Necessary Adjustment
Beirut collapses. LinkedIn refreshes. A 10 storey building falls in the capital; a 10% workforce reduction falls in your inbox. Lebanon buries 968. Iran counts 1,332 civilians. India queues for gas. The market dips. The app still works. Bridges over the Litani are blown out. Roads are opened by bombs. Roles are closed by AI. And somewhere, a man in a blazer calls all of this necessary adjustment. There, it is “strategy”. Here, it is “innovation”. Everywhere, someone with less control gets a shorter future. The poor lose homes, jobs, fuel, time, and sleep. The rich lose, at worst, a little confidence in the quarter. Then comes the statement. Then the panel discussion. Then the trailer with more fire in it. Then the applause. Amazing species, really: smart enough to build bunker busters, language models, and severance decks; still too primitive to stop feeding ordinary people to every machine we make. If this is progress, why does it keep arriving like bad news for the powerless?