Episode
War With Iran. Tariffs. Dollar Wobbling. Davos Calls This the "Polycrisis" Here's What That Means
- Podcast
- Brave The New World
- Published
- Mar 16, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 4288
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Summary
The US is spending $900 million a day on the Iran war. Tariffs are triggering stagflation. The dollar is losing its grip on global reserves. China is weaponizing rare earths. Foreign creditors are dumping US Treasuries and buying gold. And the WEF just released their Global Risks 2026 report warning of "geoeconomic confrontation" as the top trigger for a material global crisis. There's a word for all of this happening at once: the polycrisis. Here's the problem. The people who named it are the same people who caused it. And their solution is more of themselves. This week Matt sits down with Sterlin — founder of the Parallel Mind project and one of the most serious thinkers working on civilization-level problems from a liberty lens. They break down what the polycrisis actually is, why the Davos crowd adopted the term, and what the establishment's proposed remedies actually mean for your freedom. They cover: What the polycrisis actually is — and the metacrisis distinction that explains why everyone feels psychologically wrecked right now How the Iran war, tariff stagflation, de-dollarization, and AI disruption are causally connected — not separate stories The ratchet effect: every major crisis in history expands state power, and almost none of it ever comes back The 1930s parallel — what "polycrisis responses" have historically looked like in practice Sterlin's Parallel Mind framework — parallel finance, parallel governance, parallel institutions — and why decentralized systems beat top-down coordination every time Why optimism isn't naive right now — and what building outside legacy institutions actually looks like