2023-2030: Artifice vs. Doom-Loops

June 23, 2023

by Charles Hugh Smith Of Two Minds

If you prefer reality to artifice, oh, you wretched doom-and-gloomer. Just look at our social media feed, that’s what real.

The shift from real to fake occurs because it serves somebody’s interests. The married couple who have fallen out of love continue the pretense of a “happy marriage” for a good reason: the facade of lovey-dovey normalcy plays well socially and in their careers. The kids know better, of course, and so they’re told that propping up the facade presented to the outside world is “non-negotiable.” They can snark to their friends privately but must dutifully play the part in public lest their warring parents make life even more miserable than it already is.

The shift from fake to fraud is an easy one, because reality cannot be allowed to break through the artifice. The artifice is the business is doing great, but the reality is the enterprise is sliding into insolvency. And so the partners start cutting corners: stop paying taxes and invoices, start borrowing money to cover expenses, and eventually, begin defrauding others to maintain the facade of success and normalcy.