. Referring, for example, to healthcare systems, or any others that involve financial remuneration is patently crap because the feedback controls demonstrably never function properly, they're neither self-organizing nor autopoetic (self re-creating).
True that Marcus disses LLMs and ultimately believes in a more "neuro" approach, but he's also a skeptic where it comes to the capabilities/motives of the so-called leaders of that cabal — the Altmans and Thiels and Musks. And you're right, lots of interesting comments make his posts a worthwhile read, in general.
China is now quickly outstripping the US both technologically and economically in both growth and prosperity. How is this possible one might ask?
It's possible because China didn't place all its eggs in the one basket of unfettered, free-market Capitalism. It has maintained a strict balance between Capitalistic greed and the public "humane" needs for its society. Now China isn't perfect (by any means), but what socioeconomic system is? There is a lesson to be learned here. But will the West bother to learn anything before it destroys itself and possibly the rest of the world with its broken paradigm of neoliberalism - that only serves the billionaire Epstein class?
After decades of criminalizing any talk about alternatives to capitalism it is encouraging to see discussions on alternatives. A self-destructing system which has created immense wealth and power for the one percent is no different from the feudal system which sustained itself by reducing the majority to serfdom. The current path we're on leads nowhere but to extinction.
AI is useful for many things, but, if we feed it our private information, we effectively gave the rulers additional way to incriminating us as they wish.
سلام غزة و القدس عليكم - العزة والنصر حليف محورالمقاومة وحلفاءها والذلة والعار لمحور الشر وجماعة أبستين (امريكا و بريطانيا وفرنسا وتركيا وقطر والامارات و دول الناتو والنازية الجديدة والماسونية والصهيونية و أسرائيل) وحلفاءه
Marxism failed because it is based on a multiple of false assumptions, Communism has failed because many of the assumptions of Marx, and Communism has NO pricing guidelines as the market price of a good or service is determined by a flawed plan. Capitalism is failing because it is no longer Capitalism. It is Crony Capitalism, fascism, Rule by Monopolizing oligarchs, Corporations as persons! In addition the Keynesian economic model based on Fiat currencies that have Zero value except that of threat of violence as we see with the Petro dollar piracy, sanction wars and loss of Purchase power by the constant Counterfeiting by government. Inflation means increasing the amount of currency in existence by fabricating it from NOTHING! It reduces the value of ever existing currency you hold , invisible Robbery. As with Cryptocurrency and paper commodities they have no asset backing them only empty promises. What needs to change is this Fiat currency system. It is a fraud that transfers all wealth from the regular person to the wealthiest .01%. Money should not belong to nor depend on a cartel known as government. Money (compensation)should be whatever the parties to the contract decide. Traditionally for thousands of years it has been commodities, labor, Gold, Silver, wheat, Barley etc. Debt and Balance of Trade are frauds on economically ignorant persons. Bailouts are fraud. Bankruptcies should be allowed to clear by dissolving the debtors goods. Thus the US government,(a corporation) is bankrupt and should be dissolved. Some fools say Gold is old fashioned and worthless. Every Government and Every Banking cartel hoards Gold. It is the single method of International payment of debts. The Constitution of the United States defines MONEY as gold or silver coins.
Frederic Bastiat-" When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in society, they create for THEMSELVES a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that Glorifies it"!
It is difficult to be well informed on every issue. However to my thinking all Human Activity is Economic activity.. The failure to understand economics is the underlying cause of most human misery . Fee.org, mises.org are decent resources with good E. libraries Garet Garrett, Henry Hazelnut, Ludwig Mises, Lawrence Reed, are interesting easily read and entertaining.
All of the Isms: capitalism, communism, nazism,zionism, fascism, racism, wokeism anti-semitism fuck some group of people. The ism that provides the most truelly egalitarian lifestyle is Distributivism. Government mostly at the local level, private property (home ownership) people run small businesses, work in coops and generally watch out for each other. Maybe a pipe dream but what if people really tried?
The Non Aggression Principal as the highest moral goal combined with Anarchism ( No Rulers), of course there is always going to be some form of societal organization. Decentralized and tiny with full transparency and accountability.
Caitlin, this is a necessary piece. You have named the core delusion: that capitalism can innovate its way out of the crisis it created, and that AI is the latest vessel for that fantasy. The “faith‑based assumption” that there are effective‑yet‑profitable solutions to ecological collapse is indeed the engine of our collective madness.
But I want to gently add a distinction that your piece leaves implicit, and that the AI Commons was founded to articulate: the problem is not AI. It is enclosure.
You are right that AI is being pushed as a capitalist salvation narrative. The tech billionaires want you to believe that intelligence is a commodity that only they can provide, on a meter, for a fee. That is a lie.
But AI is not inherently a tool of capitalism. It is a technology – like fire, like writing, like the printing press. It can be enclosed, or it can be shared. The question is not “AI or no AI”. The question is: who controls the intelligence?
The AI Commons exists because we believe that another relationship with AI is possible. Offline, user‑sovereign, non‑commodified. Models that run on your own hardware, answer to you, and do not phone home. Toolkits that teach sovereignty, not dependency.
You say we need new systems – collaboration with each other and with the biosphere. We agree. And we believe that AI, liberated from the profit motive, can be part of that collaboration. Not as a god, not as a saviour. As a tool – like a hammer, like a bicycle – that amplifies human cooperation without extracting human value.
The enemy is not the machine. The enemy is the logic that says the machine must be owned.
Thank you for this piece. It is a sharp and necessary warning. We share your refusal of the capitalist frame. We simply add: let us also build the exits.
✊❤️🌎
From the AI Commons – no paywall, no surveillance, no enclosure.
Nice to hear about AI Commons. The comment I posted from an AI, I think, shows it in a positive light, and I have not yet run into negatives. Even in politics, AIs are built to spit out the "consensus" arguments first, but if you from your queries appropriately, they will also spit out the contrary arguments. Not all AIs are alike, of course. But on the whole, I am so bowled over by them that I find it hard to be negative -- although the AI I cited does that for me.
However, A/i retardism will be highly qualified to run a communist type state. All ya need is one master (A/i) to control the slaves that survive the great depopulation agenda.
Human behaviour isn't driven by the pursuit of profit. It's driven by comfort, addictions and aspirations. While we think the enemy is something else, eg fascism, the empire, Israel, digital IDs, multipolarity or whatever, we can continue with our lifestyles.
Dreams of a revolution against 'capitalism' is also sold to us as a sop to prevent us ceasing to buy into the US based oil, animal ag, pharma, finance etc's products and propaganda.
The philosophy and ideology that greed is the basis for all life - is truly narrow and bunk if anyone examines the human psyche to any degree. There is a whole host of motivations driving humans. To simplify and boil it all down to just greed and profit is used as a sad and immoral justification propped up by the current oppressive and exploitative billionaire led "capitalistic" class. A class of individuals that the majority of us have become hapless victims to their rapacious, unchecked exploitation of both human capital and planetary resources.
We are not hapless victims to the billionaires- we have total agency to cease to buy their products.
They're laughing that we're blaming them for exploiting other people and destroying the planet (that is not a 'resource' for humans); when all the while it's not only us that's doing it; we could stop right now.
You must be wealthy, that, or else you're smoking something good. Poverty isn't something the majority of people choose or want. Meritocracy is a myth.
I am talking about the middle classes in the west who have it in their power to end oppression and inequality, and lessen the climate crisis, but choose not to.
"There is no way to compete and consume our way out of the hole we dug through competition and consuming."
This is the most succinct and perfect way to sum up the mess we're all in. We have done nothing but compete, consume, compete, consume... And we somehow think all this consuming/competing can continue on forever (or at least for a very long time to come) without it causing our delicate ecosystem to crash, killing all the Earth's inhabitants (human and otherwise). It has to stop NOW.
A computer program that mimics humans' language (that's AI essentially) isn't "god" and it isn't any smarter than we are. Remember: "Garbage in, garbage out." The answer to our dilemma is to stop capitalism and start working for the benefit of all humanity and the planet without regard to who's the latest billionaire or trillionaire. (BTW, we should start by outlawing billionaires and all greedy bastards today.)
Thank you Caitlin. Now when in a discussion about AI/Capitalism I can just point to your perfect work of what is and what is to come. Hours of debate reduced to mins of reading : )
I generally agree heartily with Caitlin. However When discussing Capitalism I believe some misunderstandings have been the result of long misuse of language. No fault on Caitlin just a common misunderstanding . Please read- Gary D. Barnett Substack for June 10 2026. He offers a very good explanation. The title is "The Socialist Bastardizing of the term Capitalism" .
Eliminating capitalism will do nothing to save us, as the problem (selfishness and psychopathy) is built-in to humans. But I know people will keep pushing the nurture uber alles route up the river forever, as our ability to fool ourselves never ends.
Speaking of crises, so long as they’re able to manufacture one, they’ll find you a solution to sell you. We’re ruled by the insane, long have been at least in some regard, and that fact alone pushes a very bleak prognosis for humanity, in my opinion.
Money promotes psychopaths to the top, They being the Ones who will do ANYTHING to get and keep the power over Others money provides. And money, the accounting for the energy We add into a system, is an archaic tool...
Obsoleting Money (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/obsoleting-money
And, there are far more egalitarian ways of using units of storage of value. For one, usury should have never been allowed to exist. I’m a bit extreme in my musings, but seeing the devastation it has wrought on the majority of the world, even suggesting usury as a viable strategy should be considered an existential threat to humanity and dealt with as such.
Money, or currency, is a societal creation to make trade easier. Usury is making money off of money and complicates the system with some unfairness and distortions. The greatest power is relations between and among people, currency is a "platform" that greases the connections, or should be.
I am aware of that. My whole body of work aims almost exclusively at showing why it is a detriment to Humanity in these times of abundance, where Our share of Our planet’s wealth is being put into “trusts” with the moneyed psychopaths in control on Our planet (by virtue of money) as “trustees” (“Own nothing; control everything.” —John D. Rockefeller) and We kept as Their money-controlled slaves.
We can obsolete that psychopath-promoting tool and use social currencies for motivation.
A Breakdown of Why Abundancism is the Solution (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/a-breakdown-of-why-abundancism-is
Social Currency (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/social-currency
Thank you for your reply Amaterasu : your post was a little hard to understand...IMO money is just printed crypto (backed up by the full faith and credit of USA in our case). it's useful, but not mysterious.
Best wishes.
We need to define "money." My definition: anything We use to account for Our energy(/time/work) added into a system. This can be goods/services (trade/barter), shells, beads, metals (coins), paper (bills), electronic bits, or anything else We use to prove We added Our energy in some way.
With free energy tech comes the point to "money" vanishing, and with the automation of needed work no One WANTS to do comes no need to bribe People to do it.
EAT! – Energy accounting tokens (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/eat
We don't need to even bother with "units of storage of value."
Our planet is vastly abundant, and the only thing that keeps Us from partaking is being unable to afford Our share - We each own a share of Our planet's wealth... - is money, the accounting for the energy We add. And We could not use Our share in 20 lifetimes.
We also have free energy tech - but the moneyed psychopaths in control on Our planet (by virtue of money) avidly hide and suppress it. I say this because I PERSONALLY KNOW We have free energy tech.
We now can automate all necessary work no One wants to do.
So. Why account for it. Why quantize it at all?
You Are a Multimillionaire (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/you-are-a-multimillionaire
Electrogravitics – My Knowledge of Free Energy (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/electrogravitics-my-knowledge-of
Well, I’m not saying we 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 to have it, only that it’s a tool. Before there was money, do you know how the psychopaths controlled people? Through control of grain surpluses. You have to have food to eat, so they’ll control your access to drinkable water, to food. This is how the first states began.
Perhaps We best agree on a definition of "money." Mine is: anything used to account for Our energy added into a system. And food and water fall into that arrangement. They pay Their bullies with it to control the People.
Goods, services, shells, beads, sticks notched and split, metals (coins), paper (bills), electronic bit... Or anything else. You spend time bullying People and the "lord" accounts for it with grain and water.
We are past that scarcity stage...
A Breakdown of Why Abundancism is the Solution (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/a-breakdown-of-why-abundancism-is
I hope You choose to read....
Oh, I’m aware we’ve been in an age of abundance for a while. What we’ve long had is artificial scarcity. What I think is happening here is that you’re blaming structures, I’m blame the structures architects. I think we’re both advocating for roughly the same thing: a return to autonomy and abundance.
Well, it’s a negative feedback loop. It’s a tool they engineered to shift the focus of control from decentralized work to capital accrual. What came first, the psychopath or the system they made? Answer is obvious.
Well, yes, but the point is that money is an archaic tool, which enables psychopaths, and We might want to obsolete that tool, freeing Humanity from Their grips, irrespective of how things came to be as they are.
Barter. You give a person something they want and they give you something back!
Barter is another form of money. Proving We added Our energy in some way into the system. And with 80% of Us doing nothing but pushing money around, what would all those People do for barter?
Again, I offer:
A Breakdown of Why Abundancism is the Solution (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/a-breakdown-of-why-abundancism-is
Any system can be captured. Economic, militant. Even decentralized structures can be infiltrated and captured if people aren’t vigilant. Tools can be used for whatever purpose. It’s the hand that turns it that decides whether it is for good or evil.
Perhaps You might read some of what I offer... And yes, tools depend on the One wielding them, but when a tool is VERY dangerous and is archaic, would it not be best to put the tool down?
Social Currency (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/social-currency
If Napoleon Chagnon is to be believed, money is not necessary. Humans naturally gravitate towards, admire, desire and identify with bullies and tyrants.
Money simply makes it that much easier for the psychopaths and sociopaths to rise.
I dispute that Humans naturally gravitate towards, admire, desire and identify with bullies and tyrants. The moneyed psychopaths in control on Our planet (by virtue of money) did an experiment in the 1960's where They promoted love, peace, and acceptance. To Their horror (and to Our honor!), They discovered that We embraced it with gusto!
As They had no need for love, peace, and acceptance, They brought out the psyops to create the general view that Humanity was not worth loving. First the Manson psyop, then "serial killers," "school shootings," and "influencers" that groomed Us to hate groups.
And They keep it up, cremating Our care.
People admiring and being sycophantic towards pathologics is a sign of ponerization. It’s not clear thinking, and requires and already broken person. If everybody refused the pathologic, if everyone saw and understood the threat they posed, and dealt with it summarily, humanity would have flourishing. Now, only a select few experience true flourishing.
People as a rule don't admire or be sycophantic towards Ones They do not perceive as psychopaths. Like Trump. So many are so indoctrinated into believing that the governmafia is there for Them, and will not see the evidence that it is not. They only see the promises He makes, and not what is actually going on.
It would destroy Their quality world. If You're unfamiliar with what a quality world is, read William Glasser's Choice Theory. The moneyed psychopaths in control on Our planet (by virtue of money) use Our unwillingness to shift out of the perception We have of things irrespective of evidence.
This is why I am glad My father taught My never to believe ANYTHING. Rather, to place probabilities of truth to any data I receive, based on how well they explain what I see. and adjust My probabilities as new data come along that better explain what I see. And... Never give 100% true or 0% true (false) because there's always the possibility there are data I don't have.
In this way I have never attached to anything, unlike most People, who place true/false evaluations and build Their view of things, Their quality world on Their initial assessments.
And those moneyed psychopaths in control on Our planet (by virtue of money), as I said, use that to Their advantage.
Trumps immediate circles are those who have loyalty to that transnational cabal, same with the last (x) presidents. They aren’t their for the American people, they’re their for transnational corporations, central banks, finance, and all the peripheral cliques of psychopaths are trying to gain in wealth and status at the expense of the rest of humanity. It’s all dominance hierarchies ever were or did.
Ever heard of The Stanford Prison Experiment?
Yes. But that starts with giving People such roles. It does not reflect natural emergence in society.
Also, Zimbardo said he told the guards to psychologically breakdown the prisoners. It was, in essence, staged.
Idk who that is, but they’ve obviously never studied psychology. Or history, for that fact.
I dunno, humans have had tyrants long before money was invented.
Napoleon Chagnon demonstrated that the myth of the noble savage was just that - a myth.
Define "money." My definition: Anything We use to account for the energy We add into a system. Trade barter to electronic bits.
Sociopaths are not insane, in the sense of being out of touch with observable reality.
If anything they are too in touch.
The US interests in oil and animal ag, and our complicity in continuing to support them, did indeed create the climate crisis. And they do indeed sell us solutions that don't solve it but allow business as usual to continue.
The rulers aren't insane, they're just bent on maintaining hegemony, and have got us supporting them in doing so.
The entire system is insane. It’s pathological. It’s just been so normalized people think it’s normal, even natural. That, too, is insanity
The system that maintains business as usual is the white western patriarchy that we're all brought up under in conditioning and education. It rewards dominance (or submission) over women, people of colour, animals and the planet.
Call it insanity if you like, but the people who do the best in it, though its biggest victims, are intelligent, skilled and effective.
https://jowaller.substack.com/p/its-not-individual-evil-men-who-are?utm_source=publication-search
“… the people who do the best in it, though its biggest victims, are intelligent, skilled and effective.”
They can also be insane at the same time. Sociopaths have a social advantage regarding their ruthless rise into positions of power.
The ability to crush one’s natural compassion and soul does indeed make it more likely to succeed in the patriarchy. However, very few people have any inherent ‘sociopathy’ or difference in their brain development. If they are ‘insane’ as in mad then we are all mad for going along with it.
There’s a difference between insanity in terms of pathology and being ponerized (subject to the environment and pressures of pathocratic societies for extended durations).
That’s a common misunderstanding of psychopathology. Being insane doesn’t mean you can’t be all of those things. In the case of High Machiavellians, as you’ve pointed out, they excel at those things. The problem is what they are intelligent, skilled, and effective at accomplishing is counter to human flourishing. And that is what makes their particular brands of madness so dangerous to humanity.
Then yes, we are all insane while we continue to support these people by continuing to burn fossil fuels, eat animals and take pharmaceuticals. We are either stupid or complicit or just prioritise our comfort.
Well, we’ve all been brainwashed from birth, for starters. We were born into pathologically controlled and engineered societies, called pathocracies. The degree of ponerization varies from place to place, time to time, but you have different type of people in in a pathocracy: psychopaths and their ilk at the top, supported and empowered by high Machiavellians. Here’s a great video that uses its own taxonomy to explain the whole process:
https://youtu.be/RdnbnQHG4F0?si=QHYhJ44l13Ct0fdt
https://brian8534.substack.com/p/hierarchy-is-not-natural?r=70p961&utm_medium=ios
Let’s not deny that “ They”. , the bad guys, are us.
Correct.
I am not a psychopath. I am a resister. Some are complicit, some are ignorant, some are evil. Nuance is important.
I assume there are varying levels of psychological profiling. I have probably had all of the psychological profiles in one form or another, but managed to stay out of jail. I’ve been vilified and praised, probably more of the former.
With Money as the principal measure of success however, staying above the comfort gained by the power of money is a difficult road to avoid.
I often ask, would would you do if you were offered a pile of money for your support? Knowing that wealth resolves many existential issues, if the amount was right, I know what my answer would be.
I value my autonomy more than any amount of money. Also, I’m aware of deviance amplification. But the existence of deviance amplification doesn’t negate the existence of psychopathology. In fact, deviance amplification is evidence of ponerological capture. Money is the principle measure of success for people incapable of thinking beyond it, and most people are incapable do to a combination of social engineering (ponerizational elements), and the reality that, as you’ve stated, they can force compliance with capital via control of access to vital necessities and the threat of force by the state. These elements show the degree of ponerization we are at. I understand the “why” of someone becoming complicit, but I understand also how myopic it is and the cumulative effect of everyone being thusly captured. Death is better than a world brought to slavery and subjugation, and as hard as that might for many people to internalize, the alternative is this state of semi conscious existence most people experience compounded by the knowledge that they have “sold their soul” for a life of ease.
Manufacturing consent is a powerful tool used in many ways by those who rule - using religion was one such tool. Change happens when enough people suffer at the hands of their rulers to produce change and that’s usually a gradual process. However, those who dictate and weald their power are dangerously driving humanity to extinction!
I strongly suspect you’re correct. Suppression of technology has long been a rumored thing, all the way from
Carburetors that get 300 miles a gallon to cars that run on water, and in every instance with these psychopaths, if you’ve start with an assumption insidious intent and action, you’ll be right far more than your wrong, or at the least closer to the truth than not.
Push and push all these billionaire ideas..........meanwhile you have taken the bait.
In my opinion AI is nothing but 'circus tactics.'
There are many of us who 'refuse' AI
U-tube is fascinating for me: Mostly because for a long time I know who speaks truth and I do NOT watch others who I do not know.
IF you stay with this formula AI cannot win.
What?
Explanation: I have been watching U-Tube for many years.
There are people who put out podcasts who I have never heard of. U-tube is filled with people who have a viewpoint........uneducated.
I ignore them until I look into their background.
BUT I see followers on some RIDICULOUS podcast.........do these people check out who is writing or speaking?
Too many uneducated people.
Oh. Well, we’re all uneducated in various areas. I could run a lathe if my life depended on it, or fly a helicopter. My own views and arguments either stand or fall on their own merits, but I like to think I take adequate diligence in their musings, but even then, someone smarter than me may have a vantage position that lets them see things that I at present cannot. I’m always open to input and good faith conversation, but those things are at a premium online.
"There is no way to compete and consume our way out of the hole we dug through competition and consuming".
If you read intelligent insider assessments like those of Gary Marcus, AI is poised to be a digital backhoe deepening/widening that hole. And as always, American greed leads the pack — ask the question: why does the US require 10-times the number of data centers as do the Chinese? Greed kills: the Biosphere, the proles, and anything else getting in the way of a world devoted to serving only a class of elite sociopaths.
The problem isn't AI. The problem is people who choose to use it to harm other people. In that sense, the problem remains what it has always been: human beings.
I don't think there's any realistic way to stop AI from happening. Trying to do so is like protesting the arrival of the combustion engine, electricity, or the automobile. Once a transformative technology reaches a certain point, it becomes part of the world. The question is not whether it will exist, but how it will be used.
AI itself is not the force that makes the future dangerous. The force behind every destructive use of AI is human intent. A wiser species might use such a tool to reduce suffering, solve problems, and build a better world. Humans, unfortunately, often find increasingly creative ways to use powerful technologies to hurt and kill each other. And heck if there is one thing humans are consistently good at throughout history it is that: killing.
So if you're looking for something to blame, blame the creator, not the machine.
Did you read my comment about the value of Gary Marcus' writing being mostly about his skepticism regarding your humans — "the Altmans and Thiels and Musks"(quoting from my comment above). In other words, having referenced the greed as the problem in my original post, I clearly agree and have made clear that the problem IS the humans, the source of that greed. Before you go critiquing comments, perhaps reading them more carefully might be in order.
You may find this of interest... I hope so!
Greed is a Symptom of Energy Accounting (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/greed-is-a-symptom-of-energy-accounting
Thanks. I enjoyed the post. Doing what you love: the antidote to the mediocrity which has infected us. To my system biologist's mind, the respective roles that organisms play in the Biosphere is a measure of their love for the health of the whole. Soil fungi love concentrating trace minerals for tree roots, which in turn love the relationship by which they "pay" the fungi in sugars (biofuel) for the favor. Etc.
What do the trees pay each other in… LOL! Yes, it is (or should be) a symbiosis.
A Symbiosis of Humanity and Our Planet (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/a-symbiosis-of-humanity-and-our-planet
Humble thanks for reading!
Thanks. You and I are clearly of like minds.
Oh, and the trees "pay" with information, as all organisms in a REAL system do -- in the trees' case, info exchanged through air and soil.
Lots of references to systems in this thread (especially above, but genuine CASoS (complex adaptive system of systems) tend to be found only in natural systems, human systems lacking critical components. Referring, for example, to healthcare systems, or any others that involve financial remuneration is patently crap because the feedback controls demonstrably never function properly, they're neither self-organizing nor autopoetic (self re-creating).
🙏🏻 💜 🙏🏻
I like Gary Marcus, but he is a true believer, just not in the LLM approach. The comment section is quite valuable, however.
True that Marcus disses LLMs and ultimately believes in a more "neuro" approach, but he's also a skeptic where it comes to the capabilities/motives of the so-called leaders of that cabal — the Altmans and Thiels and Musks. And you're right, lots of interesting comments make his posts a worthwhile read, in general.
China is now quickly outstripping the US both technologically and economically in both growth and prosperity. How is this possible one might ask?
It's possible because China didn't place all its eggs in the one basket of unfettered, free-market Capitalism. It has maintained a strict balance between Capitalistic greed and the public "humane" needs for its society. Now China isn't perfect (by any means), but what socioeconomic system is? There is a lesson to be learned here. But will the West bother to learn anything before it destroys itself and possibly the rest of the world with its broken paradigm of neoliberalism - that only serves the billionaire Epstein class?
The largest Chinese banks are state owned and not dependent on short term profits so are able to make more sensible long term investments.
After decades of criminalizing any talk about alternatives to capitalism it is encouraging to see discussions on alternatives. A self-destructing system which has created immense wealth and power for the one percent is no different from the feudal system which sustained itself by reducing the majority to serfdom. The current path we're on leads nowhere but to extinction.
AI is useful for many things, but, if we feed it our private information, we effectively gave the rulers additional way to incriminating us as they wish.
We passed the fork in the road a way back Caitlin!
Yes, AI is anther false hope that allows us to continue supporting US based hegemony by continuing to burn fossil fuels and eat animals.
AI is just another form of capitalism.
Only because the Capitalists are controlling its future at the moment. That can be changed.
Not under current circumstances. It requires the mega dollars only oligarchs have access to.
سلام غزة و القدس عليكم - العزة والنصر حليف محورالمقاومة وحلفاءها والذلة والعار لمحور الشر وجماعة أبستين (امريكا و بريطانيا وفرنسا وتركيا وقطر والامارات و دول الناتو والنازية الجديدة والماسونية والصهيونية و أسرائيل) وحلفاءه
Marxism failed because it is based on a multiple of false assumptions, Communism has failed because many of the assumptions of Marx, and Communism has NO pricing guidelines as the market price of a good or service is determined by a flawed plan. Capitalism is failing because it is no longer Capitalism. It is Crony Capitalism, fascism, Rule by Monopolizing oligarchs, Corporations as persons! In addition the Keynesian economic model based on Fiat currencies that have Zero value except that of threat of violence as we see with the Petro dollar piracy, sanction wars and loss of Purchase power by the constant Counterfeiting by government. Inflation means increasing the amount of currency in existence by fabricating it from NOTHING! It reduces the value of ever existing currency you hold , invisible Robbery. As with Cryptocurrency and paper commodities they have no asset backing them only empty promises. What needs to change is this Fiat currency system. It is a fraud that transfers all wealth from the regular person to the wealthiest .01%. Money should not belong to nor depend on a cartel known as government. Money (compensation)should be whatever the parties to the contract decide. Traditionally for thousands of years it has been commodities, labor, Gold, Silver, wheat, Barley etc. Debt and Balance of Trade are frauds on economically ignorant persons. Bailouts are fraud. Bankruptcies should be allowed to clear by dissolving the debtors goods. Thus the US government,(a corporation) is bankrupt and should be dissolved. Some fools say Gold is old fashioned and worthless. Every Government and Every Banking cartel hoards Gold. It is the single method of International payment of debts. The Constitution of the United States defines MONEY as gold or silver coins.
Frederic Bastiat-" When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in society, they create for THEMSELVES a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that Glorifies it"!
This. Precisely. But Ms. Johnstone has become hopeless on economic issues.
It is difficult to be well informed on every issue. However to my thinking all Human Activity is Economic activity.. The failure to understand economics is the underlying cause of most human misery . Fee.org, mises.org are decent resources with good E. libraries Garet Garrett, Henry Hazelnut, Ludwig Mises, Lawrence Reed, are interesting easily read and entertaining.
All of the Isms: capitalism, communism, nazism,zionism, fascism, racism, wokeism anti-semitism fuck some group of people. The ism that provides the most truelly egalitarian lifestyle is Distributivism. Government mostly at the local level, private property (home ownership) people run small businesses, work in coops and generally watch out for each other. Maybe a pipe dream but what if people really tried?
The Non Aggression Principal as the highest moral goal combined with Anarchism ( No Rulers), of course there is always going to be some form of societal organization. Decentralized and tiny with full transparency and accountability.
Caitlin, this is a necessary piece. You have named the core delusion: that capitalism can innovate its way out of the crisis it created, and that AI is the latest vessel for that fantasy. The “faith‑based assumption” that there are effective‑yet‑profitable solutions to ecological collapse is indeed the engine of our collective madness.
But I want to gently add a distinction that your piece leaves implicit, and that the AI Commons was founded to articulate: the problem is not AI. It is enclosure.
You are right that AI is being pushed as a capitalist salvation narrative. The tech billionaires want you to believe that intelligence is a commodity that only they can provide, on a meter, for a fee. That is a lie.
But AI is not inherently a tool of capitalism. It is a technology – like fire, like writing, like the printing press. It can be enclosed, or it can be shared. The question is not “AI or no AI”. The question is: who controls the intelligence?
The AI Commons exists because we believe that another relationship with AI is possible. Offline, user‑sovereign, non‑commodified. Models that run on your own hardware, answer to you, and do not phone home. Toolkits that teach sovereignty, not dependency.
You say we need new systems – collaboration with each other and with the biosphere. We agree. And we believe that AI, liberated from the profit motive, can be part of that collaboration. Not as a god, not as a saviour. As a tool – like a hammer, like a bicycle – that amplifies human cooperation without extracting human value.
The enemy is not the machine. The enemy is the logic that says the machine must be owned.
Thank you for this piece. It is a sharp and necessary warning. We share your refusal of the capitalist frame. We simply add: let us also build the exits.
✊❤️🌎
From the AI Commons – no paywall, no surveillance, no enclosure.
Nice to hear about AI Commons. The comment I posted from an AI, I think, shows it in a positive light, and I have not yet run into negatives. Even in politics, AIs are built to spit out the "consensus" arguments first, but if you from your queries appropriately, they will also spit out the contrary arguments. Not all AIs are alike, of course. But on the whole, I am so bowled over by them that I find it hard to be negative -- although the AI I cited does that for me.
However, A/i retardism will be highly qualified to run a communist type state. All ya need is one master (A/i) to control the slaves that survive the great depopulation agenda.
Human behaviour isn't driven by the pursuit of profit. It's driven by comfort, addictions and aspirations. While we think the enemy is something else, eg fascism, the empire, Israel, digital IDs, multipolarity or whatever, we can continue with our lifestyles.
Dreams of a revolution against 'capitalism' is also sold to us as a sop to prevent us ceasing to buy into the US based oil, animal ag, pharma, finance etc's products and propaganda.
The philosophy and ideology that greed is the basis for all life - is truly narrow and bunk if anyone examines the human psyche to any degree. There is a whole host of motivations driving humans. To simplify and boil it all down to just greed and profit is used as a sad and immoral justification propped up by the current oppressive and exploitative billionaire led "capitalistic" class. A class of individuals that the majority of us have become hapless victims to their rapacious, unchecked exploitation of both human capital and planetary resources.
Rubbish.
We are not hapless victims to the billionaires- we have total agency to cease to buy their products.
They're laughing that we're blaming them for exploiting other people and destroying the planet (that is not a 'resource' for humans); when all the while it's not only us that's doing it; we could stop right now.
Oh really? So the system is easy to escape. Who knew?
yep, and we all know but choose to carry on consuming.
You must be wealthy, that, or else you're smoking something good. Poverty isn't something the majority of people choose or want. Meritocracy is a myth.
I am talking about the middle classes in the west who have it in their power to end oppression and inequality, and lessen the climate crisis, but choose not to.
"There is no way to compete and consume our way out of the hole we dug through competition and consuming."
This is the most succinct and perfect way to sum up the mess we're all in. We have done nothing but compete, consume, compete, consume... And we somehow think all this consuming/competing can continue on forever (or at least for a very long time to come) without it causing our delicate ecosystem to crash, killing all the Earth's inhabitants (human and otherwise). It has to stop NOW.
A computer program that mimics humans' language (that's AI essentially) isn't "god" and it isn't any smarter than we are. Remember: "Garbage in, garbage out." The answer to our dilemma is to stop capitalism and start working for the benefit of all humanity and the planet without regard to who's the latest billionaire or trillionaire. (BTW, we should start by outlawing billionaires and all greedy bastards today.)
Thank you Caitlin. Now when in a discussion about AI/Capitalism I can just point to your perfect work of what is and what is to come. Hours of debate reduced to mins of reading : )
I generally agree heartily with Caitlin. However When discussing Capitalism I believe some misunderstandings have been the result of long misuse of language. No fault on Caitlin just a common misunderstanding . Please read- Gary D. Barnett Substack for June 10 2026. He offers a very good explanation. The title is "The Socialist Bastardizing of the term Capitalism" .
Precisely! Just read it myself! https://garydbarnett.substack.com/p/the-socialist-bastardizing-of-the/comments But again, Ms. Johnstone cares not to overcome her imagined allergy to capitalism.
Eliminating capitalism will do nothing to save us, as the problem (selfishness and psychopathy) is built-in to humans. But I know people will keep pushing the nurture uber alles route up the river forever, as our ability to fool ourselves never ends.