Fascists Carving Up a Dying Planet, or the World We're in Now

What’s next? Is Mark Carney going to be kidnapped from Canada, and tried for the crime of being head of a real democracy? Will Trump abduct half of Greenland’s government? Is Emanuel Macron next on the “rendition” list? 

Now things have changed, my friends. The world just changed dramatically and irrevocably. We’re going to discuss how, what it means, for it, and for you.

I have been writing less so that you have space. I have been poisoned and sickened by having to warn you of what was to come. It made me ill. Now you can judge for yourself how my predictions fared. I said that in 2024, Trump would be re-elected, in 2025, that’s he’d savage the US economy, that the USA would have a fascist collapse, and in 2026, it would begin to reach its tendrils abroad.

Please let us dispense with the old suspicion. What is Umair’s game? I made myself sick trying to warn you. Everything that I said has come to pass. And now here you stand. Was it wiser to believe me, and learn from me, or not to? Doomer, pessimist, provocateur, and so on. These insults made their mark on me. I cannot ever be as generous with you as I once was. And now you must decide if you will see where you stand, instead of accusing me of childish things.

I’m weary. My words will be sparing for you now. Here they are.

Let us dispense first with the “ethics” which are sure to be “debated” endlessly in America media. Was it fair and just? Britain’s Prime Minister has already said so. Cut through this folly with me. One dictator took down another. Do two wrongs make a right? A child can master these ethics. Throw all this clouded thinking away.

Let us further dispense with the idea that “America will now run Venezuela.” LOL. America can’t run itself. It can’t provide a decent life for its own people, from healthcare to education to food to finance. Did I leave out democracy? The idea that it can provide any of the above for anyone else is a joke, sort of like saying “the dentist will see you now,” and you look up, and realize, too late, you’re in Jeffrey Dahmer’s office.

What was this abduction really about? What just happened to our world and to our future?

At the macro scale, the idea of international order just went up in flames. The old world, as we’ve been discussing recently, is now finished for good—the idea of a democracy of nations, encouraging nations to be democracies, and in that way, our list of civilizational goods would grow.

Civilizational goods. What do I mean by these? Think of peace. Justice. Cooperation. Equality. Dignity. Education. Clean air, water, energy. Sometimes, these are called “global public goods.” I will just call them civilizational goods from now on, because they are things we can only have as a civilization.

And now what has just happened is that any remote hope of these growing, enduring, and lifting us to higher heights has imploded.

So this was not just about a kidnapping or adbuction or whatever you want to call it, and frankly, none of that will matter very much after this.

I warned you over the last few years that we were hitting turning points in human history. And I was met with a range of reactions. Wiser minds understood, the average American, kept ignorant and overconfident, scoffed. Do you understand what I mean now? Not for my sake. For yours.

The turning point we have hit now is civilizational. And it looks like this. Instead of a world aspiring to democratic political forms, which in turn, nourish and grow civilizational goods—and these mean “goods” in the true sense, that they are good for all of us—we now stand on the cusp of precisely the opposite kind of world.

Fascists vie for the resources of a dying planet.

A few years ago, I used to try to teach you that this was the worst case scenario. And the reception I was met with scarred me, if I’m honest. The names I was called didn’t just hurt me, they showed me the depths of human folly, and terrified me. People did not understand what they faced, and no matter what I tried to teach them, they wouldn’t be prepared. So be it, I thought, eventually. But I remain haunted by the shadows. It has always been that way for me.

Fascists vying for the resources of a dying planet. In that sentence, I changed the form to the present tense. Because now we are where I warned we would be, but hoped to avert being. 

Now we have crossed a terrible, terrible line, one of history’s bleakest, for which it will surely not forgive us. Now macro politics looks like this. A set of failed powers-states wish to forge Neo-empires, for the sake of controlling what is left on a dying planet.

If you doubt me, before you scoff, please consider what is before you now. As this accelerates, what will happen to you? Just entertain the possibility that I am correct, as I’ve been for a decade and more now, because this time, I am different. Hardened. I am scarred. My heart is already broken. But it is broken both by you and for you. I know what will happen to you. But do you? Yes, I know how that sounds. Do we have time for niceties? Shall we have afternoon tea while the world burns? I will come back to that.

The line we have crossed, in practice, looks like this. America, China, and Russia, now wish to control the resources of the planet, which is dying, at least if you believe in climate science, and no, this isn’t a grad school class, so let’s not mince words, and pretend that protozoa surviving five hundred million years from now negates the simple truth of what I’m trying to teach you.

As these failed powers attempt to build neo-empires, they will center now, as they are, on resource control. America is perhaps the most foolish of the three, led by who it is, sadly, and so it is contesting yesterday’s critical resource, oil. Along with minerals and so on. That is what this abduction, or kidnapping, is of course about. Meanwhile, the other two failing empires are slightly smarter, in fact. China is attempting to control higher forms of capital, technology and finance. And Russia is attempting to control political capital itself, subverting nation after nation from within, in order to assert a kind of shadow empire.

At some point, all this is increasingly likely to boil over into World War—you are probably asking yourself that already. The truth is that that is correct, but we long before that point is hit, you are already now at an extreme degree of risk.

Let me illustrate it for you. 

Who did Trump just double cross? The last few nations on earth foolish enough to keep on pouring money into a fascist America were in the Middle East. Seduced by Trump, imagining they could keep America’s consumption machine powered by oil forever, they’ve been raining money at America. But now? Now Trump just double crossed them in the most spectacular way possible. America will now control the world’s oil. How long do you think their largesse is likely to last?

Meanwhile, to say that America controls the world’s oil is only to say now that it effectively helps Russia. Russia has needed oil to keep its war machine going, which is why fleets of shadow tankers have departed Venezuelan shores. How do you think China will feel about that—confronting a Russia that is now that much stronger, right on its flank? And remind me again who is one of the largest creditors America has? China is, of course.

Then, of course, there is Europe, which is unsure of how to respond, but the simple fact is that Trump has given a free pass to Russia, and saved its war machine, in one single step. Guess who is America’s largest creditor of all? Europe is, as we’ve discussed.

These are macroeconomic dynamics reminiscent of the last series of World Wars. And once such chain reactions are set in motion, they do not easily stop. Flashpoint by flashpoint, destabilization accelerates and becomes a gyre. Assassinations or adbuctions become financial crisies become depressions. And in the blink of history’s eye, tanks roll and bombs keen from the skies above.

Perhaps you still doubt me. Let me be clear, though. I am not saying “there will be another World War.” I am saying something even bleaker. Now, it scarcely matters, because we are on the cusp of a transition to a form of global political order where conflict replaces peace, as autocracy replaces democracy, and the neo-empires fight over what’s left of a dying planet. I am saying now we enter something more like a Dark Age, and to a Dark Age, what is a little war, or even a big one?

Let us now imagine that each actor in its sphere asserts the same right America just has. So China seizes control of Taiwan. Do you know what happens to your 401K the very next day? It becomes next to worthless. It is reduced to pennies on the dollar. Because of course the world’s microchips are made in Taiwan, and America can’t run for a single nanosecond, without them. Kiss it all goodbye. We are now one heartbeat away from that level of risk.

Let us imagine that Russia asserts the same right America has, and kidnaps the President of even a minor European nation. Europe invokes NATO’s Article 5. America, led by Trump, shrugs—every Neo-empire has the right to define its own sphere, he says, and he will not lift a finger. The very next moment, your 401k becomes worthless, too, because of course, Europe will call in the debts America owes it, not just for vengeance’s sake, but because America cannot be trusted, and it will need the capital desperately to defend itself.

See how many roads there are now to ruin? Not just for the world, but for you?

My heart is broken, my friends, as I said, once by you, and now for you. By you, over the years, as many scorned me and lashed out at me, for warning you of what is happening now. And I don’t mean you, of course, old friends and readers, but I suspect we all know the types I do mean. I have grown through that, and I smile at it gently now. A man is not a man until he has the strength to carry the pieces of his heart in his hands. 

That part of my life is now over. But my heart now breaks for you. Because many of you have wasted too much time. When you could have been learning from me how to protect and guide and orient yourselves, let us be frank, many of you disdained me instead. Now you stand at the precipice. The abyss beckons. The wind roars. How will you survive this? I cannot say. I know that those of you who listened to me carefully over the years are in far, far better positions, stronger, wealthier, fortified, assured, and I’m very happy about that.

As for the rest, I will still lead you to the place I call Havens. The wise will find their way there with me. The rest—I wrestle with it now. Are they my concern at all now? Will it be too late? Is it already? Your gut says: the clock is now this close to striking a terrible midnight. Shall we have afternoon tea again, while the flames ignite all around us?

This is the world we are in now. Do not play games with your life in it. The levels of macro risk are far too grave now. As we watch the embers of an old world die, what will happen to you? Do you imagine that any of this turns out well for your money, safety, security, career, family, loved ones, the little place in existence you have carved out? Will it survive a plunge into the abyss, like the sole rock left untouched on what once used to be a mountainside?

Everything that I have warned you of over the last decade and more has come true. Now the final decision is yours, and it is the last set of existential choices you will have in this life. The decisions you make now, at this moment, will shape the rest of your life in irrevocable ways. Will you learn, and take shelter, or will you keep on cursing at the wind which is coming for your bones, imaging that it is me? 

It is your choice. That is not a challenge. It isn’t gloating or point-scoring. It is an admission to you of the toll all this has taken on me. How sicke in my soul I have become by having to be the kind of figure many of you expect to me to be, only to hate and scorn and reject me for it. I hate doing this. But not for the reason you might imagine. 

For a decade, I’ve seen too many of you make the wrong decisions, over and over again. Instead of learning what figures like me have to teach you. Sometimes, pretending that calling us names is some kind of substitute for thinking clearly and well. 

It has been too painful for me to bear.

I am different now. I cannot warn you anymore, and so this is not a warning. This is not a plea, either. It is an invitation, to a path, that cuts through and beyond the wicked, crooked, stupid way the world will now enter an age of catastrophe. I have been walking in my own direction for many years now. And so the distance between us has grown. There you are, on the edge of the precipice. I cannot say to you anymore: but what is below will rip you apart! I can only send you a flickering little message, as the stars go out around us, and invite you to reconsider the place where you stand. Even as that terrible duty scars me still.

Love,

Umair (and Snowy)

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