I'm so sorry. That sounds like a really tough transition to be forced into. I hope you're okay.

You also didn't mention this, but maybe part of the reason you and your tribe drifted was because in many ways your tribe actually largely won? And it was striving for those victories that was part of what kept you together?

But--at the risk of being even more depressing--I think you might be overestimating the System. You don't think there's anyone actually steering, do you? What, with January 6, continual risk of defaulting on debt because posturing is the most important value, with supply chain hitting random stuff, and so on?

To me, it looks like the System is in as much trouble itself as everyone else is, and has been for a while (c.f. https://xkcd.com/1274/). Which shouldn't be that much of a surprise, if what drives the System is all our social dynamics let loose to wander however they do.

But the division-heavy, us-against-them, no-dissent-permitted trend has the power to destroy the System. Indeed, a good fraction of the most heated disagreements are between people who each think the other has control of the System ("deep state", whatever), that this is existentially intolerable, and that it's worth burning it all down if it means the other side doesn't get control.

I'm not sure we really ought to be focusing our collective energy on attacking the System. Its foundations are already being done in by our attacking and silencing each other. If you can't maintain a stable society, being in the 0.1% doesn't save you; being a multinational corporation doesn't save you. It might give you a slightly better chance. It's still a really low chance compared to what you'd have with a stable society.

The reason, I think, that we need to work together to make things work for people is in large part to save the System (i.e. governmental and economic institutions that make modern life practical).

Collapsed societies are far worse than exploitative ones. That doesn't mean we should embrace rampant exploitation: a big part of the instability comes from exploitation (e.g. income inequality). That doesn't mean we should blindly embrace the Establishment: transparency is essential to trust which is essential to having anything work at all. But it seems to me that the mindset needed now is one of fixing, not attacking.

I don't know if you'd go for that, and I don't know if your new tribe, inasmuch as it is one, would either. But I don't think we're getting out of this one in the long run without a big heaping dose of pragmatism, rolling up our sleeves, and going, "Okay, let's do some retrofitting so society doesn't go down the drain."

Cause if we don't, I don't see how the System's going to survive at all. We don't need to attack it. It'll just go down along with everything else.