This is brilliant synthesis of the institutional erosion we're seeing—the Gramscian interregnum framing really captures the moment. Your analysis of how market logic is extending into prediction markets on military operations reminds me of my own experiance watching financial professionals treat geopolitical events as just another asset class. The question is whether this fragmentaion leads to neo-imperial spheres or something entirely new.
What struck me in looking at prediction markets wasn’t just the cynicism, but the way abstraction accelerates: once conflict is rendered legible to price signals, it becomes easier to detach agency, responsibility, and even causality. As you note, for many financial actors geopolitics has already long been “just another asset class”; what’s new is how publicly and explicitly that logic is being normalized.
On your question about fragmentation: I’m torn between the neo-imperial reading and something more amorphous. Spheres of influence still matter, but they now overlap with platforms, financial instruments, and data regimes that don’t map cleanly onto territory. The result may be less a return to classic empire than a patchwork of partially sovereign systems—states, markets, and technologies all exerting power, but none fully in control.
That ambiguity, I think, is very much the texture of the interregnum itself.
This is brilliant synthesis of the institutional erosion we're seeing—the Gramscian interregnum framing really captures the moment. Your analysis of how market logic is extending into prediction markets on military operations reminds me of my own experiance watching financial professionals treat geopolitical events as just another asset class. The question is whether this fragmentaion leads to neo-imperial spheres or something entirely new.
Thank you — I’m glad the Gramscian frame landed.
What struck me in looking at prediction markets wasn’t just the cynicism, but the way abstraction accelerates: once conflict is rendered legible to price signals, it becomes easier to detach agency, responsibility, and even causality. As you note, for many financial actors geopolitics has already long been “just another asset class”; what’s new is how publicly and explicitly that logic is being normalized.
On your question about fragmentation: I’m torn between the neo-imperial reading and something more amorphous. Spheres of influence still matter, but they now overlap with platforms, financial instruments, and data regimes that don’t map cleanly onto territory. The result may be less a return to classic empire than a patchwork of partially sovereign systems—states, markets, and technologies all exerting power, but none fully in control.
That ambiguity, I think, is very much the texture of the interregnum itself.