While the sovereign states around them are gradually sinking into a new barbarism, Kurds are the only glimmer of hope.

Iran is not part of the developed West, so Zan, Zendegi, Azadi (“Woman, Life, Freedom,” the slogan of the protests) is very different from the MeToo movement in Western countries. Iran’s protests mobilized millions of ordinary women and are directly linked to the struggle of all, men included—there is no anti-masculine tendency, as is often the case with Western feminism. Women and men were together in it; the enemy was religious fundamentalism supported by state terror. Men who participated in Zan, Zendegi, Azadi knew that the struggle for women’s rights was also the struggle for their own freedom. The protesters who were not Kurds also saw that the oppression of Kurds put limits on their own freedom—solidarity with Kurds is the only way towards freedom in Iran. Iranian protests thus realized what Western leftists can only dream about. They avoided the traps of Western middle-class feminism by directly linking the struggle for women’s freedom with the struggle of women and men against ethnic oppression, religious fundamentalism, and state terror.

This could happen. It would be algorithmic systems bypassing democratic institutions entirely. Decision-making, distribution, prioritization all offloaded to markets, engagement metrics, and predictive software.

This is why Trump's crypto dinner with the weird rubbery steak matters more than just dollar amounts - it represents the emergence of alternative power structures (a version of the parallel economy that I wrote about a few months ago). Access is granted through memecoins and vibes! Not competence.

Markets become more important than administration. Automation displaces expertise. Young people prefer influencers over institutions. This is the rise of structures that don’t require institutional competence at all, but instead require vitality and optimization and crowd psychology.

And for better or worse, Trump is the first human-algorithm hybrid president - governing via Truth Social truths, bond market reactions, and direct market signals. A feedback loop in a suit.