Everything can be "smegglutinated".

Author: Kyla Scanlon, Macro Analyst; Translator: Felix, PANews

Macro analyst Kyla Scanlon recently published a lengthy article pointing out that the "optimization" narrative peddled in society today is essentially escapism. It turns the body, self, and beliefs into tradable assets, creating a dependence on "quick fixes" without ever addressing the systemic root causes. The following are the details.

I had to start trying an "elimination diet" because my gut was self-destructing, which was clearly destroying my thyroid, making it unable to absorb any nutrients. To solve this problem, I had to stop eating wheat, dairy products, corn, eggs, tomatoes, peanuts, coffee, soy, cocoa, sugar, and many other things (this isn't like a juice detox or anything fun; it's an action I had to take to stop my body from attacking itself). I had to keep a record of what I ate and how I felt, and then assess what I could eat from that.

If there's a quick fix (like an injection), I'll try it. I don't really know what's wrong with me; I just know I've had several vials of blood drawn, and modern science tells me that something in my body is very wrong. But interestingly, part of the problem is that I always try to take shortcuts. Last year I was traveling for 40 weeks straight, and on some days I survived on oat bars and about 14 cups of coffee. I would also run like crazy, work like crazy, and sleep very little because I felt completely invincible. After all, I used to be an "efficiency machine." For a time, I was, but not anymore. It turns out I wasn't really optimizing anything; I was just avoiding what I should really be doing, like sleeping. What I need isn't to keep pushing myself, but to start figuring out what's making me sick. This is the exact opposite of what we've been taught. Americans love optimization. So when something promises to let us optimize further, providing near-instantaneous, rapid fixes, it's hard to resist. Our identity is almost entirely built around "efficiency." The desire for control is now incredibly strong, permeating every corner of the digital and physical worlds. I think this is actually a response to financial nihilism. People no longer believe the underlying economy will work for them, and instead resort to speculation, gambling, or other seemingly quick ways to achieve stability. According to a Northwestern Mutual survey, 80% of Gen Z and 75% of Millennials feel left behind, a feeling that drives them to speculate. The same applies to social media: if you struggle to build relationships in real life, the online world offers a kind of alternative, but people are increasingly uneasy about the collective dependence on social media. Following this, some industries have emerged to monetize this nihilism by offering promised solutions. But the solutions will never materialize, because the nihilism and the spirit of renunciation must persist for these products to survive. This aligns with the views of Ivan Illich in *The Limits of Medicine*. Illich points out that the healthcare system itself creates disease because it makes people dependent on professional interventions rather than committed to maintaining health. This effect exists in all optimization tools, which create a dependence on "fixative measures" rather than addressing the root cause. An "optimization economy" cannot bring a sense of control because "despair" itself is its market operating condition, and pursuing control through optimization is itself a form of loss of control. Our tools are also too focused on the individual. As Raymond Williams wrote in his 1975 book, *Television: Technology and Cultural Form*: "The early era of public technologies, exemplified by railroads and city lighting, is being replaced by a technology whose name has yet to be satisfactorily chosen: a technology that serves a lifestyle that is both mobile and home-centered: a form of mobile privatization." Williams describes the shift from infrastructure serving everyone to technologies built around mobile, private individuals. The shift from railroads to peptides is a shift from "we build for everyone" to "you can buy for yourself." A truly effective example of a personal optimization tool is Ozempic (semaglutide, a weight-loss/blood sugar-lowering drug). Some people use it for medical reasons, while others openly admit to using it for beauty. To be clear, Ozempic is a brilliant technology that does address real-world problems for individuals, but it doesn't touch upon collective issues like the food system and healthcare accessibility. This also marks a shift. We can truly take control of certain aspects of our bodies with time and resources. What we now have is an "Ozempic"-like optimization, or "Ozempicization," of everything. We now have a suite of peptides and various other forms of "magic injections" that can save you effort, discomfort, and complexity. Everything can be optimized. Everything can be controlled. Controlling the Body The body has always been a place of control because it's a system that still responds to external inputs. And today, systems are hostile. Economics and institutions often ignore individual struggles, but the body doesn't. It's no surprise that Bryan Johnson's multi-million dollar "eternal youth" experiments have garnered widespread attention. Bryan Johnson possesses something everyone craves—complete control over the outcome. The allure of "immortality" lies in this sense of control: control over your nutrition, supplements, and lifespan. And for viewers, that's precisely its appeal: in an era where everything feels out of control, the body becomes an object of control. This model is all too common. Personally, during my college years, my father was seriously ill, I developed a severe eating disorder, and I tried to regain control of everything. When all external factors become uncontrollable, control over the body becomes the last line of defense (regardless of gender). Many people in humanity ultimately resort to body control. And this form of control is increasingly becoming a form of content consumption. Clavicular is a rising star among streamers, known for "bone-crushing" and "maximizing looks," existing in his own cobbled-together WWE-like universe. His universe has its own language: a battle for "Number One Man" (determined by an online leaderboard). He was obsessed with his appearance, and also with control. "Maximizing appearance" simulates a value (status, charisma) that these people may not be able to possess economically. It's a form of control over the body to compensate for their lack of economic control. This phenomenon also appears in health culture, peptide drugs, cosmetic surgery, and various enhancement methods. It satisfies an individual's desire to become healthier or stronger, but it also serves economic purposes—another form of control. The current buzzword in Silicon Valley is "agency," which is essentially a veneer for the desire for control. Optimization is the process, control is the goal, and "agency" is brand building. In the startup world, the meaning of "agency" is ambiguous, but it does suggest that someone will somehow force the world to submit to their will. Cluely is a company that wholeheartedly embraces this philosophy, arguably the ultimate boss of the "startup economy." Their initial concept was "fraud" (later transformed into AI note-taking), and they've raised millions of dollars. For them, "fraud" is "agentic," as Sam Kriss writes in his article "Child's Play," which is indeed "Silicon Valley's hottest commodity": The future belongs to those with specific personality traits and sexual psychological disorders. AI may be faster to program than you, but humans still possess an advantage: autonomy, or rather, a high degree of autonomy. Highly autonomous people are those with strong initiative. They act out of fear of permanently falling into the lower classes and becoming useless in the age of AI. Clearly, the way to avoid both is to "constantly follow trending topics online." Bryan Johnson's approach is highly autonomous and heavily reliant on the internet. He has been experimenting with supplements and hallucinogens and strictly adhering to a diet and exercise plan. This is perhaps the greatest degree of control (or autonomy) anyone has over their own body. In fact, he attempts to achieve such control that he almost plays the role of a god in a sense. People are forced to ask themselves: Do I believe his claims about our potential for immortality? Do I believe his body is proof of that concept? Do I believe his continued creation of content is sufficient to prove the project's credibility? This quickly evolved into a market of faith, and Bryan Johnson became an asset. The same is true of Cluely; investment is based on belief, a belief in control and autonomy. However, once the body (or, in terms of autonomy, the mind) becomes an object that can be optimized, the self becomes an asset class. It is primarily driven by narrative, and once this happens, you have fallen into the logic of the market of faith. The market of faith and prediction markets follow the same logic: betting on narrative rather than fundamentals, gaining autonomy through participation. The market of faith promises a way out of constraints (both physical and financial). They manifest the fear of being left behind in the following ways: "When others are alive, I am dead." "When others cheat, I don't cheat." "When others are rich, I am poor." All of this signifies an ongoing shift: Old capitalism emphasized productive capacity, the ability to produce goods. Financial capitalism emphasizes cash flow rights, the right to claim future returns. We might call the values ​​of faith-based capitalism narrative dependence—keeping enough people immersed in a story for an extended period to maintain its influence. Belief markets need to create an illusion of easy participation to survive. They peddle the message, "You can do it too." Coinbase's Brian Armstrong shares a similar mindset with Bryan Johnson. He's also passionate about longevity and biohacking (and prediction markets), believing that aging should be preventable in the future. This philosophy is reflected in his products. Coinbase's prediction market slogan, bluntly, is "Take back control." Its prediction market competitor, Kalshi, advertises "Make your descendants proud."

Take control of your future with a friendly neighborhood betting app. The founder of another prediction market app, Novig, once said that only 20% of their users make money, claiming that this is far higher than other companies in the industry. This doesn't sound like control, nor does it sound like the future.

Everyone is chasing gold. Everyone is trying to get rich easily and quickly, as Allison Schrager wrote, "Catch the next hot trend and then pray for good luck."

Everyone is chasing gold. Everyone is trying to get rich easily and quickly, as Allison Schrager wrote, "Catch the next hot trend and then pray for good luck."

The pervasive lack of rules, coupled with promises of regaining control that are ultimately unfulfilled, is the exploitative nature of the faith market. A vast chasm exists between the promise of freedom and the actual outcome (enormous losses, even less freedom than before).

More Illustrative Than Mathematics

Every "systemic failure" solution that promises a sense of control is packaged as a product that traps you in a deeper predicament you were trying to escape.

Case Study of "Male Circles"

The exploitative logic of the faith market migrates to any place with desperate people, and "Male Circles": this online world that promotes masculinity, is a microcosm of this despair. I believe the audience of "Male Circles" is actually smaller than imagined, but it vividly demonstrates the desire for control, the faith market and its subsequent exploitation, and the novelty economy.

Louis Theroux's documentary, *Into the Male World*, captures these belief markets in a thought-provoking way. It exposes the paranoia of broadcasting one's personal life to thousands. The men in the film fear being seen as small, poor, weak, and unattractive, so they create imaginary enemies in their minds (Louis himself becomes one of them) and obsessively try to escape the "matrix." Broadcasters in the "male world" (and other areas) are essentially exhibits in a zoo. People throw treats into their "cages," demanding they dance (for example, on Twitch and Kick, broadcasters receive tens or even hundreds of dollars for answering questions, doing backflips, etc.). This leads to the emergence of "viral signals" (catering to our darkest side), as viewers demand increasingly outrageous things, broadcasters respond with even more outrageous behavior. This outrageous content is edited, published, and shared with the aim of viral spread. Sometimes these clips are taken-out interviews, incitement of anger, or even worse, and everyone angrily shares them, eventually spreading virally and further disintegrating society on the fringes. You can even easily earn millions of dollars just from these video clips. "Male-centric" influencers are essentially pyramid scheme leaders. They recruit young men and women into their trading courses or brokerage firms, taking a cut of the profits to alleviate their pain and despair. The prediction market Polymarket is doing something similar with its new referral program. Prediction market influencers are rewarded for bringing in new users to the platform, taking a cut of the fees generated by those new users. Polymarket also follows the "male-centric" messaging strategy. As Stuart Thompson, David Yaffe-Bellany, and Mike Isaac wrote in The New York Times, they "amplify unverified claims and baseless conspiracy theories from the Trump administration" with the aim of "attracting young men who are highly likely to become paying users." They teach people it's easy, simple: just watch the oil price chart, see if there's a "Triple Witching Day" (PANews note: refers to the day when stock index futures, stock index options, and individual stock options all expire simultaneously in the US stock market; market volatility usually increases significantly around "Triple Witching Day"), or bet on snowfall, or bet on the Oscars, and most importantly, bet on yourself, and you can become a millionaire like me. Yes, you have to have it all easily because everything is so easy now. But that's not the case. As Benjamin Fogel wrote about Andrew Tate, the leader of the "male circle": He represents a new kind of capitalism that has no illusions about progress. For Tate and his followers, the whole system is a scam, and the only way to succeed is to crush others and climb to the top. Tate is a central figure in the "male-dominated world," and he never pretends to do anything beneficial. He readily accepts his "plunder, exploitation, and ruthless pursuit of fame and fortune" because it's all a scam. He has a point. Fogel also points out: The decade-long slow growth following the financial crisis spawned a "working economy" characterized by an unstable gig economy. This economic model was touted as empowering, but in reality, it was merely a way to subsidize the income of the poor. Today, "working" has become completely equal. From Amazon dropshipping to cryptocurrency day trading, anyone can participate. So, can you really condemn the "patriarchal circle" by saying "it's all a scam, the strong preying on the weak," while simultaneously cheering for excessive stock buybacks or leveraged buyouts (extracting value by saddled with massive debt and layoffs in acquired companies)? The "patriarchal circle's" strategy is: extract value from the weak, assume no responsibility, and then shift the target; while the private equity model is: identify undervalued assets, improve operational efficiency, and return capital to shareholders. Is there really such a big difference between the two? Chaos and nihilism are products of this regressive world, not symptoms. Those peddling "agency" profits in a world where no institution is trusted, because distrust is precisely the market environment that makes their products necessities. Tate needs the system to be a scam, Polymarket needs uncertainty to be the norm; the worse the situation, the more effective their sales pitches. Theroux interviewed fans of the "male-dominated" community with heartbreaking experiences (as did some of the creators themselves), including homelessness, the loss of a father, and unemployment. They watched people like HSTikkyTokky because they wanted to emulate him; they wanted to be rich. This behavior is merely a facade, but the message it conveys works. People believe it because they are inherently driven by a desire for quick and easy solutions to these enormous and terrifying problems. As Fogel writes: This has nothing to do with the progressive vision of capitalism, which sees capitalism as a system that increases productivity by creating labor-saving technologies or producing tangible goods. Instead, it peddles a consumerist mentality of debt, anxiety, and loneliness. Anxious and lonely people crave control. The "male-dominated" community extracts value from despair through sensationalism. AI does the same thing, but it doesn't need a desperate person performing for a desperate audience. It replaces reality with a synthetic feeling. We've shifted from "exploitation through sensationalism" to "simulation through sensationalism." We tend to seek control in every aspect of life, including information access. Amanda Mull once wrote an article about "monitoring the situation": People (obviously including myself) are addicted to screens, trying to piece together all sorts of information. And there is indeed a lot of information to sort through: war, partial government shutdowns, unstable fiscal policies, weak labor markets, high prices, and so on. Browsing platforms like Twitter and reading open-source intelligence (OSINT) information gives a comforting feeling of having information in hand. As Mull aptly put it: "If you could precisely adjust the algorithm of the information flow, you might be able to achieve a complete 'witnessing,' making you feel involved, even in control. After all, there is ample evidence that those who dropped the bombs were also monitoring the same information flow as you. We monitor situations because monitoring itself makes us feel involved, and governments exploit this, replacing the real situation with sensationalism. Throughout the war, the White House relied entirely on AI-generated memes for communication, similar to 'Fruit Love Island' (an AI-generated TikTok account that combined video game visuals with bombing scenes). According to Politico, a senior White House official expressed a similar view: "Bro, we've been working on making the hottest memes over here." First it's farce, then tragedy, or something similar. But just as individuals use various means to simulate control, institutions are increasingly using the bizarre to simulate the stability they can no longer guarantee. The bizarre is the solution because seriousness requires accountability, accountability requires consequences, and consequences require institutions willing to implement them. Currently, such institutions do not appear to exist. The Federal Reserve is on the sidelines, doing what it can in the current situation. The government is partially shut down. Corruption is spreading in the sewers and overflowing from the vents. Diplomacy has been replaced by memes. Iran and the United States have been waging war through Twitter. The Speaker of the Iranian Parliament tweeted: "We know what's happening in the paper oil market, including those companies hired to influence oil futures. We're also seeing a broader propaganda offensive." But let's see if they can turn these into "actual fuel" at gas stations, or print out gasoline molecules! This is an irony of American financialization and Trump's handling of this war (no fighting during trading hours, but a massive fight on weekends, endless showmanship). He's right: you can't win a war by sending emojis (although the market seems indifferent to all of this at the moment). As Juliette Kayyem wrote in The Atlantic about the long lines at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the plane crash at LaGuardia Airport in New York: These two crises seem independent, but they are actually interconnected: they are both the result of governance neglecting governance. [...] The Trump administration has focused on creating false threats during this term while ignoring many real threats, such as the weakening of departments and systems designed to protect the public, including air passengers. Public safety is no longer a given—Americans are increasingly realizing they can no longer take it for granted. This administration is only focused on false threats. Baudrillard, Debord, Postman, and others foresaw this. People are now seeing it unfold. But now, the real crisis has arrived. This is an economic war, with 25% of global oil trade and nearly half of urea (agricultural fertilizer) at risk. Oil prices could soar to $200 a barrel, triggering another inflationary spiral more severe than the COVID-19 pandemic. And what is all this for? People are dying. Such enormous risks, seemingly just for…participation? In such a world, what can people do besides try their best to control what they can, pursue optimization, and demonstrate "proactivity"? When uncertainty becomes the dominant force, and the paths leading in different directions are unclear, people naturally seek quick expedients and simple solutions. What else can they do? It feels like if Trump had an "Ozempic" for geopolitics, he would have injected it by now. But we don't yet have a "polypeptide" for the economy, at least not yet. Faced with this instability that has persisted for years, it's understandable that people's cultural response is to seek quick solutions that seem to optimize but actually evade the fundamental problems. These solutions only treat the symptoms, not the root cause (I feel it's out of control), and don't address the root of the problem (the breakdown of the economic upswing). The pain that drives people to flock to "male circles," predict markets, and speculate is real. But the entire model is built on a foundation of nothingness. Raymond Williams wrote in 1961, "Every aspect of our personal lives is fundamentally affected by the overall quality of life," yet we insist on viewing things from a purely personal perspective. So-called "personal control" is not real control. Real control transcends the personal level, meaning affordable, well-functioning institutions—as Kayyeem put it, a truly effective government. What's being peddled now is a sense of personal control created through gambling, hacking, push notifications, subscription services, and optimization. The reason we can't solve problems isn't a lack of tools or information, but because the methods (adding, optimizing, measuring) are not suitable for solving the problem (finding the root cause of the poison). Do the slow, tedious work; don't be omnipotent. Perhaps the economy (like the human body) needs a process of elimination. People are trying this method, for example, in New York. Mamdani, Chief Savings Officer. What expenses can we cut to operate more healthily? Williams also writes that true radicalism lies in making hope possible, not in making despair persuasive. Despair is extremely persuasive and extremely profitable in the moment. Hope, on the other hand, works without you feeling despair.