This phrase - weaponization of interdependence - is a great tool for understanding - especially when applied to the link between economics and culture. I saw this in a flash in the midst of wakeful sleep last night. Let’s see if I can reconstruct it in the light of day.
Natural interdependence and why it is important. The following speak to this:
https://kathleenallen.net/generous-by-nature-natural-occurrence-of-interdependence/
The kind of interdependence we address here is a natural state of humans before being gathered up within these things we call civilizations. As difficult as it is for us to comprehend our own natural state there in fact was one. Most of our time as humans on this planet was spent before civilizations existed. The main task in this essay is to begin to understand the high price we pay as human beings for these entities we call civilizations.
Two posts to share as they appeared in my SubStack feed into this have interesting connections to my own thoughts on the weaponization of economics.
THE WEAPONIZATION OF ECONOMIC INTERDEPENDENCE
The linking of currency - digital or otherwise to social credit scoring is an interesting phenomenon. We think of it as a Chinese phenomenon and yet it has rapidly captured the imagination of current overlords linked to the governments of the world today through the entity known as the World Economic Forum - the latest and perhaps most visible (or well advertised) in the long line of elitist world government aficionados.
These currencies are powerful methods of instituting centralized control. They would naturally be highly attractive to those who would rule the world. They effectively weaponize economic interdependence. This is something I will need the reader to be able to see without a long explanation in this essay. The above linked posts likely help and I can link other information in the comments if requested.
This entire millennia-long enterprise by our civilizational overlords to own everything is a millennium-long attempt to destroy our own interdependence through a centralized system of control. As humans we are not exempt from the web of all life we understand as an interdependent entity. Understanding this web from the biological concept helps us understand how this applies to the cultural.
Weaponized economic interdependence is particularly important to understand. Although digitalized is the most possible because the individual will never see any benefit without the centralized hand of the overlords. By controlling the behavior of the individual through social credit scoring they in one fell swoop have the power to own us. If we do not fulfill the dreams of the overlords we are cut off from all resources. Either we do exactly what they wish us to do or we are dead as participating members of society.
What is the ultimate dream of the overlords? To have us all as their slaves - existing solely to fulfill their dreams of riches and conquest. In the words of Thomas Jefferson to own our dangerous freedom and relegate us to peaceful slavery.
THEY MAKE US AN OFFER WE CAN’T REFUSE
The dream of our civilizations themselves is to continue to make us an offer we can’t refuse. Yes, that kind of offer. The one memorialized in the Godfather.
In the civilizational sense we agree to be given security by the overlords of the civilization itself. Sure we get a modicum of security in exchange for our obedience but it comes at the price of our freedom. Yes, the overlords provide for activities which make us believe we have some freedom but it is never entirely convincing. Aspects of culture - for example in educational pursuits, in art, in science, in economics, in politics, in religion - make us believe we have a kind of independence. Our overlords however are never patient with those who transgress far from the prescribed party line in these areas.
Historically famous examples abound of those who did transgress - from Hypatia, Thomas More, to Jesus, to Galileo. There are many more. We are allocated a glimpse of freedom but any real freedom threatens the centralized control of the overlords.
ON THE IMMORTALITY OF BUREAUCRACY
But it does not stop here. Whereas we as individuals follow a normal lifespan and die the overlords always enjoy a kind of immortality. Generations come and go but always overshadowed by this kind of immortal monster created and sustained by the overlords.1
I am aware there is a controversy about whether of not the immortality carried by bureaucracies can be terminated in various ways. Thus far however political attempts to limit them have come to nothing. We will proceed in this essay with an assumption they are not amenable to limitations placed on their lifespans.
This immortal monster is supported by a bureaucracy which carries forward whatever weaponized economics, whatever weaponized currency is preferred by the overlords. Whereas our own individual lives are limited the bureaucracy supported by our civilizations endures.
In the final analysis it may not be so important what our currency is - be it Dutch tulips, wampum beads, gold & silver, coins, dollars or digital currency - but digital currency has a particular character of its own.
Digital currency represents the ultimate embodiment of the supra generational, supranational force. It has an ability - supported by the immortal bureaucracy of the nation-state - to control our liberty with great ease. The digital panopticon prison already in place offers the overlords undreamed of control. The interlocked forces of artificial intelligence, digital technology and biotechnology offer them a means of controlling us beyond their wildest dreams.
Essentially these offers we cannot refuse represent a great threat. These offers were in play from the very first civilization and lie at the heart of our relationships with our nation-states today. From the outset we exchanged whatever interdependence and freedom lay in our lives as hunter gatherers for the safe keeping offered by our civilizational overlords.
We believe we cannot live without civilizations because we have been educated and conditioned to believe this for thousands of years. The very idea of returning to a life of hunter gatherers is anathema. But when our civilizations collapse as they always do we begin to rethink the bargain.
We believe we can do better next time and have freedom and liberty within a properly devised and operated civilization. Yet repeatedly these dreams are dashed and broken.
Is a civilization which mandates true freedom and liberty possible at all? All we have is history to guide us here. There has not been a civilization which endured or which truly offered lives of freedom and liberty.
This offer we cannot refuse has been in perpetual play for many millennia. There is much more to this. Not one civilization has endured. All have failed and caused epic amounts of death and destruction. This one - the one we have in this world today - is causing more death and destruction than we ever dreamed possible.
For these dreams of immortality by the overlords are always empty dreams. They are based on lies buried so deeply in all of us we rarely question the fundamental truth of them any longer. But that there are fundamental truths we ignore to our eternal peril is undeniable. It is up to us to understand this. The overlords cannot and will not.
Because the overlords - and by extension you and I - continue to weaponize economics and all that follows from this we remain pawns in their games.
The overlords pay a steep price for their immortal bureaucracy. That price involves the seeds of their own destruction. They know and we know that this immortal entity exacts a steep price. They live in fear that we will discover this Achilles heel and act accordingly. That we will choose actual interdependence over their weaponized interdependence and act on this.
That we will reject the offer they believe we cannot refuse. By rejecting their offer we successfully render them powerless. We regain our freedom and deny them their weaponized economics. We regain the power of interdependence we always had which was effectively suppressed and denied within the weaponized entity we accept as civilization.
The overlords carry the seeds of their own destruction. But so do we as long as we support them in their dreams of immortal bureaucratized glory.
For now at least this leads us to the immortal monster of a bureaucracy engendered in the computer lab. For that is the current dream of our civilizational overlords.
https://notthebee.com/article/just-got-invited-to-try-googles-new-ai-chatbot-and-i-asked-it-the-same-question-about-biden-and-trump
"Googled Again" Comrades. At least the Tyrants are Consistently Tyrannical..
I was just reviewing the Mossberg 590M shotgun, seems quite nice and genteel for home and outdoor use.
Great points! If the Codex Oera Linda is true, Our People did, for a long while, live free of immortal bureaucracy, before we were subverted. I'd like to think these stories are a true history of Our People. They found the other peoples already corrupted by the kind of pathologies that afflict us now. In my map, a major issue is that we've allowed psychopaths to gain control of the levers of power.
Possible typo: you share Matthew Crawford's "Map Story" twice (in the early version of this post I'm currently reading).