I want to talk to you today about power.
Not the kind that sits on thrones or prints money or fires missiles.
But the power that keeps us alive before we even get a chance to argue about politics or economics.
We tend to measure power in strange ways:
Who exports the most.
Who imports the most.
Whose currency is stronger.
Who owns oil.
Who manufactures chips.
Who has the best passport.
But underneath those measurements lies a much more interesting question:
Power over what?
Let’s start simple.
If a country exports more than it imports, its currency becomes valuable.
If it only imports, its currency collapses.
The giver gains respect; the taker gains dependence.
Basic economics.
Now imagine a country that produces enough rice to feed the entire world — with leftovers. Suddenly their currency becomes strong. Because the world negotiates with hunger. The logic is straightforward: need creates value.
But if every country can produce enough rice for itself, the monopoly softens. The value goes down. Currency gains strength, but not worship.
Then we raise the stakes.
What if one country controls all medicine?
Now we’re dealing with urgency instead of appetite. Rice keeps you alive today; medicine decides if you get a tomorrow. With medicine, currency becomes a measurement of survival. Suddenly it doesn’t matter how patriotic you are — death is aggressively non-political.
But even medicine pales in comparison to what we imagined next.
What if one country controlled all oxygen?
At that point all our economic systems break. You can’t negotiate with suffocation. You can’t argue for a better price while turning blue. Currency stops being a number; it becomes irrelevant. Other nations would either surrender or invade. Power becomes absolute.
And here’s the strangest part:
Oxygen already controls everything... and we don’t respect it at all.
We burn forests.
We poison the atmosphere.
We choke cities.
We congratulate ourselves for economic growth while quietly destroying the very air that lets us clap.
Why?
Because oxygen doesn’t demand respect.
It doesn’t invoice us.
It doesn’t punish us.
It doesn’t shut off.
It just keeps giving.
Power without ego becomes invisible to the human mind.
We are wired to respect guns, not oxygen.
Diamonds, not water.
Scarcity, not abundance.
Fear, not mercy.
If oxygen could raise its price by one breath per hour, we would build temples to it. We would have diplomatic treaties with trees. Children would study air the way they study algebra. Adults would invest in forests like they invest in crypto. Respect would arrive instantly.
But because oxygen doesn’t charge us — we don’t value it.
You can apply this pattern to almost anything essential.
Peace is invisible until there is war.
Health is ignored until there is sickness.
Parents are background noise until they are gone.
Kindness feels soft until the world becomes harsh.
Love feels optional until it disappears.
We explored one more idea together — what the future of energy should look like. Instead of abandoning oil countries as the world moves to EVs, what if we paid them fairly, helped them transition, and made competition safe — even simulated? Evolution without casualties. A future where progress isn’t a zero-sum wrestling match, but a collective graduation ceremony.
We’ve spent thousands of years assuming that someone has to lose for others to win. Nature disagrees. Forests don’t require one tree to die for another to grow. Oceans don’t demand chaos to maintain their balance. Cooperation is not naive — it’s biological.
If humanity ever becomes wise instead of only clever, it will not be because we built stronger machines or faster economies. It will be because we learned to protect what is abundant before it becomes scarce... and to treat essential things with respect even when they are free.
Thank you.
