The Invisible Hand

Everybody Wants to Know Who Rules the World

Emilie Hagen

and

Shane Cashman

Apr 07, 2025

118

Tears for Fears said everybody wants to rule the world. That was 1985. Things have changed.

Forty years later, in 2025, we’re drowning in so much information that we’ve given up the delusional desire to rule it all. We just want to figure out who does and how to stop them. We don’t want to be the puppetmasters. We want to cut their strings. Maybe reset the world to something that vaguely resembles our idea of “normal.”

But what is normal in a world where tech billionaires play God, Palantir runs shadow ops, and transhumanist fever dreams get projected onto the working class like mind-control spells? The sense of impending doom isn’t universal (yet), but it’s spreading. Some of us feel it every day like background radiation. Others remain blissfully unaware, still playing Jenga every Friday night while the planet quietly burns behind their phone screen.

Sadly, my friend and author Shane Cashman and I are not those people. We crave the stimulation of the virtual world. We admit we’re deep in it—too online, too aware, too poisoned by the same digital reality we critique. We know the beast, but we scroll anyway. Every night, my screen time hovers around 14 hours. It’s my own fault. I know I’m feeding it.

Which is exactly why there’s no one better to process the current wave of doomsday vibes with than Shane Cashman- the man who warns us that “Kim Kardashian’s new robot boyfriend will testify on Capitol Hill for the right to marry—and soon after—divorce,” and jokes that Pam Bondi will deliver the Epstein files on the next asteroid hurtling toward Earth.

And then, there’s Ye.

“BUT HE MADE GRADUATION,” they cry.

Yes, he did. But school doesn’t last forever. Eventually, everyone gets kicked into the real world. The only difference is that Ye landed there wrapped in fame and fortune, which doesn’t soften the blow, it magnifies it.

“I don’t expect him to be Jesus Is King Ye forever,” Shane said during our Zoom call Friday night.

He knows that Ye is long gone. “Pink-polo, fggt-@ss Kanye” is dead. In his place stands an angry man in a Klan hood, strutting into Room 56 at the Chateau Marmont like a live-action metaphor for American rot, or Key and Peele skit. The line between comedy and tragedy is fine.

“God is an angry God,” Ye declares, admitting he has been dealing with pain.

To anyone watching closely, it’s clear Ye has been in pain for a long time. Where it started is anyone’s guess. Some say it began when Donda passed. Others blame the Kardashians for destroying Kanye and creating this new monster called “Ye.”

“I administer pain mentally.”

That’s how Ye explained himself to Akademiks- the why behind his recent batch of his most unhinged, arguably cruel tweets to date.

On March 31, a user named Casey Kiim posted an excerpt exploring the idea that Ye is just a mirror- and we’re angry because we don’t like the reflection staring back at us.