The economy is very good at telling “elites” what to work on.
It rewards scale, leverage, and attention extraction.
It shovels our smartest people into optimizing ads, trading milliseconds, farming engagement, manufacturing status, and building systems whose main output is more money for people who already have it.
Look at where prestige flows:
• speculative finance
• growth-at-all-costs startups
• influence arbitrage
• attention monetization
• abstract optimization games
• empire-building inside digital ecosystems
Then look at the roles that actually compound the future:
• teachers
• coaches
• parents
• youth leaders
• builders of local institutions
• public servants
• moral entrepreneurs
• community organizers
• stewards, not extractors
We’ve inverted the value system.
The people shaping children are underpaid.
The people shaping culture are under-incentivized.
The people shaping trust are invisible.
The people shaping attention are billionaires.
And then we ask why society feels hollow.
We talk about leadership—but who exactly are we elevating?
When I look at the elites we’re producing, I don’t see greatness.
I see people fragmenting attention, designing addiction loops, chasing marginal leverage, and optimizing systems that drain meaning from the world faster than they create it.
I don’t see builders of civilization.
I see maximizers.
And maximization, without meaning, rots everything it touches.
We’re not suffering from a lack of intelligence.
We’re suffering from a crisis of what intelligence is for.
We trained a generation to win games that don’t matter:
• status without substance
• money without mission
• power without duty
• truth without courage
• scale without soul
Then we’re confused why trust is gone.
Low-trust societies don’t come from ignorance.
They come from incentive systems that reward betrayal, short-termism, and extraction.
Trust dies when:
• leaders don’t sacrifice
• institutions don’t deserve belief
• success feels disconnected from contribution
• wealth feels unearned
• influence feels manipulative
• power feels unaccountable
People need heroes.
Not influencers.
Not founders with god-complexes.
Not bloodless spreadsheet aristocracies.
Heroes.
People who carry weight.
People who build things that outlast them.
People who hold lines when it costs them something.
People who create safety, not just alpha.
People who make the future feel worth participating in.
A civilization is the sum of the games it teaches its children to play.
Right now, we’re teaching:
• extract instead of build
• perform instead of become
• optimize instead of steward
• win attention instead of earn trust
• grow faster instead of grow better
• look powerful instead of be responsible
And we’re shocked by the results.
The next era will not be won by smarter machines.
It will be won by humans who choose better games.
Games where:
• integrity is rewarded
• contribution compounds
• leadership costs something
• reputation is earned slowly
• trust is sacred
• power is accountable
• growth serves life, not the other way around
If we want a high-trust future, we have to elevate the people who deserve it.
Teachers over traders.
Builders over speculators.
Parents over performers.
Leaders over influencers.
Character over cleverness.
Not because it’s nostalgic.
Because it’s the only thing that actually works.
Civilizations collapse when elites stop building and start extracting.
Civilizations rise when the highest status belongs to those who carry the most weight.
It’s time to choose meaningful games.
Because the ones we’ve been playing are eating us alive.