Society’s Mirrors in the Greed Epoch

How Systems Once Meant to Serve Us Became Our Masters

We live in the Greed Epoch—a time when the machinery of society no longer creaks and groans under the burden of human needs, but hums efficiently for the benefit of a select few. This isn’t dystopia with flying cars and neon skylines. It’s much quieter, much subtler. It's cubicles and calendar invites. It’s “optional” Zoom calls at 9 p.m. and lifestyle debt masked as ambition. It’s you, being slowly fed into the grinder, all while thanking it for the opportunity.

Once upon a time, systems were designed to serve society. Institutions were built with public welfare in mind—healthcare, education, governance, the market. They were meant to lift us. And they did. For a while.

But somewhere along the line, the machine stopped being a tool and became a god. It stopped asking what do people need and started asking what do shareholders want. The market was deregulated. Workers were rebranded as "resources." Progress became synonymous with profit. And now, we march—productivity reports in hand—straight into the jaws of burnout, barely questioning why.

In this Greed Epoch, you're not a person. You’re a data point. A consumer profile. A revenue stream. The world isn’t collapsing under scarcity; it’s drowning in abundance—yet access is gated by design. We mass-produce anxiety and loneliness, then sell subscriptions to manage them.

Society holds up mirrors now—not to show us who we are, but to sell us who we’re supposed to become. They say, "Be your best self!" as long as your best self is conveniently monetizable. The algorithm knows you better than your family does, and it’s tired of waiting for you to click ‘Buy Now.’

But what if the mirrors cracked? What if we stopped smiling at our reflections and started asking who built this funhouse in the first place?

The Greed Epoch won’t end with a bang—it will end with a collective shrug unless we learn to see again. To question. To remember that systems are tools, not deities. That capitalism is a method, not a mandate. And that the future isn't something we fall into—it’s something we take back.