Screens

Nice infrastructure of irresponsibility we’ve managed to create. Fist you have first-order grifters:: weapons manufacturers, defense contractors, and logistics suppliers — Then come the second-order grifters — the think tankers, foreign policy fellows, and adjacent “experts” who don’t make weapons but polish the narratives that keep them flying. Then there are the third-order grifters: journalists, influencers, academic strivers, minor bureaucrats — people who echo second-order narratives because they need a seat at the table, a clip that lands, a fellowship, a consulting gig. They mimic the frameworks and language because that’s what gets rewarded. They don’t invent the grift, they just learn its rhythms.

What is striking is how each layer has just enough separation to avoid feeling directly responsible, yet each is essential to the whole. This creates what you might call “decentralized moral hazard” - the risks are socialized across society while the benefits concentrate among the first few layers. And because no single layer feels fully responsible, the system becomes remarkably resistant to reform from within.