On Power
Any system (financial, political, technological) that is misbehaving is misbehaving due to a feature or a bug. Unfortunately, we humans are pretty good at being little bugs, greedy for things, envious of others, frequently destructive and tragically self-serving.
When a system is run by little bugs, misbehaviour is a feature - United Healthcare denies claims to make billions, harming patients directly. This isn’t just about one company - it’s about how power accumulates and perpetuates itself in modern systems. United Healthcare’s ability to prioritize profits over patients while maintaining its market position reveals something crucial about how power works today. We have these opaque complex systems that harm society yet remain profitable & exist.
Leverage refers to the ability to create disproportionate effects from small inputs. People with money make more money, those that control media control a country’s stories, etc. The reason why the world’s systems misbehave is because people with leverage accumulate power to serve their sense of self. For example, finding those articles on United Healthcare was pretty hard - they’ve used media. Media leverages attention to shape collective understanding. Systems-level solutions aim to limit media manipulation using the law but there is limited effect.
But media control isn’t just about controlling information - it’s about controlling what we consider real. A company like United Healthcare exists primarily as a shared belief, maintained through constant reinforcement in media, contracts, and financial systems. The same leverage that allows them to deny claims also shapes how we think about healthcare itself.
These concentrations of leverage don’t just manipulate resources - they manipulate reality itself. Money creates more money through complex financial instruments that extract value without creating it. Media shapes what we believe is happening in the world. Code automates and scales human decisions, embedding biases into systems that affect millions. All of these forms of leverage work by shaping our basic understanding of what things are and how they work.
This points to something deeper than just greed or bad incentives. Our whole way of understanding reality - through stable concepts, categories, and identities - makes us vulnerable to manipulation. We collectively maintain these concepts (like companies, money, status) not just as useful tools but as fundamental realities. Those with leverage exploit this shared belief system, using it to concentrate power while making that concentration seem natural and inevitable.
Why do we participate in systems we know are harmful? Because questioning these basic categories threatens our own sense of stable identity. We’re invested in maintaining a world of fixed concepts because our very sense of self depends on it. It’s easier to accept a dysfunctional system than to question the conceptual framework that makes both the system and our identity feel real.
But reality isn’t actually stable or separate in the way our concepts suggest. Look closely at any “thing” and you’ll find it’s really a process - constantly changing, interconnected, impossible to truly pin down with words or thoughts. Our attempts to freeze reality into fixed concepts create the very problems we’re trying to solve.
Consider a moment when you’re fully absorbed in an activity - playing music, solving a problem, or even just watching a sunset. In these moments, the usual boundaries between self and world, subject and object, can temporarily dissolve. These glimpses show us a different way of being - one not bound by rigid conceptual frameworks.
Or notice how children, before being fully conditioned into conceptual thinking, experience reality directly and fluidly. They haven’t yet learned to see the world through the lens of fixed categories and separate identities. Their natural state hints at what lies beneath our conceptual overlays.
When we see through the provisional nature of concepts, power structures built on manipulating those concepts lose their grip. This doesn’t mean rejecting useful tools like money or organizations - but seeing them as tools rather than fundamental realities. The more clearly we see how reality transcends our attempts to conceptualize it, the less vulnerable we become to ontological manipulation.
This seeing isn’t about adding new concepts or beliefs. In fact, it’s about discovering what remains when we stop trying to capture reality in thought. For those interested in exploring this directly, start by questioning your most basic assumptions about what things are. Not intellectually, but experientially. What actually exists beyond the labels and categories we’ve been taught to take for granted?
The world’s dysfunction isn’t just a product of human nature or bad systems - it stems from our collective investment in a way of seeing reality that makes manipulation possible. Those with leverage exploit this shared conceptual framework, concentrating power while making that concentration appear inevitable. The solutions we typically propose - new regulations, better incentives, structural reforms - may help at the margins but don’t address this fundamental dynamic.
Real change requires seeing through the conceptual frameworks that make exploitation possible. This isn’t about creating new concepts or systems, but about recognizing how reality transcends our attempts to capture it in thought. The more clearly we see this, the less grip these manipulated realities have on us.
This seeing isn’t a philosophical position or belief system. It’s a direct recognition of something that’s already true - that reality is more fluid, more alive, and less graspable than our concepts suggest. When this is seen clearly, we can still use concepts and systems as tools, but we stop mistaking them for fundamental reality.
For those who sense the truth in this, the invitation is to look directly at your own experience. Not through the lens of thought or belief, but with the simple question: what actually exists beyond the labels and categories we’ve been taught to take for granted?