Two Loops, Two Futures: Kwanzaa vs. the Techno-Capitalist Trap

We live inside systems that repeat themselves — some designed to extract, others meant to liberate. In this episode, Brother ha2tim breaks down the self-enforcing loop of techno-capitalist domination and places it side by side with a liberation loop rooted in the principles of Kwanzaa (Nguzo Saba). This is not a holiday conversation — it’s a systems conversation. Which loop are you feeding?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome, welcome family, peace to you into yours. And man,
this is no frizzles and no thrills, just brother ho
tim man. Listen. It feels so good to be back
on the podcast and thing, I'm not doing anything live

(00:22):
right now, but hey, gotta start somewhere now today. I
want to slow us down just a little bit because
the world is moving fast on purpose. Everybody keeps asking
why does it feel like no matter how hard we work,
things don't change? And the answer is uncomfortable because we're
living inside a loop alopop, a loop that feeds on

(00:51):
our time, our attention, our labor, and even our imagination.
But here's the thing. If oppression has a loop, liberation
does too. In a wild part, we've been rehearsing it
every year through kwans, let's talk about it, the loop

(01:39):
we're stuck in now. This part goes back to an
old story that I tell about the young too young
fish and the old fish. I won't go back to
the story, but it's basically letting us know that it's
hard for individuals who are engulfed in something to recognize
the thing that they are engulfed in. So let's get

(02:01):
to it. Let me name the water. We're swimming in
the dominant system right now. What I call a techno
capitalist loop works like this. It starts with an ideology,
an idea that says efficiency matters more than people, that
control is smarter than care, that growth is the same

(02:21):
thing as progress. The ideology attracts investment. Money flows towards
tools that extract, monitor, predict, and dominate. Those tools capture everything,
our data, our labor, our attention, even our relationships, relationships.
Soon it becomes infrastructure, apps, platform, systems we can't live without.

(02:46):
And once we depend on it, the profits roll upwards,
power concentrates, and original ideology gets stronger. And around and
around and around we go. That's the track, not because
people are evil, but because the system feeds itself. Y'all,

(03:19):
Hold it down, Hold it down, Calm down. I know
y'all don't like when I come and do this part.
But if this episode already got your mind turning, do
me a silent like follow and or subscribe wherever you
are listening. And if you want to support the work

(03:39):
so we can keep building these conversations with depth and honesty,
you can support this show by going to the link
below clicking it and joining us. Now, let's get back
to it. Become a supporter, right, I'm a supporter, and
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(04:07):
and also ay, you need to be on a daily spark. Listen, listen,
don't don't join here on GM, join the daily spark.
Get the daily sparks that you know what's going on
day by day. Let me let me go for these people.
Start booing again. Quansa as a counter system. Now here's

(04:42):
where he gets interesting because long before Silicon Valley perfected loops,
we already have one Kwanza. I mean that's one of
the many. Because I'm not gonna go all into that,
I just want to say Kwanza is the one. We're
talking about. Seven principles, seven days, seven movements of a

(05:03):
liberation system. Let's walk it. We got Umoja for the uninitiated.
That's unity before productivity, before a profit belonging. Capitalism isolates
emojiual reconnects. Now, I gotta stress this. Listen. Capitalism wants

(05:23):
to isolate you and have you operating as a single entity,
an individual entity emojiory connects. We have Kooja Jagaliyah, which
is my principle, by the way, self determination for the uninitiated.
We name ourselves, we tell our stories. We define success

(05:45):
on our terms. We've got ujima collective work and responsibility,
not somebody should, but we will share problems, shared accountability ujama,
cooperative economics. How we circulate resources matters. Where money goes
is where power lives. Nia purpose, why are we building

(06:08):
anything at all? Purpose? Discipline, desire, kumb creativity, not just art, structure,
new ways of living, relating, organizing, e money for the
uninitiation initiated. Faith not blind belief, but trust in our

(06:31):
people and our future, even when evidence is staying. And
when you finish your money, you don't stop. You turn
back to Emojia deeper, wiser, more grounded. That's a loop too,
but this one cultivates life instead of extracting it. The

(07:05):
problem we don't like to admit. Would you keep the
noise down the studio on a budget? Good God, I
don't think it. Take this off my taxes. Now here's
the part we gotta be honest about. Kwanza became seasonal,

(07:28):
not structural. We light candles once a year, but don't
always practice the principles the rest of the time. Capitalism
didn't beat us by force alone. It beat us, and
it's beating us because of consistency, daily habits, daily reinforcement,

(07:48):
daily loops. Now I have to segue on this one.
I have an elder by the name of well He
and the elder he's an ancestor by the name of
Cedric Sherman Sanders, and he's to say that children are
more consistent than adults. This is why their behaviors are
able to continue throughout their life, because they were consistent

(08:11):
in the behaviors. But the adults were not consistent in
how they made the corrections. I just want to throw
that out there, shots out and just shard I'm poor
for you mentally as well as physically whenever I get opportunity.
So I want to say this to you. Liberation can't
survive on sybilism alone. Rituals without structure turned into nostalgia.

(08:37):
Values without practice turn into decoration. Oh oh my god,
values without practice turned into decoration. That's not an insolt,
that's a call. I hope you're listening choosing which loop

(09:11):
you feed. So here's the real question, not do you
celebrate Kwanza, but which loop are you feeding right now?

(09:36):
Which principle are you practicing this season? Because every day,
whether we mean to or not, we reinforce something. The
system of the domination counts on us being unconscious participants.
Liberation begins when we become intentional ones. Family, The future

(10:03):
isn't just coming, it's being rehearsed over and over through
the loop loops loops, loops loops sy loopsy loops. We
live inside the good news. Loops can be broken, loops
can be rewritten, Loops can be reclaimed. Quaza isn't just

(10:26):
a holiday, It's a map, and maps matter when the
terrain is confusing. Sit with that. This is brother, how
tim with no frills and no thrills, just true will
build again next time. I don't know when the next time.

(10:48):
I'm gonna do another one of these. This is kind
of tedious, fun but tedious. I'm out