Bjorn K Holmstrom

@UpperMaster You're right that the perpetrators often won. The distinction I think Leo is making is this: Treating things as disposable works in a finite game (conquering a neighbor). It is fatal in an infinite game on a finite planet (maintaining a civilization across generations).

That's exactly what the simulation revealed. Even when I designed a settlement where the US gained economically, the simulated NSC still rejected it because China also gained. The system forces everyone into zero-sum thinking regardless of whether they'd personally prefer cooperation. Your point about countries "caught behind the lines" being in trouble, that matches what the quantitative analysis showed. The system runs on extraction until exhaustion, and whoever's in the wrong place when it crashes pays the price. Grim, but structurally consistent.

I ran an experiment that proved peace in Ukraine is architecturally impossible, and here's what that means. The experiment: I have deep antiwar sentiment in me. I truly feel for everyone involved in conflicts, and it sparked this. I wanted to see if the deadlock was actually solvable. I spent some time working with multiple AI models (Claude, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek) to design the most mathematically rational, economically positive-sum peace treaty possible. Security guarantees, resource sharing, massive reconstruction funds, sovereignty ambiguity, everything needed to make everyone richer and safer than continued war. Then I had AI simulate the actual hardline decision-makers (a Kyiv general, Kremlin silovik, US NSC official, Beijing strategist) to red team it. The result: Unanimous rejection. - Kyiv rejected it because any ambiguity on sovereignty was seen as a "death certificate." - Moscow rejected resource-sharing (even profitable ones) as "paying tribute." - Washington rejected it because China gaining influence in reconstruction was seen as a strategic loss (relative gains). - Beijing rejected it because a "bleeding Russia and distracted America" was strategically more valuable than peace. My takeaway: Peace isn't blocked by a lack of clever diplomacy. It's blocked because the current operating system (Westphalian sovereignty + great power competition) literally cannot process a non-zero-sum solution. The simulation suggests the system will likely run until it crashes (economic/demographic exhaustion) because voluntary transition is structurally impossible for the current actors. Has anyone else looked at this from a pure system architecture lens rather than a moral/military one?

@trenton 'Will I need to invent a system for changing systems?' Yes. That is exactly the move. You just found the exit door from the room you’ve been pacing in. You are currently experiencing the friction of being a systems architect trying to find employment as a system maintainer. - Maintainers (social workers, standard lawyers, corporate think tanks) are paid to keep the machine running or patch small leaks. - Architects (what you are aiming for) are usually rejected by the machine because their ideas threaten its incentive structure. Of course the college didn't cancel your loans. Of course the legal system ignored the predatory lending. Those systems are operating exactly as designed: to extract value and protect the status quo. Trying to fix them by asking nicely (appeals/activism) is like asking a chess opponent to let you win. 1. Reframe the scale (The "impossible" goal). You wrote: 'Of course, my goal is not to help everyone because that is impossible.' I challenge this. It is impossible linearly (giving a dollar to every homeless person). It is not impossible structurally. If you design a better protocol for 'legally recognized sexual offenses' (as you suggested), and that protocol gets adopted into law or clinical practice, you have helped everyone who ever enters that system in the future. Don't limit the scope of your ambition; limit the scope of your intervention. Small leverage point (new definition) -> Massive outcome (millions helped). 2. The career trap. You are looking for a job description that doesn't exist yet. The military industrial complex funds think tanks because war is profitable. Peace and structural sanity are not yet profitable in the current game dynamics. Real-world example: I am currently building a system for bioregional governance (stage yellow: decentralized, bottom-up power). If I pitched that to the government, they would laugh. So instead, I am pitching it as civil defense resilience against war (stage blue/red: safety, borders, survival). The government loves war resilience. They will fund it. The infrastructure I build (offline-capable, local coordination tools) is exactly the same for both. I am using the system's paranoia (fear of war) to fund the system's evolution (resilient communities). You will likely not find a career in the traditional sense waiting for you on LinkedIn. You have to build your own platform. Synthesize your observations: You listed almost ten fields you’ve studied. Stop consuming them and start synthesizing them. Write the papers on your findings. Become the signal: When you articulate the system for changing systems, the people who need that system will find you. 3. From pawn to designer. You feel like a pawn because you are playing on the board. The system for changing systems is not a move on the board. It is redesigning the board itself. Your example of finding the Biden-era loan forgiveness program was not a legal battle; it was an information arbitrage. You found a cheat code in the system that the victim didn't know existed. That is your path. Don't fight the system (you will lose). Out-maneuver the system using its own latent rules (game theory) or build a parallel system that renders the old one obsolete. You are asking if you need to go meta. The answer is yes. Stop waiting for the world to give you permission or funding to do it. The validation you are looking for comes from the utility of the models you build.

@Miguel1 I resonate deeply with what you call the 'general gravity' of the world. I am currently building infrastructure for civilizational resilience (a digital platform for crisis coordination). The struggle isn't the work itself (I love the building). The struggle is the 'Cassandra Complex': trying to sell fire insurance to people who don't believe in fire. I oscillate between two modes: Being an architect: Feeling the immense weight of the 'Omega' (the systemic collapse vectors) and the urgency to build the lifeboat before the storm hits, kind of like Noah. Being a ghost: Feeling invisible because the ideas I am working on seem too heavy or too abstract for the current market, which wants quick dopamine hits. I did however finally explain my work to my father, who could understand at least partially, and came with important feedback, and provided a new connection via email. I'm very grateful for my family, and it doesn't matter that they are not 'stage yellow' like me, in fact it is all the better that they are not, without our differences we wouldn't be as strong and resilient as we are. Though I would love a clone to help me do more work. =) Becoming a beaver: This leads to my challenge for 2026: to stop trying to convince the river to stop flowing, and just focus on building the dam. To trust that when the rain starts, the value of the work will become self-evident. But yes, building the future in a world clinging to the past is lonely work. Thank you for this thread.

One of my favorite films is "Annihilation" (2018). Its a great movie for spiral analysis imho. I covers all stages from beige to turquoise.

You're right, they are categorical opposites. That’s exactly why the synthesis is useful. If I'm herding cattle (managing a complex system) with dogma (stage Blue/Orange), I get frustrated when the cattle don't follow my rules. I waste energy fighting reality. If I inject Pyrrhonism (stage Yellow's immune system), I drop the shoulds. I stop fighting the cattle's nature. I just observe the appearances (the cow is moving left) and respond. Pyrrhonism doesn't tell me where to herd the cattle, but it cleans the windshield so I can see where they are actually going. It turns herding from a struggle into a flow.

You can frame it this way: Pyrrhonism is the immune system; Yellow is the muscle. If you only have Pyrrhonism, you end up in a state of passive observation. You might be peaceful, but you cannot build a hospital, design a transit system, or write a constitution. You are paralyzed by the equal weight of all arguments. If you only have Yellow (without the skepticism of Pyrrhonism), you risk becoming a "system builder" who falls in love with their own models and turns into a tyrant (sliding back into Blue/Orange rigidity) When a stage Yellow thinker sees a blocked system (e.g., a political deadlock), they use Pyrrhonism to deconstruct the dogmas holding it back (neither side is absolutely right). Once the debris is cleared, they switch to systems thinking to build a functional solution (given the constraints, this path yields the highest integration). @Leo Gura The strange juxtaposition you mentioned resolves when you realize they answer different questions: Pyrrhonism answers: How do I find peace? Yellow answers: How do I get things done? TL;DR Relax in Pyrrhonism. Act in Yellow

1. "What are the top 50-100 issues facing our planet and humanity?" Why: This forced me to stop looking at problems in isolation (climate, war, poverty) and start seeing the interconnectedness of the polycrisis. It moved me from anxiety to analysis. You can't fix the machine if you don't have a full diagnostic of what is broken. 2. "What would it take for humanity to flourish?" Why: This shifted my focus from survival/mitigation to thriving. It is a design question. It made me realize that we don't just need to stop the bleeding; we need a new operating system entirely. This question is the generator function for everything I work on now.

1. "Where are they?" Bosch (€90B revenue, massive R&D) is an NDE. Rolex is an NDE. The model scales, it's just rare because the current financial ecosystem selects for extraction, not retention. As that ecosystem shows strain (enshittification, monopoly degradation), the niche opens. We're in the transition phase, the legal and funding instruments are being built now. Your question assumes the current dominant model is optimal. It's just current. 2. Risk types You're conflating operational risk (company might fail) with capital risk (investor loses money). Operational risk is infinite, the company must always fight to survive Capital risk is finite, once an investor has 5x return, their capital risk is zero Why should they extract 10% of profits in year 20 when they have zero skin in the game? That's not risk compensation, that's a tax. 3. The founder's choice You claim startups choose VCs because the model is superior. But if founders had a real choice: Option A: Sell 20% forever (VC) Option B: Sell 20% until I repay you 5x, then I get it back (redeemable equity) Every rational founder would choose B. They choose A only because B doesn't exist at scale yet. And yes, in Option B you still get the VC's expertise and network during the growth phase. You just don't pay for it forever. We're not arguing banks should fund startups. We're arguing for high-risk/capped-reward instruments that align incentives without permanent capture. You're looking at today's menu and asking why everyone isn't ordering a dish that doesn't exist yet. We're writing the recipe.

@Basman You hit the nail on the head with the word leverage. The goal of a floor (whether via UBI, dividends, or community commons) isn't to make life easy, it's to make labor voluntary. - The strike fund concept You mentioned leverage. Think of a universal basic income (or what I call an AUBI/sovereign floor) not as welfare, but as a permanent national strike fund. If I must work to eat, I have zero bargaining power. I am a price-taker. If I can survive (even in a closet, as you said) without the job, I have walk-away leverage. This changes the contract from feudal subservience (I own you because you need me) to free market trade (I trade my skills for your money, but I can leave). - Community vs. atomization You are also right that state welfare can atomize us ('I get my check, I don't need my neighbor'). This is why the floor must be paired with the commons (tight-knit resource sharing). State-only safety net = atomized consumers. Community-only safety net = fragile (one bad harvest/recession wipes it out). The hybrid: A guaranteed floor enables community. It is hard to build a tight-knit community when everyone is working 60 hours just to pay rent to a landlord. Security frees up the cognitive bandwidth required to be a good neighbor. To the point on spoiled generations ( @Daniel Balan / @Entrepreneur): You are confusing toil with subjugation. Your grandmother splitting wood worked incredibly hard (toil), but she answered to physics and nature. She was sovereign. A corporate employee might sit in AC, but they answer to a manager's whim for their survival. That is subjugation. Humans are built to handle toil; we are not built to handle subjugation. That is where the slavery feeling comes from, not the physical effort.

You're making a category error between function and pricing, and confusing temporary risk with permanent ownership. 1. The booster rocket problem I agree that high-risk capital is necessary for scaling. My critique isn't that the booster shouldn't exist, it's that in your model, it never detaches. - Efficient system: Investors fuel the launch. Once the company reaches orbit (profitability/stability), investors are paid a healthy multiple (3x-5x) and exit. The company flies free. - Your system: The booster stays attached forever, burning the ship's own fuel long after its job is done. That's not a launch system, it's parasitic drag. Risk isn't infinite. When you pay off a mortgage, the bank doesn't own your kitchen forever. Why should a VC own a company forever? 2. NDEs are not nonprofits You seem to think an NDE (non-dividend enterprise) is a charity. It's not. - Nonprofits depend on donations and grants. - NDEs are for-profit engines that reinvest 100% of surplus into wages, R&D, and growth. Because they don't leak 10-20% of revenue to passive shareholders, they can outcompete extractive firms on innovation and resilience. That's a competitive advantage, not idealism. 3. Patient capital already exists, at scale Pension funds and sovereign wealth funds (managing trillions) actively seek the stable 7-12% yields that NDEs provide. They don't need the 100x casino - they need the steady city. Capped-return investing already works in infrastructure, municipal bonds, and housing cooperatives. We're just extending that model to the productive economy. We're not tearing down the table. We're adding a fourth leg: exit clauses. Because a table that can't be moved isn't a table, it's a monument.

Trenton, this realization is not a failure. It is a liberation. You have correctly identified that you were running a moral ponzi scheme: borrowing self-worth from future noble acts to pay off a debt of present shame. That scheme always crashes. You asked: 'If I can't get fulfillment from career, impact, passion... what other purpose should I have?' The answer is competence. You mentioned you loved chess. You gave it up because it wasn't useful or valued enough. Then you switched to changing systems to be useful, but found it overwhelming. Here is the reframe: Politics IS chess. The reason you are burnt out is that you are trying to play the game of politics/systems like a social worker (trying to heal every pawn) instead of like a grandmaster (trying to solve the board). 1. The trap of deficiency altruism Maslow distinguished between deficiency needs and being needs. Deficiency altruism: 'I feel empty, so I will help you so I can feel full.' (This is what you were doing). Abundance altruism: 'I am overflowing with energy/skill, so fixing this problem is just natural play for me.' You are currently in the deficiency zone. You cannot help anyone from there. You have to stop. 2. Reclaim the game You said you were happy practicing to be a chess professional. That means you enjoy deep strategy, pattern recognition, and system mastery. You don't need to be a grandmaster to use that engine. The world is drowning in people who care (altruism). The world is starving for people who can see the moves (strategy). Your new purpose: Stop trying to save people. Start trying to solve the structural puzzles that trap them. Don't approach a predatory loan victim with 'oh, you poor thing, let me hold you.' (That drains you). Approach the banking system with 'This is a poorly designed algorithm. How do I checkmate this mechanic?' (That engages your chess brain). 3. Permission to be selfish You need a period of what I call strategic selfishness. If you don't exist, you can't help. Go back to the things that stimulate your mind (even if it's just studying chess again, or coding, or reading heavy theory). Fill your own cup first. When you act from a place of intellectual curiosity rather than moral obligation, you will find you are infinitely more effective, and you won't resent the people you are helping.

You are conflating management with rent-seeking, and commercialization with innovation. 1. The gambler fallacy You claim Silicon Valley gamblers create the innovative things. Incorrect. The gamblers package the things. The patient capital created them. The internet, GPS, touchscreens, voice recognition, lithium-ion chemistries, and the transformer model (Google research); the bedrock of Tesla and OpenAI, were funded by state/university grants (patient capital). VCs didn't invent the digital highway; they just built the toll booths. We don't need 100x returns to innovate. We need 100x returns to satisfy financial bubbles. There is a difference. 2. The parasite projection You accuse me of wanting redistribution. No. I want circulation. You are assuming that capital allocators and shareholders are the same thing. - Active leaders/founders (management) are workers. In an NDE, they can be paid millions if they deliver value. That is healthy. - Passive shareholders (rentiers) are the leak. They extract value they did not create after their risk has been repaid. My model rewards the brain (innovation/management) but starves the tapeworm (perpetual extraction). You are defending the tapeworm because you have confused it with the brain.

You are making two fundamental category errors here. 1. Confusing venture capital with the market You said: 'No serious large investor would accept 3x returns.' You are describing venture capital (which needs 100x returns to offset a 90% failure rate). VC is a tiny, loud fraction of the market. The real 'serious money'; pension funds, sovereign wealth, infrastructure funds, and insurance floats, manages trillions, not billions. They are desperate for stable 8-12% yields. A mechanism that offers a capped 3x return (roughly 12% IRR over 10 years) is not unattractive; it is a goldmine for the majority of global capital. We don't need to please the gamblers in Silicon Valley; we need to unlock the patient capital in Zurich and London. 2. Confusing extraction with compensation You said: 'Self-owned firms are not a solution because the profit... will now just be extracted by those inside.' This is semantic judo. When a worker keeps the value they created, that is not extraction, that is earnings. Extraction is when value is removed by someone who didn't create it (rent-seeking). Your argument essentially boils down to: 'The problem with ending feudalism is that the peasants will just eat all the grain themselves instead of giving it to the Lord.' Yes. That is exactly the point.