When Money Became More Important Than Us

Sometimes I feel like we’re all living inside a very elaborate, very expensive joke.

Not a funny one.

More like the kind where you laugh because if you don’t, something inside you might snap.

I was watching a video the other day about a man who claims to have created an almost inexhaustible energy supply using crystal technology. His research was allegedly taken. Disputed. Buried. Discredited by powerful interests who stand to lose a great deal if such a thing were true.

And here’s the thing —

Whether his claims are true or not almost feels beside the point.

What stopped me cold wasn’t the science.

It was the familiar shape of the story.

Because we’ve heard this song before.

Not just in energy.

In healthcare.

In education.

In food systems.

In housing.

In technology.

Over and over again, we keep arriving at the same uncomfortable place:

a world organized to protect profit, even when it costs people their lives, their health, their dignity, or their future.

And somehow… we’ve normalized it.

A Briefly Absurd Thought Experiment

Imagine for a moment that an alien civilization is studying Earth.

They’re very curious. Very advanced. Very confused.

They notice that humans have invented systems capable of producing enough food, energy, and medicine for everyone.

They notice that the technology exists to reduce suffering on a massive scale.

And then they notice something else.

That instead of asking,

“How do we take care of people?”

Humans keep asking,

“How do we maximize shareholder value?”

The aliens pause.

They replay the data.

They confirm that shareholders are not, in fact, a biological necessity for survival.

They check again.

Still no vital organs labeled “quarterly earnings.”

And yet… the entire planet appears to be organized around protecting this abstract idea called profit, even when it actively harms the humans who created it.

The aliens look at each other and ask the only reasonable question:

“Is this a misunderstanding… or a choice?”

The Quiet Agreement We Never Remember Signing

What troubles me most isn’t that corporations lobby governments.

Or that money influences policy.

Or even that power concentrates.

Those are old human patterns.

What troubles me is how quietly we seem to accept it now.

We talk about:

• Healthcare systems that optimize billing, not healing

• Energy systems that protect scarcity, not sustainability

• Education systems that create debt before wisdom

• Food systems that generate illness while advertising “choice”

And we say things like:

• “That’s just how it works.”

• “It’s complicated.”

• “What can you do?”

As if these systems descended from the sky fully formed, rather than being built — decision by decision — by human beings.

As if there were no alternatives.

As if this were the natural order of things.

But it isn’t.

It’s a design.

And every design reflects what — and who — it is built to serve.

Profit Isn’t Evil — But It’s a Terrible God

Let me be clear, because nuance matters here.

Money itself isn’t the villain.

Trade isn’t the villain.

Even profit, in context, isn’t the villain.

The absurdity begins when profit becomes the primary measure of value.

When we ask:

• “Is it profitable?” instead of “Is it humane?”

• “Does it scale?” instead of “Does it care?”

• “Will investors like it?” instead of “Will people survive it?”

At that point, we haven’t built an economy.

We’ve built a belief system.

One where:

• Human well-being is a cost center

• Care is inefficient

• Prevention doesn’t pay

• And anything that threatens recurring revenue must be neutralized, discredited, or buried

Not because anyone twirled a villainous mustache —

but because the system rewards exactly this behaviour.

And systems, as we’ve learned the hard way, don’t need bad people to cause harm.

They just need incentives that quietly override conscience.

The Invitation (Because This Is Where It Gets Personal)

This isn’t a call to burn everything down.

And it’s certainly not a call to swallow someone else’s theory whole.

It’s an invitation to notice.

To pause when you hear:

• “There’s no money in that.”

• “That would disrupt the market.”

• “That’s not viable.”

And gently ask:

Viable for whom?

Sustainable for what?

Profitable at whose expense?

It’s an invitation to remember that governments are meant to serve people — not corporations.

That systems are meant to support life — not extract from it.

And that “the way things are” is never the same as “the way things must be.”

You don’t have to have all the answers.

You don’t even have to take a position on crystal energy, healthcare reform, or global economics.

But you do get to think for yourself.

And in a world that profits from your silence, your exhaustion, and your sense of inevitability…

That might be the most radical act of all.