Matthew,

Two basic points;

While we model life as linear, nature is cyclical. So any projection, action, etc, generates reaction. Given our linear, goal oriented culture, both sides of the cycle view themselves on the road to nirvana and those going the other way as misbegotten fools.

As mobile organisms, we experience reality as flashes of perception, then cognition and then sort and judge these impressions, in order to navigate our environment. Then narrate our journeys and build civilizations out of the collected knowledge.

The result is that we view the passage of time as fundamental, yet the physical reality isn’t the point of the present, moving past to future, but change turning future to past. Potential>actual>residual. Tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns.

Time is an effect, like temperature, pressure, color, etc. Think amplitudes and frequencies. Thermodynamic feedback loops better explain reality, than the linear progression of time.

As you observe, our views are biased towards focal points, such as bad news, as they attract attention. Rather than the much larger context in which they exist. Like focusing on the storm, rather than the convection processes generating it.

One aspect of this, in our cultural evolution, is that the stories which have the greatest narrative impact are going to be the ones most remembered and repeated. So the belief becomes that we are destined to be going somewhere, other then where we are. Be it heaven, or the singularity. The pot of gold at the end of the narrative arc.

Rather than truly peeling back the layers of what really exists, this dynamic state of presence, in which we exist.

Think of it as the dichotomy of energy and the forms manifested. Energy radiates out, as form coalesces in. Look at galaxies, as examples of this cosmic convection cycle.

As mobile organisms, we have the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems, processing the energy driving us on, along with the central nervous system to sort through the forms precipitating out and referee the emotions and impulses bubbling up. Motor and steering.

Society is the tension between all the organic social energies, desires, etc, bubbling up, as civil and cultural forms coalesce in. Youth and age, liberal and conservative.

Process generates patterns, so process goes prior to succeeding, while the patterns rise and fall, like so many waves. Consciousness goes from one thought to the next, as they come and go.

Lives go birth to death, while life goes onto the next generation, shedding the old.

So the issue of capitalism is that it functions as an ecosystem, in which the individual entities rise and fall, according to how they generate and use energy. The medium that enables this system is money, as it enables the efficient transfer of notational value.

As such, it functions as a contract, in which one side is an asset while the other side is a debt.

The problem is that we individually experience it as quantified hope and security, so we try to save and store it, like it is a commodity. Even Econ 101 tells us it is both medium of exchange and store of value, as well as price setting mechanism.

Yet a medium is dynamic, while a store is static. For example, in the body, blood is the medium and fat is the store. Or for cars, roads are the medium and parking lots are the store.

So in order to store it, equivalent amounts of debt have to be created. Which creates a centripetal effect, as those in the center of society generate a positive feedback loop, of increasing assets, while those on the fringes are drawn into a negative feedback loop, of increasing debt. In ancient times, this was alleviated by periodic debt jubilees, but those holding the reins don’t like that and it now requires societal collapse to push the reset button.

We have to understand that the functionality of money is in its fungibility. We own it like we own the section of road we are using, or the fluids passing through our bodies. When money metastasizes from being a tool, to being a god and the entire function of society is to manufacture money as the highest goal, we are in trouble.

Future generations are not going to support a system drowning them in debt. This wave will recede. Hopefully the next will be a little wiser.

Nature is cyclical, no matter how religiously we cling to our beliefs.