The Doomer Economy
It’s very tempting to embrace doomerism. The perspective that “humanity isn’t capable of avoiding self-destruction and even if we were, it’s too late anyway” is almost comforting in a world of seemingly endless bad news. It allows you to assume the worst without assuming any responsibility for not working toward a better world. But that kinda sucks, right? Unfortunately, it’s a very popular belief. A 2021 study of 10,000 people between the ages of 16-25 across the globe found 55% of all respondents believing that humanity is doomed. Of course, it’s nothing new to believe the world is coming to an end, but the simultaneous connection/isolation effect of the internet has made this common fear into something of a non-partisan ideology. While most rational people would prefer not to categorize themselves as “doomers”, it’s impossible to deny a pervasive feeling of hopelessness in young people. For The Money Issue, I wanted to explore how those who have trouble seeing a future engage with the economy; what the value of money is when all that exists is now, and how engaging with the economy in this way largely leads to more hopelessness – this is what I’m calling The Doomer Economy.
We Need to Talk About the Pills
To explore this concept, I’m going to first look at the Red Pill community, as they most nakedly exemplify what I’m trying to get at. If you don’t know, one of the core beliefs of those who engage in The Doomer Economy is that we exist in a “The Matrix”-type situation; society is a prison designed to breed complacency, the citizens are the wardens and if you dare break out and succeed, you’ll be destroyed. When someone chooses to “wake up” by indoctrinating themselves, it’s called “getting Red Pilled” – you know, like the movie “The Matrix”. Remember when Keanu Reeves takes the Red Pill and then gets a real bad-butt makeover, a bunch of guns, complete control over the simulated world and a woman that loves him? Like that, in theory.
Despite it’s right-leaning, Trumper connotation, the world being a hopeless matrix is a common concept across the aisle too, albeit presented differently; that corporate lobbyists have crafted a world-ending matrix of legal loopholes and capital, wresting all agency from the individual to counteract the hyper-destruction of the planet’s ecosystem. The left may call it “late-stage capitalism”, but outcomes are similar: cynicism, despondency, and numbed dread. Both groups even use similar language such as “waking up” vs. “getting woke”.
Once you’ve bought into the idea that society is designed to take advantage of you, how do you go about making your money? If you believe benefiting society is wrong because society is wrong, then what value does that money represent?
The Path of The One
In my time online, with morbid fascination, I’ve watched at least 100 hours of Red-Pilled idealogues and their devotees argue the merits of their philosophy. I’ve found that the Red-Pilled individual criticizes society for turning people into “sheep”, “bots” or “NPCs” [A.I. controlled, non-player characters in a simulation] that exist only to do what Big Brother tells them, while paradoxically praising their chosen Big Brother – or, as I like to say, Big Daddy (Tate, Peterson, Fuentes, etc.) – parroting them, espousing the stoic virtue of pursuing a confoundingly superficial life replete with drop-shipping and bottle service, living a dramatic irony that could rattle your bones to dust.
Life is simple from their perspective; do as little work as possible, make as much money as possible and, eventually, achieve the attention and affection of vast masses of women and the envy of men. Nothing new, once again, but the catch here is that whole “The Matrix”, Proto-Doomer energy. If you believe that you are incapable of changing the world and that the dominant powers are too entrenched to be affected, then all that matters is your own personal status. If the system is rigged against you, then cutting corners or finding loopholes isn’t cheating, it’s downright justified! If the whole of society is your enemy, then doing good work that benefits society is no longer a point of pride, it’s bot behaviour! This idea that money does not represent value that has been created, but power that is owned means that you don’t need to be proud of how you made it, just be proud of how much of it you made.
With such a cynical perspective, it’s no wonder that most of these Red-Pill gurus offer paid courses on obvious pyramid schemes, passive-income side-hustles, or both. What’s scary about these nu-hucksters and their gallery of grifts is that it attracts confused young people, convinces them the world is evil and promises peace and success will come only once you “get your money up” and reach the upper echelon of society, something that is especially hard to do from the bottom of an MLM. Then, when these kids fail to mount the pyramid, how do they return to a society that they’ve come to believe is out to destroy them?
Much Ado About Accelerationism
As I mentioned earlier, I don’t believe doomerism is a partisan ideology, I just think people cope with it differently depending on their cultural or political contexts. Outside of the misogyny-rich world of the Red-Pilled, I see people economically coping with doomer-ideation in a variety of ways. A popular one is taking a stance of vague Marxist accelerationism; the belief that if you do enough capitalism, the capitalism will break! I’ve seen this school of thought lead people to act out by taking advantage of company time and resources, doing the absolute bare minimum at all costs. For some, it has an intensifying effect, where they completely disassociate, embrace the machine, and become a hyper-agent, hopping from agency to agency, sometimes working multiple full-time jobs at once, to best cash in on the system they loathe. Others just openly fantasize about maxing every credit card they can apply for and then un-aliving themselves on a million dollar vacation, asking “why not?”
Once you start following the logic of the hopeless masses, it’s easy to spot elsewhere: while the Red Pill crowd believes it’s the “deep state energy vampires” controlling the world, for the progressives, it’s the “neo-liberal corporate elite”; instead of building wealth by selling e-books, maybe it’s an OnlyFans or a Patreon for a low-effort podcast; and while one person may LARP as Neo from “The Matrix”, another might LARP as an ineffective Che Guevara (if he were also in “The Matrix”). What all these expressions have in common is an ideology that rejects the notions that institutions work, that change is possible (without violence), and that money has value.
Aside from discount-Patrick Batemans, sub-ironic worshippers of the cyber-fiat and the E-Daddies’ Boys, the most worrying thing about The Doomer Economy is what it suggests about our youth; that their faith in institutions has fallen so far that money no longer implies value created, only power gained. On the left and right, I see this ideology used to justify not voting, not believing in steady change or even not having children. While it’s fun to poke at how this has shifted the discourse in the Darwinian grifter circus, it deeply pains me to see so many participating in an economy they don’t believe in to generate wealth they can’t truly respect.
Far be it from me to suggest that everything’s A-OK. Like I said, doomerism is tempting, but the reality of a defeatist outlook is a life lived with no responsibility. I want to see people giving each other the benefit of the doubt more, a return to believing that your neighbour probably doesn’t hate you, that we generally all want the same things, and that working hard should be a point of pride (specifically if that work furthers society), but most of all – I really want to stop talking about “The Matrix”.
-Branden Mayer