Foma File: Productivity Without Prosperity

Classification: Late-Stage Economic Foma · Technological · Institutional · Hypernormalised Status: Privately acknowledged · Publicly deferred · Structurally preserved I. The Core Foma The belief: Increased productivity leads to broadly shared prosperity. This belief was once conditionally true. It is now structurally false. The system continues to speak as if it remains valid. II. What Has Changed (Quietly Understood) AI dramatically increases productivity. This is not disputed. What is rarely stated plainly is that productivity gains now flow primarily to: ...

January 3, 2026

Foma File: The Wealth – Art Paradox

Why Those Who Escape the Foma Recognize Each Other Instantly Classification: High-Order Social Foma - Perceptual, Economic, Aesthetic Status: Persistent. Ubiquitously misinterpreted. The Core Foma Society tells a simple story: “The wealthy appreciate art because they have money, leisure, and status to display.” This is a foma - a comforting, contemptuous explanation that protects people from seeing the truth: Great wealth and great art arise from the same perceptual mutation: the ability to see through the scaffolding of reality while others still mistake it for stone. ...

December 10, 2025

LinkedIn — The Temple of Professional Illusion

Examining LinkedIn as a late-cycle belief system.

November 24, 2025

Foma File: The Muse Who Walked Offstage

When a vanished 60s icon reappears in ordinary life, a myth collapses—and a deeper truth about foma and the human need for mystery is revealed.

November 15, 2025