Value(s)

There is a totally brilliant new post on the Substack - “The Ultimate Avatar of Balance” titled: The Agency Trap: Why We Must Fail to Survive: Why Competence is the Ultimate Threat to the Biosphere, by Steven J. Newbury, Dec 19, 2025 This is the third-part of a three-part series, the other links are at the bottom. You really should read this article, it doesn’t get better than this, anywhere!

The second section, The Danger of Competence, brilliantly describes the asinine approach of the neo-con government in Canada, under PM Carney to enable “Nation Building Projects” - acceleration, in other words, trying to build a Glorified Version of the Past, the “fruit” of which bear no resemblance to any of our future needs in life or in the coming bankrupt economy.

From Steven’s article:

The Maximum Power Trap: Principle, not Law

In nature, the imperative to maximize power (throughput) only dominates under two specific conditions:

A Steep Entropy Gradient: An abundant, unowned energy source (e.g., a fresh kill, or the Carbon Pulse).

Open Competition: Rival agents fighting to consume that source before others do.

When these conditions are met, nature selects for the “Pioneer Species”—the weed, the rat, the invasive swarm. But when competition is removed—when the system becomes closed or isolated—nature selects for something entirely different: Efficiency, Stability, and Longevity.

The Danger of Competence

This leads to a terrifying conclusion. If we retain a competent, functioning government and financial system as we hit the biophysical wall, they will not choose the “Island Strategy” of simplification. They will choose Acceleration.

Consider the current “solutions” being floated by the serious people in the room:

1. Geoengineering: We will spray sulphates into the stratosphere to dim the sun, buying us 20 more years to burn fossil fuels. This is like adding afterburners to a train that is already shaking the tracks apart.

2. Fusion/Deep Geothermal: If we unlock infinite energy, we won’t use it to heal the ecosystem. We will use it to turn the remaining matter of the planet into “goods” at a rate that makes the 20th century look like the Stone Age.

3. Total War: As I detailed in The Global Landlord, the US has shifted from Global Policeman to Global Landlord. This is not just about tariffs; it is Resource Warfare. The US is prepared to “evict” sovereign nations and seize their physical assets to secure the last scraps of high-quality Exergy.

Two Agencies: Grand and Ground

To understand why failure is our only option, we must distinguish between two types of agency.

The trap I describe above is Grand Agency—the concentrated, command-and-control capacity of states and capital to enact regional or planetary-scale interventions. This is the machinery wired directly to the Maximum Power Principle, seeking leverage over the whole system. Its “solutions” are inherently accelerative.

This must be distinguished from Ground Agency: the distributed, community-scale work of ecological renewal, climate adaptation, and building material independence. This is the Island Strategy. It operates on a different logic—not of controlling the system, but of healing the land, fostering resilience, and practicing the economics of Use-Value now.

Our dilemma is that Grand Agency actively suppresses Ground Agency. The State cannot allow local resilience because it needs local resources to feed the central engine. Therefore, the failure of Grand Agency is not our disaster; it is the prerequisite for our renewal. We need the “Brain” to stop giving orders so the “Body” can start to heal.

The Unlikable Best Case: The Systemic Stroke

If Grand Agency is the trap, then Paralysis is the escape.

The scenario that offers the highest probability of biophysical survival is the one nobody wants to discuss: a chaotic, unmanaged collapse of State and Market capacity before the Singularity is absolute.

We must hope for the train to break down:

- Gridlock: A US Congress so polarised it cannot pass the funding for the Geoengineering shield.

- Incompetence: A UK Civil Service so degraded it cannot implement the new surveillance state.

- Financial Seizure: A global bond market crash that destroys the credit creation mechanism, preventing the financing of new oil exploration.

We are safer in a world where our leaders are too incompetent to execute their “solutions” than in a world where they succeed. We need the brain of the Leviathan to disconnect from the muscles while there is still a biosphere left to inhabit.

Use-Value as Rubble

So, how do we get to the Use-Value Economy I proposed?

We don’t “get” there. We fall there.

Use-Value is not a policy choice. It is the bedrock that remains when the hallucination of Exchange-Value evaporates. When the Eurodollar system seizes up and global trade stops, you can no longer value a forest by its potential timber yield on the futures market. You value it by whether it provides firewood and blocks the wind.

Conclusion: The Only Path Left

The “Gravity of the Situation” is that we are trapped on a train accelerating toward a cliff. The “Agency Trap” is that the engineer, wired to the Maximum Power Principle, can only ever respond by inventing a faster engine.

We cannot stop the train from within the control car. Our only remaining hope is that the engine fails before it plunges us all into the abyss.

Therefore, the paralysis we see in our institutions, the gridlock in our politics—these are not mere failures. They are our only remaining antibodies. We should not fear the collapse of Grand Agency. We must welcome it as a necessary condition for survival.

Pray for the failure of the engine. Work for the renewal of the ground it passes over.

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See also part One and Two of this series:

The Thermodynamic Blind Spot: Why “Peak Oil” Failed, and Why We Are Finally at the Singularity

and

The Gravity of the Situation

And yes, the “Gravity of the Situation” in terms of physical gravity, is that “We Fall There” from this system of extreme financialization onto the physical ground we need for survival and Life. The wobbly legs of debt can no longer support this imaginary extravagance.

I often do not write out one of these posts unless some irritating or very important topic comes up. Most of my subscribers come from where I do the most writing - comments on the posts by others, and on Substack Notes. From these long-form posts, I usually lose one or two subscribers (why did they sign up?). So most days I’m working in those other areas. To see what I’m doing on “Notes,” click here, and click on the Notes button. To see my many comments on YouTube, you can subscribe to these at https://youtube.com/@limitstoprogress

Speaking of music, this brings me to an interesting bit of detective work by James Hargreaves on YouTube titled: “SOLVED: Leonard Cohen’s Secret Chord from ‘Hallelujah’” Mr. Cohen took five years to write this song, composing 500 verses before boiling it down to four. Certainly, you can take 17:17 minutes to watch this short video presentation! Mr. Hargreaves says:

“In the first verse he mentions a ‘secret chord that David played and it pleased the Lord’. Many people have asked... what WAS that chord? I think I might have the answer.”

This is very intriguing, a deep search into the music. Yes, this song is about passionate love and these interpretations might offend the devotedly religious, but I have the feeling that Cohen’s interpretation represented by his song covers the entire gender landscape, but I’ll leave that to each to interpret on their own. See the lyrics for the full four verses here. Regarding line three of verse one: “But you don’t really care for music, do you?” - learn that music is your link to your own soul and all your internal rhythms. Give me a few notes, one, two, three or four and I can immediately generate an improvisation based on that, it’s all just there.

You can play the video of Leonard Cohen at Glastonbury here: https://www.leonardcohen.com/video/hallelujah-live-at-glastonbury-official-lyric-video