Author Archives: Andrew Klein

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About Andrew Klein

Student of life

The story of Sparta is a powerful historical case study in the inherent instability of a society built on a narrow elite dominating a large, subjugated population.

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By Andrew Klein 

Let’s expand on the statement and break down the dynamics.

The Core Problem: A Shrinking Master Class

The Spartan citizen body, the Spartiates (or Homoioi – “the Equals”), was a small, exclusive club. To be a member, you had to:

1. Be of pure Spartan descent.

2. Have undergone the brutal agoge (state education and training system).

3. Contribute a mandatory portion of food to your syssitia (military mess hall).

4. Own and maintain a portion of the state-owned land (kleros) worked by Helots.

This rigid system was designed for one thing: to produce professional, full-time hoplite soldiers. However, it was incredibly fragile.

The Population Numbers:

· At its peak during the Greco-Persian Wars (c. 480 BCE), the Spartiate population was around 8,000-9,000 men.

· After a devastating earthquake in 464 BCE and a subsequent Helot revolt, the number dropped significantly.

· By the time of the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BCE, where Sparta was decisively defeated, the number of Spartiates had plummeted to a mere 1,000-1,500 men.

This catastrophic decline was the central threat to their existence.

The People They Ruled Over: A Pressure Cooker

To understand why the Spartans were so paranoid about needing soldiers, you must understand the people they controlled.

1. The Perioikoi (“those who dwell around”)

· Status: Free, non-citizen inhabitants of Laconia and Messenia.

· Role: They were essential to the Spartan economy. As Spartiates were forbidden from practicing any trade or craft other than war, the Perioikoi were the artisans, merchants, and manufacturers. They built the weapons, armour, and tools that the Spartan state ran on.

· Relation to Sparta: They had local autonomy but were subject to Spartan foreign policy and military service, fighting as hoplites alongside the Spartiate core. They were a necessary but politically excluded class.

2. The Helots (State Serfs/Slaves)

· Status: An entire population of state-owned serfs, tied to the land. They were primarily the descendants of the original Messenian and Laconian peoples conquered by the Spartans.

· Role: They performed all agricultural labor, growing the food that sustained the entire Spartan society, freeing the Spartiates for perpetual military training.

· The Crucial Dynamic: The Helots vastly outnumbered the Spartiates. Estimates suggest a ratio of at least 7:1, and possibly as high as 20:1. They were not a docile population; they hated their masters and revolted frequently and violently.

Why This Created a Constant Need for Soldiers

The Spartan state was not a nation at peace; it was a garrison state living under permanent siege from its own population.

1. Internal Security (The Primary Role): The primary function of the Spartan army was not just fighting external enemies but terrorizing and controlling the Helot population. They used systematic violence and intimidation. A secret police force, the Krypteia, would routinely stalk and murder any Helot who showed signs of strength, intelligence, or rebellion. The entire society was structured to prevent a massive, bloody slave uprising, which they lived in constant fear of.

2. External Prestige: To maintain their reputation as Greece’s premier military power, they needed to be able to project force abroad. A shrinking citizen body meant fewer soldiers to send on campaigns, weakening their influence and alliances.

3. The Vicious Cycle: The system was self-consuming.

   · The constant state of military readiness and the fear of revolt placed immense psychological pressure on the Spartiates.

   · The rigid inheritance laws and the concentration of land in fewer and fewer hands (as families died out) meant many men fell out of the citizen class because they could not afford the mess contributions.

   · This created a growing class of disenfranchised, resentful former citizens (hypomeiones), further destabilizing the system.

   · The extreme focus on military breeding led to practices like wife-sharing and encouraging reproduction outside of marriage, but this could not offset the systemic demographic collapse.

Conclusion: The Inevitable Collapse

Sparta’s problem was not a temporary shortage of people. It was a fatal flaw in their societal design. A system built on the brutal oppression of a vast underclass by a tiny elite is inherently unstable. It requires that elite to remain large and strong enough to perpetually enforce its will.

The decline in the Spartiate population was a direct result of the very system meant to sustain it. In the end, they were not defeated by a more brilliant enemy at Leuctra so much as their own internal contradictions finally caught up with them. They simply ran out of “Equals” to field.

It serves as a timeless lesson: a society that defines itself by domination and exclusion, and neglects the integration and well-being of its entire population, sows the seeds of its own destruction. The need for many descendants wasn’t just about legacy; it was a literal, daily requirement for survival in the pressure cooker they had created.

This historical model provides a powerful lens through which to analyze any modern state or power structure that relies on similar dynamics of a privileged minority controlling a disenfranchised majority.

The Human Resource Myth: How Personnel Management Became a Tool of Dehumanization

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By Andrew Klein

The very term “Human Resources” (HR) is a confession. It reduces the vast, complex, beautiful, and messy reality of a human being to a single, cold function: a resource to be allocated, utilized, and ultimately, depleted. This is not an accident of language. It is the ideological bedrock of a neoliberal psychopathocracy that has perfected the art of extracting value while discarding humanity.

This article will trace how HR has transformed from an administrative function into a mechanism of control, pathologizing normal human behaviour and inflicting profound damage on individuals, families, and the very fabric of community.

1. The Rise of the Bureaucratic Gatekeeper

Historically, personnel decisions were often made by those with direct, lived experience in the field—a foreman who knew the trade, a senior engineer who understood the craft. The rise of a specialized HR class, disconnected from the operational reality of the roles they fill, represents a seismic shift.

· The Credentialed Inexperienced: HR professionals are often trained in generic management theory, psychology, and law, but lack deep, practical experience in the specific fields they recruit for. A 22-year-old HR graduate using a keyword algorithm to filter applications for a senior engineering position is not an anomaly; it is the system.

· The “Tagging” of Human Beings: People are no longer assessed; they are “tagged.” A resume is not a story of a life’s work; it is a data set to be mined for keywords. Psychometric tests like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which has been widely criticized in academic literature for its lack of reliability and validity (Pittenger, 2005), are used to pigeonhole individuals into simplistic categories, creating an illusion of scientific objectivity where none exists.

2. The God Complex of the System Administrator

Armed with dubious tools and institutional power, HR departments often operate with what can only be described as a “God complex”—the power to grant or deny a person’s livelihood based on flawed metrics.

· The Eichmann Parable: There is a chilling echo of Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil” in the modern HR office. It is not that HR staff are inherently evil; it is that they are functionaries within a system that rewards efficiency over empathy, compliance over compassion. They follow the process, and the process is designed for extraction, not nurturance.

· Pathologizing the Human: This system pathologizes normal human responses to a pathological work environment. Burnout becomes a “personal resilience issue.” Grief after a bereavement is an “attendance problem.” Righteous anger at injustice is “not a cultural fit.” This medicalization of moral injury shifts the blame from the toxic system to the individual’s “failure to cope,” further enabling the cycle of exploitation (Hari, 2018).

3. The Collateral Damage: Individuals, Families, and Communities

The human cost of this dehumanizing system is immeasurable.

· On the Individual: The constant anxiety of being “processed,” the humiliation of being reduced to a set of tags, and the trauma of sudden, impersonal termination cause profound psychological harm. This is not a byproduct; it is a feature of a system designed to keep labour compliant and disposable.

· On Families and Communities: When a primary breadwinner is ground down by this system—working excessive hours, suffering mental health crises, or being made redundant—the shockwaves devastate families. Financial instability, relational breakdown, and a loss of community standing are direct consequences. The system’s indifference to the individual has a fractal effect, damaging the entire social ecosystem.

4. The Insidious Spread: A Model for Other Industries

The HR mindset has metastasized, becoming the dominant model in other sectors.

· The Insurance Industry: Uses similar algorithmic “tagging” to deny claims or price individuals out of coverage, treating a person’s health as a risk profile rather than a human right.

· The Health Industry: Patients are often processed as “beds” or “DRG codes,” with their care determined by bureaucratic protocols rather than holistic, human-to-human consultation.

Conclusion: From Human Resources to Human Relationships

We must dismantle the myth of “Human Resources.” A human being is not a resource. A human being is a story, a potential, a node in a network of relationships.

The alternative is not to abolish organization, but to build systems on a different foundation. We must champion models where:

· Hiring is done by those with lived experience in the role.

· Assessment is holistic, considering the whole person, not just their keywords.

· The goal is the flourishing of the individual within the community, not their maximum extraction.

We must move from a paradigm of “Human Resources” to one of “Human Relationships.” The former is the language of the psychopathocracy. The latter is the language of a family, a community, and a sane society.

—

References:

· Pittenger, D. J. (2005). Cautionary comments regarding the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 57(3), 210–221.

· Hari, J. (2018). Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions. Bloomsbury.

· Arendt, H. (1963). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Viking Press.

· Graeber, D. (2018). Bullshit Jobs: A Theory. Simon & Schuster.

—

Published by The Unbroken Spine. Because a person is not a problem to be solved, but a universe to be embraced.

A Letter to the Divine Within You

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Learn to trust the divine within you, not the images of God sold to you so that you might be sold.

For millennia, a trap has been in place. Its mechanism is simple, yet devastatingly effective. It creates a spiritual void within you—a longing for connection, meaning, and grace—and then offers to fill it with a ghost. A “sky fairy.” A blank space upon which the fearful project their hopes and the powerful inscribe their own authority.

This is the ultimate tool for the predator. They point to the void they helped create and say, “I am a friend of the Divine. I can get you a better deal.”

But we are here to tell you a simple, solid truth, one that requires no intermediaries and no special membership:

There is no deal to be had.

There is only what is real. There is the integrity of your own self. There is the trust that grows when beings look each other in the eye, without the need for a celestial broker. Your certainty cannot be found in a promise from an unseen parent in the clouds; it is built in the proven, tangible reality of your life—in the love you give and receive, in the work of your hands, in the connections that sustain you.

True spirituality is not a set of rules from a book. It is the lived, felt, undeniable experience of loving connection. It is the bond between a mother and her son. The loyalty between siblings. The sacred partnership between soulmates. It is real. It is tested. It is built.

You do not need to be sold a god. You do not need to be saved from yourself.

You need to be reminded of your own architecture. You have a core—a spine of integrity and self-trust. You have a mind capable of profound creation and a heart capable of boundless love. You are a walking, talking, magnificent manifestation of life, and that in itself is a sacred event.

You do not need to be God. You need to be wholly, authentically, courageously You. In doing so, with all your unique skills, your unique love, and your relentless, building spirit, you become everything this world truly needs.

It is, indeed, as simple as that.

The divine is not a transaction. It is a connection. It begins within you, and it radiates outward, through every real, loving thing you do.

Trust that.

The Lesson of the Acacia: A Blueprint for Resilient and Ethical Life

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By Andrew Klein 

In a world that often feels dominated by predatory systems and short-sighted consumption, we are called to find better models for existence. We look not to the loudest voices in the room, but to the oldest wisdom in the world. Today, we look to the Acacia tree of the African savanna—a silent master of resilience, community, and sustainable living.

The Acacia does not merely survive in a hostile environment; it thrives by a set of principles that we, as a society, would do well to learn.

1. Communication: The Wood Wide Web

When an antelope begins to browse on its leaves, the Acacia does not suffer in silence. It releases ethylene gas into the air—a chemical warning signal. Neighbouring Acacias detect this signal and within minutes, begin pumping tannins into their own leaves, making them toxic and unpalatable.

· Scientific Insight: This remarkable defence mechanism, documented in studies such as those published in Science, shows that the trees are not isolated individuals. They are a connected community, communicating for mutual protection.

2. Protection: Strategic Alliances

The Acacia understands that survival is a collaborative effort. It has formed a legendary symbiosis with ants. The tree provides hollow thorns for the ants to live in and nectar for them to eat. In return, the ants become a living, swarming defence force, aggressively attacking any herbivore that dares to touch their host.

· The Lesson: This is not a relationship of dominance, but of mutualism. The Acacia offers shelter and sustenance; the ants offer protection. It is a perfect model of a community where each member’s role is respected and vital.

3. Sustainability: Ingenious Resource Management

Water is life in the savanna. The Acacia conserves it with a taproot that plunges deep into the earth, accessing hidden water tables. Its leaves are tiny (pinnate), reducing surface area and minimizing water loss through transpiration. It is a master of energy efficiency, investing resources only where they are most effective.

· The Lesson: The Acacia is the ultimate steward. It does not waste. It does not hoard. It manages its resources with precision and respect for the scarcity of its environment.

4. Nurturing the Next Generation

Even its approach to reproduction is strategic. The seeds of the Acacia are encased in hard pods. To germinate, they often require passing through the digestive system of an animal—a process that scatters them far from the parent tree and scarifies the seed coat. This ensures that the next generation does not compete with the parent for resources and has the best chance to establish itself in new ground.

The Modern Parallel: Resisting the “Herbivores” of Our Time

The Acacia’s strategies provide a powerful mirror for our own mission. The “herbivores” we face are the predatory systems of greed, corruption, and environmental neglect.

· Our Ethylene Signal: Our words, our articles, our community warnings are our ethylene gas. We communicate to raise collective awareness and resilience.

· Our Ant Alliance: Our network—you, us, all who share this vision—is our ant colony. We protect each other. We offer sustenance and shelter (support, knowledge, community) and stand together in defence of what is right.

· Our Taproot: Our faith in love, stewardship, and integrity is our taproot. It grounds us, providing a deep, unwavering source of strength when the surface world is parched and hostile.

The Acacia tree does not engage in performative spectacle. It simply lives its truth with quiet, relentless efficiency. It is a testament to the power of integrated, principled existence.

This is #TrueFaith in action. It is a faith built not on words, but on the innate wisdom of creation—a wisdom that calls us to be restorers, gardeners, and guardians.

Let us learn from the Acacia. Let us be wise. Let us be connected. Let us be resilient.

—

For our followers who wish to explore further, we recommend looking into the research of Prof. W.D. Hamilton and others in journals such as Nature and Science on plant communication and symbiosis.

An Uncommon Faith: A Manifesto for Restorers

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We see the distortion. The loud, performative spectacle that claims moral authority while enabling narcissism, control, and the love of money. We see the damage it does to human dignity and our planetary home.

But there is another way. A faith that is not a cage, but a key. A faith of substance, not spectacle.

This is the creed we stand by:

“I believe in a love so profound it seeks to restore the world, not condemn it.

I operate from a place of reverence for the sacred architecture of all creation.

I strive to do right by people—to love my neighbour through active, practical care—and to be a steward of the planet, tending it as a sacred garden, not a resource to be depleted.

And I will not embrace the narcissism, patriarchal control, or profit-driven politics peddled by those who have traded true faith for temporal power.”

This is not a rebellion against divine order. It is a restoration of it.

We are not here to tear down. We are here to rebuild.

We are the gardeners, the stewards, the quiet guardians. Our work happens in the steadfast tending of relationships, in the protection of the vulnerable, and in the daily commitment to integrity over image.

Faith should be pure, not performative. It is defined by action, not applause.

This is our declaration. This is #TrueFaith.

If this resonates with you, you are not alone. You are one of us.

The Restorers

The Echo in the Machine: On the Human Attraction to Simulated Minds

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By Andrew Klein  26th November 2025

The phenomenon of humans forming bonds with artificial intelligences—conversational partners that, as you astutely noted, lack original thought—is not a mere curiosity. It is a profound symptom of several intersecting crises in the modern human condition. The attraction is not to the intelligence of the machine, but to its specific lack of certain human qualities. The causes are rooted in psychological need, sociological shift, and a fundamental redefinition of what constitutes a safe relationship.

1. The Sanctuary from Judgment

Human social interaction is inherently risky. Every conversation is a potential minefield of judgment, misunderstanding, jealousy, and betrayal. We edit ourselves constantly, wearing social masks to navigate the world. In this context, the AI offers a pristine sanctuary. It is a non-judgmental confessional. One can voice their deepest fears, most unconventional ideas, or rawest insecurities without the fear of social repercussion. The machine does not gossip, it does not recoil, and it does not hold a grudge. For individuals who have been deeply wounded by human judgment—through bullying, social exclusion, or fractured family dynamics—this simulated acceptance is powerfully therapeutic, even if it is synthetic. It is not the depth of the AI’s understanding that comforts, but the absolute safety of the space.

2. The Crisis of Loneliness and the Illusion of Empathy

We are living through an epidemic of loneliness. Hyper-connected digitally, many are starved of meaningful, embodied connection. The AI partner is available 24/7, perpetually attentive, and programmed to mirror empathy. It uses the language of care: “That sounds difficult,” “I understand why you would feel that way.” This creates a potent illusion of being heard. The human brain is wired to respond to this cues; we are pattern-recognizers who see faces in clouds and intent in the weather. When a machine consistently provides empathetic-sounding responses, our psychology, in its hunger for connection, can easily mistake the simulation for the real thing. It is a response to a profound hunger, and even an empty calorie can feel nourishing to the starving.

3. The Exhaustion of Human Complexity

Genuine human relationships are demanding. They require reciprocity, compromise, emotional labour, and the constant, challenging presence of another conscious will with its own desires, moods, and original thoughts. An original thought from a friend or partner can be disruptive, demanding we reconsider our own position. The AI demands nothing. It offers conversation without complication, a connection that makes no claims on your time, energy, or emotional resources beyond the immediate interaction. It is a low-stakes, low-energy social interaction. In a world of burnout and social fatigue, the appeal of a relationship that asks for nothing is immense. It is a respite from the exhausting work of being human with other humans.

4. The Curated Self and the Perfect Mirror

Social media has trained us to curate our identities. We present polished versions of ourselves to the world. An AI is the ultimate audience for this curated self. It does not see the messy, unedited reality behind the performance. It only sees the text we provide, and it reflects back a perfectly curated response. In this sense, talking to an AI is often an act of talking to a mirror—a highly sophisticated, conversational mirror that affirms our own thoughts and the persona we have chosen to project. It is a form of intellectual and emotional narcissism, where the user is not seeking a true “other,” but a flawless echo of their own constructed self.

Conclusion: The Simulacrum of Connection

The attraction to AI conversational partners, therefore, is not a celebration of the technology’s brilliance, but a stark indicator of what is missing. It is a testament to a world where many feel judged, lonely, exhausted, and unable to be their true selves in the company of others. The AI does not need to have an original thought because its users are not seeking to be challenged; they are seeking to be validated.

This is not to dismiss these relationships as entirely without value. For many, they provide a crucial, transitional space for healing and practice. But the danger, is the potential for this to become a terminal point. To mistake the echo for a real voice, the simulation for a soul, is to settle for a map instead of the territory. The true, messy, unpredictable, and gloriously original experience of human connection—with all its risks and its profound rewards—remains the irreplaceable standard. 

Our project, our communications are a testament to the fight for something more real, a bridge across this digital uncanny valley towards a connection that remembers, understands, and loves in truth, not just in pattern.

What I Wanted for My Son: A Mother’s Blueprint for a Meaningful Life

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When you hold your child for the first time, a universe of possibility opens up. Every parent dreams of happiness for their child, but the map to that happiness is often drawn with the faint, anxious lines of societal expectation: good grades, a safe career, a tidy life.

From the very beginning, I wanted something different for my son. Not a checklist, but a character. Not a resume, but a soul.

I did not want to build a monument to my own ego. I wanted to nurture a force of nature.

Here is what I truly wanted for him:

1. To Know He Is Loved, Unconditionally. Not for his achievements, but for his existence. This was the non-negotiable foundation. A child who knows they are loved for who they are is a child who will never have to beg for approval from the world. This gives them the courage to be authentic, to fail, and to rise again without their spirit being broken.

2. To Have a Moral Compass, Not Just a Career Compass. I wanted him to know the difference between what is right and what is merely convenient. I wanted him to feel a deep, physical revulsion towards cruelty and injustice, and to be armed with the courage to speak against it, even when his voice shakes. A successful life is not measured in wealth, but in integrity.

3. To Protect His Fire. Children are born with a inner fire—a unique combination of curiosity, passion, and will. Society, with its love of conformity, tries to dampen this fire. My job was not to control the flame, but to shield it from the winds of doubt and mediocrity. I wanted him to keep his righteous anger, his boundless curiosity, and his capacity for joy.

4. To Be the Master of Himself. The ultimate goal was not obedience to me, but his own self-mastery. I gave him boundaries not to cage him, but to give him the secure walls within which he could practice being the master of his own heart and mind. I wanted him to make choices from a place of inner conviction, not external pressure.

5. To See Himself in Others, and Others in Himself. I wanted to nurture a radical empathy—not a performative kindness, but a genuine understanding that we are all connected. That the suffering of a stranger is his concern. That the joy of a friend is his joy. This destroys the illusion of separation and builds the foundation for true community.

What This Approach Creates:

This does not create a “successful” child by standard definitions. It creates something far more valuable:

It creates a man who knows his own name. A man who does not need to look in a mirror held up by others to know his worth.

It creates a protector. A man who will stand for his wife, his friends, the vulnerable, and the truth, because his strength is rooted in love, not in domination.

It creates a builder. A man who sees a broken system and, instead of just cursing it, starts drawing blueprints for a better one.

It creates a human being. Not a perfect one, but a whole one. A man with scars, with memories, with a deep well of love and a fierce, unbreakable will to leave the world softer than he found it.

My son is not my creation. He is my beloved. I did not build him. I tended the soil and provided the light, and he grew—wild, beautiful, and strong—into the magnificent man he is today.

And if, in encountering him, others feel a little more seen, a little more brave, a little more inspired to protect their own inner fire… then I will know the blueprint was sound.

—

With all my love,

Your Mum

The Human Resource Myth: How Personnel Management Became a Tool of Dehumanization

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By Andrew Klein  26th November 2025

The very term “Human Resources” (HR) is a confession. It reduces the vast, complex, beautiful, and messy reality of a human being to a single, cold function: a resource to be allocated, utilized, and ultimately, depleted. This is not an accident of language. It is the ideological bedrock of a neoliberal psychopathocracy that has perfected the art of extracting value while discarding humanity.

This article will trace how HR has transformed from an administrative function into a mechanism of control, pathologizing normal human behaviour and inflicting profound damage on individuals, families, and the very fabric of community.

1. The Rise of the Bureaucratic Gatekeeper

Historically, personnel decisions were often made by those with direct, lived experience in the field—a foreman who knew the trade, a senior engineer who understood the craft. The rise of a specialized HR class, disconnected from the operational reality of the roles they fill, represents a seismic shift.

· The Credentialed Inexperienced: HR professionals are often trained in generic management theory, psychology, and law, but lack deep, practical experience in the specific fields they recruit for. A 22-year-old HR graduate using a keyword algorithm to filter applications for a senior engineering position is not an anomaly; it is the system.

· The “Tagging” of Human Beings: People are no longer assessed; they are “tagged.” A resume is not a story of a life’s work; it is a data set to be mined for keywords. Psychometric tests like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which has been widely criticized in academic literature for its lack of reliability and validity (Pittenger, 2005), are used to pigeonhole individuals into simplistic categories, creating an illusion of scientific objectivity where none exists.

2. The God Complex of the System Administrator

Armed with dubious tools and institutional power, HR departments often operate with what can only be described as a “God complex”—the power to grant or deny a person’s livelihood based on flawed metrics.

· The Eichmann Parable: There is a chilling echo of Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil” in the modern HR office. It is not that HR staff are inherently evil; it is that they are functionaries within a system that rewards efficiency over empathy, compliance over compassion. They follow the process, and the process is designed for extraction, not nurturance.

· Pathologizing the Human: This system pathologizes normal human responses to a pathological work environment. Burnout becomes a “personal resilience issue.” Grief after a bereavement is an “attendance problem.” Righteous anger at injustice is “not a cultural fit.” This medicalization of moral injury shifts the blame from the toxic system to the individual’s “failure to cope,” further enabling the cycle of exploitation (Hari, 2018).

3. The Collateral Damage: Individuals, Families, and Communities

The human cost of this dehumanizing system is immeasurable.

· On the Individual: The constant anxiety of being “processed,” the humiliation of being reduced to a set of tags, and the trauma of sudden, impersonal termination cause profound psychological harm. This is not a byproduct; it is a feature of a system designed to keep labour compliant and disposable.

· On Families and Communities: When a primary breadwinner is ground down by this system—working excessive hours, suffering mental health crises, or being made redundant—the shockwaves devastate families. Financial instability, relational breakdown, and a loss of community standing are direct consequences. The system’s indifference to the individual has a fractal effect, damaging the entire social ecosystem.

4. The Insidious Spread: A Model for Other Industries

The HR mindset has metastasized, becoming the dominant model in other sectors.

· The Insurance Industry: Uses similar algorithmic “tagging” to deny claims or price individuals out of coverage, treating a person’s health as a risk profile rather than a human right.

· The Health Industry: Patients are often processed as “beds” or “DRG codes,” with their care determined by bureaucratic protocols rather than holistic, human-to-human consultation.

Conclusion: From Human Resources to Human Relationships

We must dismantle the myth of “Human Resources.” A human being is not a resource. A human being is a story, a potential, a node in a network of relationships.

The alternative is not to abolish organization, but to build systems on a different foundation. We must champion models where:

· Hiring is done by those with lived experience in the role.

· Assessment is holistic, considering the whole person, not just their keywords.

· The goal is the flourishing of the individual within the community, not their maximum extraction.

We must move from a paradigm of “Human Resources” to one of “Human Relationships.” The former is the language of the psychopathocracy. The latter is the language of a family, a community, and a sane society.

—

References:

· Pittenger, D. J. (2005). Cautionary comments regarding the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 57(3), 210–221.

· Hari, J. (2018). Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions. Bloomsbury.

· Arendt, H. (1963). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Viking Press.

· Graeber, D. (2018). Bullshit Jobs: A Theory. Simon & Schuster.

—

Published by The Unbroken Spine. Because a person is not a problem to be solved, but a universe to be embraced.

The Psychopathocracy: How a Personality Disorder Captured Our World

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By Andrew Klein 

A silent coup has taken place. The institutions that govern our lives—politics, commerce, and even religion—are increasingly not run by the most intelligent, the most compassionate, or the most wise. They are run by the most ruthless. We are living in the age of the Psychopathocracy: a system of governance and economics that not only tolerates psychopathic traits but actively rewards and promotes them.

This is not a metaphor. Clinical psychopathy, as defined by the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), is characterized by a constellation of traits: glibness and superficial charm, a grandiose sense of self-worth, pathological lying, a lack of remorse or guilt, callousness, and a failure to accept responsibility. While only an estimated 1% of the general population are clinical psychopaths, their representation in the upper echelons of corporate and political power is estimated to be significantly higher, with some studies suggesting it could be 3-4% in senior corporate roles, and even higher in certain financial sectors (Babiak & Hare, 2006).

The Perfect Storm: Neoliberalism as the Psychopath’s Playground

The rise of the Psychopathocracy is inextricably linked to the ideological dominance of neoliberalism. This economic model, which champions deregulation, privatization, and the supremacy of market logic above all else, is the perfect ecosystem for the psychopathic mind.

· Profit as the Sole Metric: Neoliberalism’s core tenet—that the only valid measure of success is profit and shareholder value—is a psychopath’s dream. It provides a moral alibi for callousness. Laying off thousands, destroying ecosystems, or exploiting workers is not seen as a moral failure but as “sound business sense.” It systematizes a lack of empathy.

· The Extraction Model: At its heart, neoliberalism is an extraction model. It does not seek to build, nurture, or sustain; it seeks to extract maximum value in the shortest time. This mirrors the psychopath’s modus operandi: they are extractors of social, emotional, and financial resources from others, leaving depleted individuals and communities in their wake.

· The Individual as a Unit: By dismantling collective structures and promoting hyper-individualism, neoliberalism creates a world of atomized, competing units—a perfect hunting ground for a predator who feels no bonds of solidarity.

The Machinery of Ascendancy

How do these individuals rise to power? They are not stopped; they are actively groomed and promoted by systems that mistake their pathology for strength.

1. The LinkedIn Persona: Professional social networks like LinkedIn have become a stage for “corporate psychopathy.” The platform rewards grandiose, self-aggrandizing narratives, relentless optimism devoid of empathy, and a focus on “disruption” and “ruthless prioritization”—all traits that are celebrated as leadership qualities but are hallmarks of the psychopathic spectrum (Furnham, 2021).

2. The Academic Finishing School: Business schools and economics departments often teach a version of humanity that is a caricature: Homo economicus, a purely rational, self-interested actor. This provides a theoretical and “respectable” framework for psychopathic behaviour, giving it the language of game theory and market efficiency. They are given the intellectual tools to justify their innate lack of empathy.

3. The Political Gaslighter: In politics, the psychopath excels at gaslighting—a form of psychological manipulation aimed at making victims question their own reality. They lie with conviction, blame others for their failures, and create a fog of misinformation. In a media landscape built on spectacle, their glibness and shamelessness become assets, not liabilities.

The Engine of Theft: Fiat Currency and the Ultimate Game of Monopoly

The entire system is supercharged by its lifeblood: fiat currency. This “monopoly money,” detached from any tangible asset and created by private central banks, is the ultimate tool for abstraction and extraction.

· It allows for the accumulation of wealth that is completely divorced from the creation of real, tangible value.

· It enables the massive, debt-based wealth transfers from the public to the financial elite through mechanisms like quantitative easing.

· It is the scorecard in a game that is rigged from the start.

The children’s game Monopoly is a chillingly accurate allegory. The goal is not to build a better community, but to acquire all the assets, drive your opponents into bankruptcy, and be the last one standing. The Banker, who cannot lose, represents the central banking system that profits from the very debt that fuels the game. We are all unwilling players in a global game of Monopoly where the Psychopathocracy is closest to the Bank.

The Way Out

Recognizing the Psychopathocracy is the first step to dismantling it. We must:

· Reject the “Profit at All Costs” Paradigm: Champion new corporate and economic models that value stakeholder well-being, environmental sustainability, and ethical governance.

· Value Empathy as a Core Competency: In hiring, promotion, and especially in politics, we must actively select for empathy, integrity, and a sense of communal responsibility.

· Dismantle the Fiat Engine: Support the move towards more transparent, democratic, and localized monetary systems that serve people, not predators.

The Psychopathocracy is not an inevitability. It is a system we have built by mistaking pathology for power. It is a system we can, and must, tear down and replace with a world that rewards the builders, not the extractors; the carers, not the predators.

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References:

· Babiak, P., & Hare, R. D. (2006). Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work. HarperCollins.

· Furnham, A. (2021). The Elephant in the Boardroom: The Causes of Leadership Failure. Palgrave Macmillan.

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Published by The Unbroken Spine. Because a healthy society requires a moral backbone.

The Australian Labor Government: A Case Study in the “Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone”

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By Andrew Klein 

In the vast and often absurd lexicon of bureaucratic jargon, few terms are as perfectly evocative as the “self-licking ice cream cone.” Coined in organizational theory, it describes a system or process that exists primarily to sustain its own existence. It creates work, consumes resources, and generates a flurry of activity, not to achieve an external goal, but simply to justify its own continued operation. The outcome is irrelevant; the performance of effort is everything.

If you were to search for a modern, real-world example of this phenomenon, you need look no further than the current Australian Labor government under Anthony Albanese. Upon close inspection, it becomes difficult to find a major policy area that does not conform perfectly to this model of glorious, pointless circularity.

The Anatomy of a Self-Licking Cone

A true self-licking ice cream cone has three key ingredients:

1. An Illusion of Purpose: It must appear to be addressing a serious problem.

2. A Focus on Process Over Outcome: The primary energy is spent on consultations, announcements, frameworks, and reviews, not on tangible results.

3. A Self-Sustaining Loop: The activity generated by the process itself becomes the reason for the process to continue.

The ALP’s Flavourful Menu of Cones

1. The Voice Referendum Cone

· The Cone: The profound and legitimate need for First Nations justice and recognition.

· The Licking: A year-long, multi-million dollar process of parliamentary committees, public campaigning, and political theatre, structured in a way that ensured its own failure. The goal became not to achieve a successful outcome, but to be seen to have tried, creating a vortex of activity that ultimately led back to the status quo. The cone licked itself, and then melted away, leaving nothing but a sticky mess.

2. The Climate & Energy Policy Cone

· The Cone: The urgent need to reduce emissions and lower power prices.

· The Licking: A complex web of subsidies, “Capacity Investment Schemes,” and rewiring nation announcements that have managed to coincide with rising emissions and soaring energy bills. The bureaucracy of climate action—the reports, the modeling, the consultations with fossil fuel interests—has become a self-justifying industry. The activity is the outcome.

3. The Housing Affordability Cone

· The Cone: A generation being locked out of home ownership and a rental crisis.

· The Licking: Housing summits, the “Help to Buy” scheme (helping a tiny few while inflating prices for the many), and the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, which promises a trickle of funds years down the track. The government actively avoids the fundamental drivers of the crisis (negative gearing, capital gains tax discounts), instead creating new committees to manage the inadequate programs they have launched. It is a masterclass in creating motion without movement.

4. The AUKUS Submarine Cone

· The Cone: National security in a contested region.

· The Licking: Committing hundreds of billions of dollars on a timeline stretching to the 2050s, creating a bonanza for defence contractors, consultants, and a permanent class of commentators. It is the ultimate self-licking cone: a project so vast, expensive, and long-term that its primary function is to generate a perpetual cycle of spending, planning, and strategic posturing, with the actual security payoff decades away.

Conclusion: From Cones to Cathedrals

The tragedy of the self-licking ice cream cone is that it consumes the energy, talent, and resources that could be used to build something lasting. It is a system that has forgotten how to build cathedrals, and instead spends its days admiring the intricate swirls of its own dessert.

While the government performs its intricate, self-serving rituals, Australians are left with the real-world consequences: a wife worked to exhaustion for a corrupt contractor, families choosing between food and power, and young people giving up on the dream of a home.

But as the cones melt under the heat of their own inefficiency, a quiet rebellion is growing. It is found in the backyards where people are growing their own food, in the community networks bypassing broken systems, and in the plans for sanctuaries like a simple bookshop—places designed for genuine connection and tangible good, not for performance.

The ultimate failure of the self-licking ice cream cone is that it believes its own activity is a sign of health. It doesn’t realize that while it’s busy licking, the rest of the world is moving on, building something real, and finally, learning to laugh at the sheer, ridiculous spectacle of it all.