Breaking Up With the Global Industrial Complex Is Hard to Do

But it’s way more elegant than staying with an abusive psychopath who has no interest in our wellbeing

B. Lorraine Smith
5 min readJul 25, 2022
In isolation, it seems the world is falling apart. A wider, dynamic view reveals more possibilities, maybe even elegant ones. Here’s one kind of weird visual rendering (bring your own soundtrack).

We are what we choose

I hear a lot of hand-wringing these days.

“The world is on fire.”

“Big corporates are making things worse.”

“We’re out of time.”

But when ideas — or living examples — of better options are offered, a common response is something like, “It’s all so complicated…” and “people aren’t going to change…” This mindset instructs us to stay in an abusive relationship with the global industrial complex.

And as long as we choose to stay, we perpetuate the abuse. I recommend choosing to get out.

Meet people where we’d rather be

When envisioning change, I am often encouraged to “meet people where they are”. And if people are open, curious, and actively learning, I will oblige because together we can likely get somewhere.

But I prefer to meet people where we’d rather be — i.e. not in an abusive relationship with the global industrial complex.

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B. Lorraine Smith

Former sustainability consultant replacing ESG with reality-based insights about corporate purpose and impact. https://www.blorrainesmith.com/