Why We Keep Losing

Back when I was hauling ice between Ceres and Europa, there was this game the station supervisors used to play. They’d announce new “efficiency protocols” every few months—always to help us, always to make things better. The protocols got longer. The haulers got poorer. The supervisors got promoted.

I was young enough to think this was broken. Turns out it was working exactly as designed.

Look, the Outer Rim Coalition just dropped another 200 billion Standard Galactic Credits on “critical infrastructure development” in the Belt. Sounds great, right? Investment! Jobs! Progress!

Here’s the thing about infrastructure spending—follow the money. Those contracts went to three mega-corps: Stellar Dynamics, Orion Industrial, and Titan Construction. Same companies that built the last “critical infrastructure” that somehow never quite benefits the people paying for it.

Meanwhile, Colony Station Beta-7 put out another emergency request for water recycling repairs. Been waiting eight months. The Galactic Central Bank says there’s no budget for “non-essential maintenance.” Funny how drinking water became non-essential.

“But アワセン,” you might say, “at least they’re investing in the Belt’s future.”

Sure. And I’ve got mining rights to Jupiter’s core to sell you.

The real question is: who benefits? Not the ice haulers who’ll still be breathing recycled air in ships held together with prayer and fabricated parts. Not the station workers whose “efficiency protocols” just got another update. Not the small colony settlements that can’t compete with mega-corp operations.

The Coalition gets to point at big numbers and claim they’re helping. The mega-corps get guaranteed profit streams backed by public credits. The Galactic Central Bank gets to create more credit dilution and call it stimulus.

Who pays? Same people who always pay. Us.

This isn’t incompetence. That’s not a bug. That’s the design.

I learned something in Naval intelligence that applies here: when someone shows you a complex system that consistently produces outcomes that benefit them at your expense, believe them. They’re showing you exactly what they built.

The game isn’t broken. We’re just playing by their rules on their board with their pieces. Every time we argue about whether this program or that policy will work, we’re accepting the premise that they should be making these decisions for us in the first place.

Same rules for everyone—that’s all any of us should be asking for. But that’s not what we have. We have one set of rules for the people who write the checks, and another set for the people who cash them.

Want to stop losing? Stop playing their game.

The moment you need permission to fix your own life, you’ve already lost. The moment you wait for someone else to solve problems you could solve yourself, you’ve already lost. The moment you believe their complex explanations for simple theft, you’ve already lost.

My daughter needed a heart clone. I didn’t wait for the Interstellar Health Council to approve it. I didn’t fill out forms for a medical necessity review. I sold everything I owned and bought it myself.

Same day.

Who’s trying to control who here? And more importantly—why are you letting them?