this is my favorite eric quote, which he also just applied to the ftx mess.
Eric's way of seeing things isn't a linear thing I can summarize, there's a few youtube vids you can search for the concepts of Kayfabe or his anger at the Consumer Price Index methodology which he's been making noise about for a decade, way before all the cool kids today tweeting about inflation.
It's about seeing narrative frames and language games that institutions play to intrinsically hide (to others and themselves) the mechanics of power/money.
He calls his own podcast The Portal because to see these patterns you need that moment where you step out of the calcified frame of current understanding, like in those kids books where youre stuck and drab and then find a magical portal to narnia, can return transformed.
(You have to have those moments yourself, it usually feels like a loss of innocence imo)
A lot of us have this inner "oh if only I was a better speaker / smarter / worked on my persuasion skills ..."
It's just not how power works. It's not how society works. I get that now, and it was amazing anthropology to see it unfold.