The World's Actually Falling Apart and Nobody's Even Pretending It Isn't Anymore

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The oil market just spiked past $118 a barrel on the back of an “extended” Iran blockade. That’s the kind of number that historically precedes recessions, wars, or both. Meanwhile, the former FBI director is facing charges over a seashell Instagram post. A Canadian mass shooting has families suing OpenAI. Someone tried to assassinate the U.S. president at a press dinner. And China’s quietly making moves on Taiwan through Paraguay.

This isn’t chaos. This is the new normal. And the reason nobody’s shocked anymore is that we’ve collectively stopped expecting the machinery to work.

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When the Safeguards Stop Mattering

Let’s start with what’s actually alarming here, stripped of diplomatic language.

The Comey situation is the canary in the coal mine. A former FBI director—a man who literally ran counterintelligence operations—is being prosecuted for what prosecutors claim was a veiled threat on Instagram. Whether that charge sticks or not, the fact that it’s being brought tells you something: we’re in a phase where the people who used to manage political violence are now suspects in it, or are accused of inciting it, depending on which way the wind blows.

That’s not normal governance. That’s the judiciary being weaponized against institutional rivals. And everyone knows it.

The assassination attempt at the Washington press dinner is worse. This wasn’t some fringe actor—prosecutors say Cole Thomas Allen should stay locked up because he attempted to kill the president. At a press dinner. In public. With witnesses. The casual brazenness of it (selfies beforehand, reportedly) suggests a man who either didn’t think he’d face consequences or didn’t care. Both readings are terrifying.

Here’s what I think is happening: The social contract around who gets to use violence, and under what circumstances, has broken down. For decades, Americans accepted a basic bargain—you don’t try to kill the president, and the state doesn’t systematically liquidate you. That bargain held because both sides mostly believed in it. Now? One side sees the other as an existential threat that needs to be removed, and the other side is starting to respond in kind.

Photo by Mathias Reding / Pexels

The Oil Market Knows Something

Oil doesn’t lie about geopolitical risk. It’s the most honest price signal we have—it reflects what traders actually think will happen, not what politicians want you to think.

$118 for crude isn’t just a number. It’s a bet that the Middle East is about to get worse. The “extended” Iran blockade isn’t new conflict; it’s an escalation of an existing one. But the energy market’s treating it as a threshold event. That means traders are pricing in a real chance of wider war—not tomorrow, but soon enough that it matters to their portfolios.

What’s interesting is that this price jump hasn’t triggered the kind of diplomatic scramble you’d expect. Usually, OPEC+ meets, Western nations make phone calls, someone agrees to open reserves. Instead, we’re getting… radio silence. Or rather, the silence of people who’ve given up negotiating.

My read: Everyone knows the Iran situation is going to get worse before it gets better, and nobody’s willing to pay the political cost of actually stopping it. So the market’s adjusting to a higher baseline for Middle East chaos, and we’re all supposed to just accept that oil is permanently more expensive now.

The AI Lawsuit Is a Canary of a Different Color

Seven families are suing OpenAI because ChatGPT didn’t flag a mass shooter’s concerning activity.

Think about what that claim assumes: that an AI company should be monitoring users’ conversations for signs of violent intent, and should proactively alert authorities. That’s a massive expansion of corporate liability, and it’s coming from grieving families with every moral authority to push it.

I’m genuinely uncertain how this resolves. On one hand, precedent suggests companies aren’t liable for user-generated content—that’s Section 230 territory, settled law. On the other hand, if you can demonstrate that a company saw a direct warning signal and ignored it, negligence claims get traction. And juries are unpredictable when dead kids are in the room.

What matters diplomatically: This lawsuit is going to force a conversation about whether tech companies have intelligence obligations. Once that door opens, governments everywhere will push through it. China’s already monitoring everything. Europe’s GDPR regime is already invasive. This lawsuit is basically giving regulators a roadmap to demand AI companies become an arm of law enforcement.

That’s not necessarily wrong. But it’s a huge shift in what we expect from private companies, and it’s happening because we can’t stop violence through normal means anymore.

The Small-Country Pressure Play

Paraguay’s diplomatic relationship with Taiwan is “unlikely” according to the headline, which is journalistic code for “it shouldn’t exist and Beijing is working to end it.”

This is classic great-power politics: A Latin American nation keeps recognizing Taiwan because of historical ties and modest economic benefit, while China offers bigger carrots. Eventually, the carrots win. We’ve seen this play out in Honduras, Guatemala, and elsewhere.

The interesting part is that this isn’t dramatic. Nobody’s threatening Paraguay with military force. China’s just waiting. Offering loans. Suggesting better trade deals. Making it obvious that recognizing the People’s Republic is cheaper, in hard economic terms, than staying loyal to Taiwan.

My prediction: Paraguay flips within 24 months. Not because of any crisis or dramatic event, but because the math becomes undeniable. And when it does, it’ll be one more click in the ratchet tightening around Taiwan.

Photo by Mathias Reding / Pexels

The Pattern Nobody’s Naming

Here’s what connects these stories—and a dozen others you didn’t see in this list.

Institutions are losing their authority to prevent bad outcomes. The FBI can’t stop assassination attempts. The diplomatic corps can’t prevent oil shocks. Tech companies can’t prevent radicalization. Governments can’t stop their rivals from playing theft-and-coercion games with smaller nations.

We’re in an era of institutional decay. Not collapse—these organizations still exist and still matter. But they’re no longer capable of maintaining the basic functions we expect from them. And we’ve stopped expecting them to.

That’s actually more dangerous than a single catastrophic failure would be. Because when people stop expecting institutions to work, they start building parallel systems. Militias. Private security. Parallel economies. And those systems inevitably collide.

The oil price spike, the assassination attempt, the AI lawsuit, the Taiwan squeeze—they’re not separate stories. They’re all symptoms of the same underlying condition: The mechanisms that used to keep bad things from happening are broken, and we’re all starting to price that into our decisions.

I think we’re about two years away from a real cascade event. Not necessarily military, though that’s possible. But something that forces the world to reckon with how much institutional authority has actually eroded. A financial crisis, a cyber attack on critical infrastructure, a succession crisis in a nuclear power—something that reveals how thin the safeguards actually are.

What I’m Watching

• Iran escalation triggers. If the blockade extends to tankers or if there’s a direct military exchange in the Strait of Hormuz, oil could spike to $150+. That’s a recession signal no market can ignore. Watch for any announcement from Iran about “proportional responses” or Israeli strikes on Iranian targets. The next 90 days are critical.

• Paraguay’s diplomatic pivot. Track any announcement about trade deals, Chinese investment in infrastructure, or a shift in voting patterns at the UN. The actual flip might happen quietly, announced on a Friday afternoon to minimize news coverage. If it happens before mid-2025, Taiwan’s formal allies drop below 12 for the first time in decades.

• The Comey trial verdict and its precedent. This case will set whether you can prosecute former officials for ambiguous social media posts. If he’s convicted, expect a cascade of similar charges against other institutional figures. If he’s acquitted, it signals courts still believe in some separation between political speech and incitement. Either way, this normalizes the politicization of the justice system.

• Whether OpenAI settles or fights the mass-shooting lawsuits. A settlement signals acceptance that tech companies have intelligence obligations. A fight signals the old legal regime is still holding. Whichever way it goes, regulators will use it as cover for demanding AI company compliance with law enforcement requests. By Q4 2025, expect formal legislation in at least three major democracies.