Mark Goodwin on Digital Currency, Surveillance, DOGE, and the Coming Techno-Feudal Order.

First, I just have to say — WTF! This is truly a contender for the most informative video I have ever seen in my life. I want to point out that while I already knew most of the information presented here, this video condenses the most crucial insights about the world into just two hours.

Most people don’t want to spend time watching long videos, but if you’re one of them, make an exception for this one. It’s one of the most concise and important videos I’ve ever seen. I am truly speechless and at a loss for words to describe how good it is.

I don’t even know where to start, but I’ll try to connect this video to my previous long post.

Best recent interview of Tom Luongo. (My views on geopolitics and what is happening—this will be a very long post, but I hope people will stick with it until the end.)

Ok, let’s start at the beginning — the 1970s and the introduction of the petrodollar. In my recent post, I wrote:

“I previously mentioned that I only understood the economic system up to the introduction of the petrodollar, which I believe is the biggest scam and trick on humanity in history.”

In my opinion, this interview was great, but I think the petrodollar wasn’t explained well. Let me break it down in layman’s terms.

Many people don’t fully understand the gold standard of the U.S. dollar (USD) after World War II. Mark Goodwin explained the problems with this system, but it was still better than nothing. It allowed the USD to become the world’s reserve currency, though this also presented challenges.

The Gold Standard and the Bretton Woods System

After World War II, about 80% of the world's gold reserves were in U.S. hands. In simple terms, this meant that Fort Knox held around 80% of all the gold in the world. This happened because:

• Germany plundered most of Europe’s gold during the war.
• Japan did the same in Asia.
• The United Kingdom had to give up its gold reserves to the U.S. in exchange for wartime assistance.

As a result, neither Germany, France, England, nor Japan could return to a gold-backed currency after the war. The solution, under the Bretton Woods system, was to peg these currencies (the Deutsche Mark, British Pound Sterling, Japanese Yen, etc.) to the USD at a fixed rate.

Since the USD was directly backed by gold, these other currencies — although fiat in nature — were indirectly backed by gold as well. Even though you couldn’t redeem Deutsche Marks for gold, you could exchange them for USD, which was redeemable for gold. This system essentially provided a proxy gold standard for these currencies.

Additionally, the system introduced fractional reserve banking, shifting much of money creation from central banks to private banks — another issue I’ve covered in previous posts.

The Problem with a Gold-Backed World Reserve Currency

Understanding this system helps explain why having a gold-backed reserve currency caused too much deflationary pressure. A country that issues the global reserve currency enjoys an unfair economic advantage because most nations can only expand their money supply based on economic growth without causing inflation.

For example, if Germany's economy grows, an increase in money circulation can create deflationary pressure (since demand for the currency increases). To counteract this, the central bank can print more money. If the increased money supply matches the deflationary effect, inflation remains in check.

However, when a currency is the world’s reserve currency, the situation is different. Demand for USD wasn’t just tied to the U.S. economy but also to global demand. Since the USD was the only currency directly linked to gold, foreign banks wanted to hold it as a reserve asset, treating it like gold itself. This external demand caused additional deflationary pressure, allowing the U.S. to print more money than its economy alone would justify.

Why Was This a Problem?

The gold standard restricted the U.S. from printing money freely. Global demand for USD was massive, creating intense deflationary pressure. If the U.S. didn’t print enough dollars to meet external demand, the value of the USD would skyrocket causing too much deflation.

The problem was that the U.S. had promised not to print more dollars than it had gold reserves. However, as global demand for USD exceeded available gold, the U.S. either deliberately or inevitably printed more dollars than it could back with gold. This was a direct violation of the agreement, effectively a massive deception of the world.

France, during the Vietnam War, realized that U.S. spending was excessive, meaning too many dollars were being printed. Since France held a significant portion of its reserves in USD (as did other banks worldwide), it decided to check the US bluff. French warships carrying USD were sent to exchange their dollars for gold. This forced Nixon to suspend the gold standard in 1971, as the U.S. lacked the gold reserves to fulfill its obligations.

This is why I previously called this “the biggest scam and trick on humanity in history.”

The Role of the Soviet Union and the Petrodollar

A crucial factor often ignored is that the Soviet Union still existed at the time. When Nixon ended the gold standard, most global banks still held 50% of their reserves in USD — not because they loved the U.S., but because it was the only currency redeemable for gold.

Once the gold backing was removed, these banks had no reason to keep such large USD reserves. Logically, they would start diversifying into other currencies, reducing their dependence on the dollar. This would have flooded global markets with excess USD, leading to hyperinflation of the U.S. dollar.

Had this happened in the 1970s, while the Soviet Union was still standing, the Soviet Union could have won the Cold War. This is something most people fail to consider, and I’ve had many debates over this point. If the world operated purely on truth, logic, and fundamental economic principles, one could argue that the Soviet Union should have won the Cold War. However, this idea is so controversial that many people refuse to entertain it.

How the Petrodollar Prevented Hyperinflation

Henry Kissinger prevented this USD hyperinflation crisis by creating the petrodollar system.

Before 1971, global banks held USD reserves because it was backed by gold. When that backing disappeared, banks would have logically diversified into other currencies. However, the petrodollar system artificially created new external demand for the USD, preventing the selloff.

Kissinger negotiated agreements with Saudi Arabia and OPEC, ensuring that oil could only be bought and sold in USD. Since every country needed oil, they were forced to hold USD reserves to trade for oil. This restored the USD’s status as a special global currency, not because it was backed by gold, but because it was the only way to buy oil.

Instead of allowing hyperinflation to destroy the U.S. economy, the petrodollar system “kicked the can down the road”, delaying the crisis.

This is why I call the creation of the petrodollar “the biggest scam and trick on humanity in history.”

Lol, I really tried to keep it short while explaining the petrodollar, but the first topic alone took me over two pages. I’m really sorry—I’m doing my best to make it brief!

Another interesting point mentioned is that all the major internet companies—now symbols of U.S. dominance — were created with the backing of the Deep State and the CIA.

For example, Oracle was founded with help from the CIA, originating from a CIA and DARPA program called "Oracle." PayPal also had Deep State and CIA involvement. Facebook emerged from a CIA program called "Lifelog."

Google, as far as I know, was not initially created by the CIA or Deep State, which is why they once had the motto "Don't be evil." However, they were later absorbed into the Deep State and CIA, which likely led to the removal of that motto.

Recently, I discovered that Amazon’s first major contract was with the Deep State and CIA. Thanks to this video, I also learned that Jeff Bezos is the grandson of the founder of DARPA. Meanwhile, Microsoft played a crucial role in building the internet infrastructure used by the Deep State and CIA.

So, all these so-called "self-made" entrepreneurs were, in reality, propped up by the Deep State and CIA. Yet, the public remains unaware of these connections. The myth of the self-made entrepreneur is deliberately pushed to reinforce the illusion of a free market and capitalism.

Now this is interesting regarding Bitcoin:

25:09

“The bankers got billions of dollars—back then, $500 billion was a ton of money. The bailouts weren’t even that big; they didn’t even cross a trillion combined, but that was still a lot of money at the time.

Some random person then releases, on Halloween 2008, on the Cypherpunk mailing list, this idea: "Hey, I think I’ve come up with a government-neutral money called Bitcoin." They shared the white paper, and so Bitcoin emerged in 2008—very conveniently.”

This suggests that even Bitcoin was created by the Deep State and CIA but again no one considers this or talks about this. Like WTF did Deep State and CIA not create?

27:16

“In 2020, we saw government lockdowns happen, and oil futures literally went negative. It wasn’t a case of actually paying people to take oil away, but the market signaled a major shift.

I was born in 1990, and my whole paradigm has been centered around the idea of oil—making memes about "we found oil, let's send F-16s." But suddenly, the market was saying, "We don’t want the oil."

Gold imploded. Bitcoin, which had been doing well in 2017 and 2018, hitting around $20,000, crashed down to about $3,000. All of this happened on the same day the lockdowns were announced.

Over the next year, Bitcoin skyrocketed—20x—reaching nearly $70,000. I would say that in that moment, in March 2020, we formally left the petrodollar system. Shortly after, we saw the U.S. withdraw from Afghanistan and start pulling back from its role as an empire that enforced the petrodollar through military interventions. At the same time, we saw an embrace of digital assets, particularly Bitcoin.

Some interesting things happened before COVID. One thing many people don’t know is that Larry Fink, who now runs the BlackRock iShares Bitcoin ETF—the fastest-growing ETF in history—met with Donald Trump in the fall of 2019. Fink had previously been Trump’s money manager before he took office.

They devised the "Going Direct" plan, which was essentially a strategy to print massive amounts of money and funnel it directly to asset managers like BlackRock, to the tune of trillions of dollars.

In 2008, the bailout was half a trillion dollars, which was enough to spark protests outside Wall Street. But this time, we were talking about $7 to $8 trillion—about a 16x increase. This plan was drawn up and acted upon six to nine months before there was even a whisper of a virus anywhere, which is very interesting.”

31:45

“There's a lot of talk about Bitcoin being an anti-dollar asset and competing with the U.S. dollar. The ethos of Bitcoin is that it will "defang" central bankers and disrupt the system.

Meanwhile, a very small number of us saw the writing on the wall and questioned: Why would this actually weaken the U.S. dollar system if the system itself needs something like this?

Now that we've printed trillions of dollars and are $36 trillion in debt, the U.S. dollar system needs a new asset—just like the petrodollar emerged as a solution to the de-pegging from gold. We need an asset or an energy commodity to inflate the dollar into, allowing us to print massive amounts of money while still creating demand for dollars by pricing that asset in dollars.

What we’re seeing now is a total recreation of the petrodollar system at a time when the U.S. needs it more than ever—just like in the 1970s. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Bitcoin took off in 2008. It all just seems very convenient.”

Trump has done things like that, yet people still believe he is fighting the Deep State.

37:26

“One more important thing to mention is a key aspect of Bitcoin itself that is often misunderstood. Bitcoin’s monetary policy has a programmed disinflationary system.

When Bitcoin launched in 2009, it was actually a highly inflationary currency, with 50 Bitcoin being created every block. At that stage, it wasn’t necessarily a great store of value yet, even though its total supply was capped at 21 million. Since a new block is mined every 10 minutes, this meant a significant amount of Bitcoin was entering circulation.

However, Bitcoin has a built-in algorithmic disinflationary mechanism, meaning that approximately every four years, the rate of issuance is cut in half. This schedule aligns remarkably well with key moments in the history of the U.S. dollar system.

In 2012, the block reward was reduced to 25 Bitcoin. In 2016, it was halved again to 12.5 Bitcoin. Then, after the financial turmoil of March 2020, the next halving occurred in May 2020, reducing the issuance to 6.25 Bitcoin per block. This particular halving was more significant than previous ones because it brought Bitcoin’s annual issuance rate below 2%, which was lower than both the monetary inflation rate set by the Federal Reserve and the rate at which gold was being mined.

This created a mathematical reason for investors to shift away from treasuries or gold and toward Bitcoin. Bitcoin had now become a sounder form of money than gold or even the U.S. dollar.

It’s possible that many economic policies were crafted with this moment in mind. For example, in 2019, Donald Trump and Larry Fink developed the "Going Direct" plan, which funneled trillions of dollars into asset managers like BlackRock. This occurred just months before Bitcoin’s halving in 2020, which coincidentally pushed Bitcoin’s issuance rate below that of gold and the dollar.”

This part is so absurd — mentioning World of Warcraft gold selling on the internet and pedophilia — like, WTF? Reality is truly absurd.

1:22:32

“The founder of Tether, Brock Pierce, was a child actor for Disney who later became involved with the Digital Entertainment Network alongside Mark Collins-Rector and Chad Shackley. Pierce was associated with a highly controversial group, and his business partner from that venture eventually went to jail.

After the fallout from that period, Pierce became deeply involved in online gaming, particularly World of Warcraft. He founded the Internet Gaming Exchange (IGE), the first large-scale marketplace for digital goods, where he sold World of Warcraft gold and in-game items. This business was later acquired by Goldman Sachs, and Steve Bannon replaced Pierce as CEO.

Through this venture, they discovered that Goldman Sachs was running a billion-dollar operation in virtual goods, particularly in South Korea. Blizzard eventually intervened, deleting vast amounts of gold and other assets from the game’s servers, which effectively devalued their digital holdings. This frustration led many of the key figures involved to pivot toward Bitcoin.

While working at IGE, Pierce collaborated with William Quigley and Jim Armstrong, both associated with Idealab—an incubator that also played a role in the early days of PayPal. Notably, one of Idealab’s co-founders, Bill Gross, was later listed as a trustee of Jeffrey Epstein’s estate.

Pierce eventually founded Tether, creating the first stablecoin. Before that, he ran Clearstone Gaming, a fund connected to Idealab and backed by the same financiers who helped launch PayPal and had ties to Goldman Sachs. This initiative was part of a broader effort to introduce digital goods and normalize digital transactions.

Looking at the broader paradigm, platforms like Facebook played a crucial role in familiarizing the public with digital identities, with Google contributing through universal login systems.

Today, Tether has become a major force in global finance, purchasing U.S. treasuries at a scale surpassing some of the world’s largest economies. While China holds around $800 billion in U.S. treasuries, Tether’s holdings have grown to nearly $200 billion. This means that a private company with roughly 45 employees now holds U.S. government debt on a scale comparable to major global economies like Japan and China. Over the past 18 to 24 months, Tether has been the fastest-growing net buyer of U.S. treasuries.”

1:30:36

“Again, they’ve created an asymmetric informational advantage, which is the name of the game here. They control chip manufacturing, they control Nvidia, and they control where all of these things go. While it’s exciting that Bitcoin is decentralized, it’s really distributed, and where is its consensus distributed? It’s amongst ISPs, it’s amongst the chips, it’s amongst the energy manufacturers, and all of those things are controlled by the state in many ways. So, you’ve actually created this beautiful dialectic of an anti-state movement that has consolidated power more than any public CBDC could have possibly done. It’s disturbing and brilliant, and it’s very much still alive—it’s still a running game. It’s very interesting to see how this will grow and develop, but I think there’s an extreme amount of history to be very concerned about here. As we see the private sector return, and the chickens come home to roost in Pennsylvania Avenue, we have their literal interns running around with all of our information, having taken constitutional out. That’s where we are as of 3:00 on a Wednesday.”

Dialectics and the Cowboys vs. Yankees dynamic:

1:33:25

“A question you sometimes get when you lay all this out is: If ultimately what the Trump administration is doing is a fulfillment of this deep state collaboration with the private sector, then why are they finding that 60% of FBI agents were working on January 6th? It seems like at least some part of the deep state didn’t want Trump to come into power. Why wouldn’t they? What’s going on? Is this Cowboys vs. Yankees? Are these different wings of the deep state? Is this entrenched bureaucrats with a different agenda fighting other bureaucrats? What’s going on?

Well, this might get a little hippie-dippy, but I really think the elites operate under this idea of karmic law. I think they really need our consent to do a lot of the things they do. Not to get too David Icke in here, but I think that’s kind of true. I’ve seen it a lot with COVID and pharmaceuticals; you had to sign off, you had to vote, but we know it doesn’t matter because it’s a uniparty system. So, I think they do a lot of little things like freeing Ross. Trump freeing Ross was amazing, and it’s great that a libertarian party negotiation got it done. People voted for that, but what they’ve really done is bought your consent for what they’re really doing by giving you this little nugget of something. So yeah, they freed Ross, but now they have little interns running the treasury, doing God knows what, and building this AI crypto panopticon that could put us all in jail.

I think there’s an element of karmic obsolescence in what they’re doing. I also think there’s a war in factions. Absolutely. I think there is some Cowboys vs. Yankees to some degree. Just because they’re the gray leaders at the top doesn’t mean they don’t have black and white uni-party leaders, and many times, I’m sure there are good faith people working in these left and right paradigms who think they’re doing the right thing but are being manipulated into their thought rooms and pens. When you have such an extreme dialectic shift, like we’ve seen, you’ll have collateral damage from that shift—people who were bureaucratically entrenched in the previous system.

I also really think it's about consolidation. January 6 was very weird, but it was most likely a scope to identify potentially violent usurping dissidents and how to track them. Now that we’ve identified them, we don’t really need all the people working on it. With AI systems in place and figures like Lutnick running the Commerce Secretary, an investor in Tether and holder of their T-bills, and AI developments, we’ve set the precedent for more efficiency, privatization, and smaller government. A smaller government from a numerical standpoint sounds like a win, but it doesn’t mean smaller government. Having 5,000 fewer FBI agents sounds like a win, except you’re installing people who don’t care about the public interest. It’s like the Pinkertons—just a different name for the same game.”

1:38:37

“The dialectic of how do we create a populist president and how do we create this consent for a "guy of the people" is at play. When you think about what’s going on, it’s about how all of these MAGA supporters agreed to turn over their privacy and personal information to the private sector in a way that they would have gone bananas over before. That’s why I say the real question is, what was their problem with Trump to begin with? Because none of what you’re talking about, Mark, started in 2021. It all goes back decades.

Exactly. It's about how to create the perfect environment. Ian Davis, an amazing UK-based independent journalist who’s done a lot of work on limited hangouts, has this idea that government is the enabling environment. So, government is just used to be the enabling environment for whatever the elites want. I think they basically used Trump entirely. Trump 2.0 could never have happened if he didn’t lose exactly the way he did. By losing in that way and by getting off scot-free for some reason with his COVID policies, with all of it being blamed on Biden, he can come in and immediately start talking about Sam Altman and Larry Ellison doing Warp Speed 2.0 with mRNA cancer vaccines, and no one gets upset about it.

But he had to lose in that way because how else do you get biometric IDs for U.S. citizens? Well, we got it with the "Stop the Steal" narrative. We got robbed, and now we have to make sure voting is biometrically secure next time. And with the border being a crisis, we need to militarize the border and give CIA contractor spin-offs money to make all these drones. Again, it’s these dialectic pushes: Trump is so popular, he has such a mandate, and he’s funny. There are things I definitely think are funny about him, but what he's actually doing and the rhetoric of where we’re going—I don’t think we could have what we’re seeing now, with Elon coming in and doing all that he’s doing, without the mainstreaming of QAnon, this "5G chess" idea, and the narrative that he's fixing the Deep State.

Meanwhile, the first person that visits the White House is Netanyahu, and now he's going to go make condos in Gaza, and people are cheering it on.”

In my last post, I wrote about how the assassination attempts on Trump were not real and were actually an inside job orchestrated by Trump’s people to ensure his victory. This aligns with the dialectic discussed here. Here is a fragment from my last post:

“Again, back to Tom. He mentioned the Trump assassination attempt and assumed it was real. I’ve written before regarding the Trump assassination attempt, and I will say this: THOSE PEOPLE DON’T MISS!!! I’ll show this short video again:

This is from 2015, while the assassination attempt happened in 2024. Until I see the ballistics report and the bullet used in Trump’s assassination attempt, I will not believe this.

I would also like to point out that while Trump was hit in the ear once, multiple shots were fired, yet no other bullet hit Trump or his bodyguards, who were trying to protect him. Why did the shooter hit Trump once but fail to hit him again — or even his bodyguards — if the goal was really to kill him? If the shooter truly intended to assassinate Trump, the bodyguard who threw him to the ground should have also been hit.

This, along with the fact that we still don’t have the ballistics report on those bullets, makes me believe that Trump’s own people staged the attack. In my opinion, it was an inside job — not to kill Trump, but to ensure he wins the election.

I will say it again: THOSE PEOPLE DO NOT MISS!!!”

1:43:05

“The dialectic play is very deep, and I think dollarization, I believe, is how you create the breeding ground and the enabling environment for a private bank digital currency. You create an arms race. Again, the foundation of DARPA was based on the idea that Russia was in space, and now China has the WAN and the yuan, and we have to compete with them. They’re going to be doing all this other stuff, but I don’t think they’re really afraid of it. I don’t really believe in multipolarity anymore, especially after the lockstep COVID response worldwide. Everyone had the exact same response.

This might be a little controversial, but I think the plan is the plan, and I think we’re heading toward all-digital currency and digital IDs. The internet is becoming this control grid where you have to show biometric ID systems for everything: money, voting, driving a car, and whatever else. So, I think pushing the idea that we’re losing the arms race and we’re rapidly dollarizing is an important dialectic for the powers that be. That’s what they’re doing with the Bitcoin Reserve: the idea that if we don’t do it, then China will buy Bitcoin, and we’ll get manufacturing consent.”

Again, this is something similar to what I wrote in my last post:

“This is an important part with which I agree. I have written many times that China is not communist — it is part of a globalist capitalist cabal. Tom calls it a communist cabal, but in reality, it is a capitalist fascist cabal. However, just like me, he recognizes that China is part of it.

I have used the example of COVID to explain and prove this. There is all this BRICS propaganda and talk about China being communist and somehow different, but I’ve asked before: WHAT WAS THE DIFFERENCE DURING COVID? COVID should have shown people that this globalist, fascist, capitalist cabal operates on a global scale.”

I also argue and use COVID as an example to show that this cabal is global. He also talks about, “I mean, obviously, there are always warring factions among the spoils, but I think the plan is the plan.” This is exactly what I said and tried to explain using the example of Pepsi and Coke:

“To make it more understandable I will use an analogy: let’s say West capitalism is Cola while China and BRICS is Pepsi. While Cola and Pepsi are competitive none of them will make their product less addictive. While they both fight against each other for a bigger part of the markets at same time both of them have the same goal of making the market bigger. So they are competitive in the holding market while at the same time collaborating in an increasing market. Same goes for Western capitalism and China and BRICS  capitalism while they both compete at the same time they collaborate since they are part of the same system. So there is a bigger layer beyond states and beyond West and China and BRICS owning both sides.”

Now a Little from Me

I have written many times before. I understand the economy to some extent, and I have a strong grasp of history and geopolitics. However, if I had to define my specialty, it would be the human mind. This is why I understand dialectical discussions very well.

When I was very young, I focused on religion and tried to understand both religion and God. Through this, I came to a realization that I later found best described by Arthur Schopenhauer’s quote:

"Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think."

Many religious people may find this offensive, but I want to highlight the difference between faith and religion. I have faith, but I do not belong to any religion because religion is tied to the Church, which is a form of manipulation. Schopenhauer recognized this as well, yet he did not see faith as something inherently bad. To quote him again:

“[T]he doctrine of original sin (assertion of the will) and of salvation (denial of the will) is the great truth which constitutes the essence of Christianity.”

When I was young, I understood that religion has the power to make good people do bad things—just look at the Christian Crusades or Islamic Jihad. As Steven Weinberg put it:

“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion.”

So, even as a child, my study of God and religion led me to understand that people can be, and are, manipulated. Later, I sought to understand the human mind — how it works and how it can be controlled — which gave me insight into many things. However, as I have written before, abstract philosophical concepts alone won’t fix the world. That is why I shifted my focus more toward geopolitics and economics.

I studied Marx, socialism, capitalism, and the entire system we live in. However, the lessons I learned earlier about the human mind helped me understand these concepts more deeply. Eventually, I discovered the work of Antonio Gramsci. His ideas connected Marx’s materialist view of history with the workings of the human mind — something I had already been exploring. Gramsci’s work became very important to me. To quote him:

“Man is above all else mind, consciousness — that is, he is a product of history, not of nature.”

Gramsci helped me realize that much of what we are taught exists primarily to justify the system we live in. From a young age, we are told that people are greedy and vain — that this is simply human nature. This, in turn, is used to justify capitalism: the idea that capitalism is great because it aligns with our so-called “human nature.”

But what is human nature, really? I have previously written about the manipulation of Darwin’s theory:

“The phrase 'survival of the fittest' is often incorrectly attributed to Darwin. In fact, it was coined by the philosopher Herbert Spencer after reading On the Origin of Species five years after its first edition was published. Alfred Russel Wallace, whose own theory of evolution was nearly identical to Darwin’s, wrote to Darwin in 1866 with a lengthy critique of the term 'natural selection.' He urged Darwin to adopt 'survival of the fittest' to minimize confusion. Darwin introduced the phrase in the fifth edition of Origin in 1869, but he never abandoned 'natural selection' and saw 'survival of the fittest' only as a synonym to clarify his meaning.”

So, "survival of the fittest" was inserted into Darwin’s theory to justify capitalism. Darwin originally spoke of "natural selection" — so why did he choose that term instead? And why did capitalists want to change it?

Capitalist ideology, which promotes the idea of "every man for himself," aligns perfectly with "survival of the fittest." But "natural selection" posed a problem for capitalists. Darwin understood that, in many cases, natural selection does not favor the fittest individual. Two weaker, less fit animals can work together to defeat a stronger one. Sometimes, it is not the fittest that survives, but the most cooperative. Cooperation is the complete opposite of capitalism—it aligns with socialism.

Humans are social creatures, and cooperation is in our nature. The earliest human tribes functioned like communes. So which system is closer to human nature: capitalism or socialism?

I now agree with Gramsci that humans today are not shaped by some fixed "human nature" but by history and culture. Most of what we know about humanity has been written by the wealthy elite, as they were the only ones with the time and resources to write books. Meanwhile, the poor were too busy trying to survive. From childhood, we are told certain stories, later read certain books, and learn history—but all of this is carefully curated.

Our children are not taught the stories of Socrates or Jesus—figures who gave up everything, even their lives, to challenge the oligarchy and fight for the poor. Instead, they hear stories of people who became wealthy and powerful. Our entire culture and historical narrative are designed to sustain the current system. The people we become are not shaped by human nature but by cultural programming.

This form of manipulation did not begin with modernity — it has existed for a very long time and continues to this day. Which was described by one great quote which I used in one of my posts:

“Well, that’s the end result of decades of military propaganda in the United States, and it goes back to the Iliad. The rulers of society, who own the property and control the means of production, hire people like Homer to tell their story. Their story only focuses on the heroic soldier who goes off to fight in foreign wars and becomes a hero. It’s the hero myth. The myth tells us that the only way to become a true hero is to fight and die for your country overseas—supposedly in service of the nation, but really in service of corporations like General Electric, Morgan Stanley, and pharmaceutical companies.” -Douglas Valentine

This is directly related to dialectical manipulation. The dialectic I refer to is not the Greek dialectic but Hegelian dialectic, which was later adapted by Marx into dialectical materialism. This concept describes the manipulation of what we call “human nature.” Later, Gramsci expanded on dialectical materialism. I have shared this short video before:

An example of cultural hegemony and manipulation is the distortion of ideas, such as the manipulation of Darwin’s theory of evolution, which I mentioned earlier. This serves as an example of the "war of position" described in the video.

This demonstrates how people can be manipulated. Today, this manipulation is used to manufacture consent for what those in power are doing. As Huxley put it:

“If you are going to control any population for any length of time, you must have some measure of consent. It’s exceedingly difficult to see how pure terrorism can function indefinitely. It can function for a fairly long time, but I think sooner or later you have to bring in an element of persuasion, an element of getting people to consent to what is happening to them.

Well, it seems to me that the nature of The Ultimate Revolution with which we are now faced is precisely this: that we are in the process of developing a whole series of techniques that will enable the controlling oligarchy—who have always existed and presumably always will exist—to get people, actually, to love their servitude.”

I apologize for going on another rant about abstract concepts, but understanding how people are manipulated is crucial. It allows us to recognize how we are being controlled and how the world we live in is shaped.

I could write about Ukraine and geopolitics, but in my opinion, understanding the human mind is even more important. Understanding how this world is created—how narratives are shaped and beliefs are instilled—is more important than simply understanding how the world functions. Without this understanding, even if we learn how the world works and become angry about it, our anger can still be redirected and manipulated against us.

There is so much more I would like to write — so much more to say — but this post is already long enough, and you have two hours of video to watch. So, I will stop here.

I will add just one more thing. In one of my recent posts, I mentioned the concept of the "stone wall" from Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky:

“The Underground Man, on the other hand, tries to come up with all sorts of tricks, and instead of admitting defeat and turning around, he smashes his head against the wall, while knowing the futility of his actions.

‘Of course I cannot break through the wall by battering my head against it if I really have not the strength to knock it down, but I am not going to be reconciled to it simply because it is a stone wall and I have not the strength. As though such a wall really were a consolation…’”

I am no one. I am just a simple warehouse worker from Poland. I am fully aware that I can’t change anything or stop what is coming. This is my proverbial "stone wall." I know that writing my posts on The Duran will not change the world, and I understand the futility of my actions. But still, I will not stop. I will keep smashing my head against this wall by continuing to write, even if it destroys me.

I neglect my personal life, spending all my time educating myself and writing, but I want to dedicate whatever time I have left to doing something meaningful. And even if Azov or the CIA eventually target me and get rid of me, at least my life will have had meaning.

I am inspired by many who came before me, those who gave up everything for the same fight I am trying to fight. One of my greatest inspirations is my hero, the greatest Pole, Józef Piłsudski. To quote him:

In my childhood, I was constantly whispered so-called wise proverbs: 'Don't blow against the wind!' 'You can't break through a wall with your head!' 'Don't reach for the sun with a spade!' Later, I came to the conclusion that strong will, energy, and enthusiasm can break these very rules. And now, as we face great tasks in the continued building of the Polish state, we need people who can stand against the old wisdom of these proverbs."

So, while I understand the futility of my actions, I will keep going. I see no alternative. I will do what I can and continue smashing my head against this proverbial stone wall because, as Piłsudski said:

“You can’t break through a wall with your head, but if other methods have failed, you should give this one a try.”

I need to at least give it a try! I just beg God to give me enough straight, health, energy and will to keep going.

“Knowledge will make you be free.”

― Socrates

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“Knowledge isn't free. You have to pay attention.”

― Richard P. Feynman

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“Freedom is not free, you need to pay attention.”

― Grzegorz Ochman

“Sometimes I dream of saving the world. Saving everyone from the invisible hand, one that brands us with an employee badge.” -Elliot Alderson(Mr. Robot)

God bless you all!