A Murder in Midtown and the Fault Lines of Our Future

By Ilya Arbabi

On December 4th 2024, a senseless act of violence in the heart of Manhattan shook the world: the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. He was gunned down in a city that once proudly symbolized the pinnacle of modern global capitalism, a metropolis buoyed by skyscrapers of glass and steel, safeguarded by institutions that promised order and prosperity. In that fleeting moment of gunfire and panic, the cracks in our carefully arranged social contract yawned wide for all to see.

I write these words not as an American insider, not as a detached scholar, but as an Iranian-born entrepreneur now living in Turkey, someone straddling geographies and cultures, trying to make sense of a world in flux. This global vantage point, at once insider and outsider, lets me see that the tremors felt in the United States are not isolated. Across continents, trust in once-stalwart institutions is eroding. The United States, long held as the world’s economic and democratic trendsetter, now finds itself grappling with the same existential questions as Europe, Asia, Middle East, Africa and beyond. We are all now participants in a drama that threatens to rewrite the rules of civilization itself.

Thompson’s assassination may be a singular event, but it is symptomatic of a deeper malaise. The modern era, especially after the Second World War, was founded on a promise: that liberal democracy and regulated capitalism, fuelled by technological innovation, would yield a better life for everyone. Healthcare systems were to heal the sick, financial institutions to nurture prosperity, and democratic governments to ensure fairness and stability. For many decades, these promises seemed credible, imperfect, but moving in the right direction. Today, we face a reckoning. Increasingly, people see behind the institutional facades and suspect that profit trumps principle, that influence is purchased rather than earned, that official “service” too often means self-service.

History offers a sobering lens through which to view our moment. Ibn Khaldun, writing in the 14th century, observed that empires rise on the shoulders of communal trust and collective purpose (what he termed asabiyyah) and fall when their elites become detached, insular, and indifferent to the common good. The collapse of the Roman Empire, too, was not an overnight calamity but a centuries-long unravelling of civic virtues and centralized authority. One day, the imperial apparatus held strong; the next, it fragmented into feudal shards. The process was slow, subtle, and utterly transformative. Citizens who once relied on Rome’s mighty bureaucracy and legions found themselves turning to local warlords and petty strongmen for protection, a system of patchwork loyalties, fragile alliances, and ever-shifting lines of power.

It’s hard not to see reflections of that distant past in our present. Only now, instead of warlords and knights, we envision corporate enclaves and private security contractors, neofeudal hierarchies stitched together by non-state actors who specialize in influence, data, and force. The spectre of a “neo-shogunate” future, a cyberpunk amalgamation of scattered domains, each governed by a mix of corporate might and private armies, feels less like fiction and more like a plausible scenario if trust in centralized governance continues to erode. The enormous global corporations that once promised efficiency and economies of scale could become the new feudal lords, providing protection and essential services at a price. Meanwhile, average citizens, their faith in public institutions shaken, might just trade their democratic birthrights for some measure of stability and care.

This would be tragic not only for the West but for all humanity. The current global order, however flawed, at least maintains the pretence of universal human rights, a baseline of international cooperation, and some sense that justice is not the sole province of the powerful. If the West stumbles into decline without a ready moral replacement, we risk a world where the very concept of universal values frays, replaced by brute calculations of power. Thucydides’ Trap, often used to describe the risk of war between a rising power and a ruling one, could widen into a more ominous chasm: instead of a coherent global order, we might get a fragmented, conflict-ridden planet where no single set of values, rules, or institutions commands respect.

From a moral standpoint, this era tests our deepest and oldest commitments. The philosophical pillars we lean on, Kant’s categorical imperative, utilitarian ethics, or any other moral schema, originally took shape in cultural contexts where at least some baseline of order, authority, and consensus prevailed. In stable societies, religious traditions, legal codes, and civic institutions have historically served as conduits that translate complex moral philosophies into everyday norms. A parliament legislates the boundaries of just conduct; a court enforces them; a hospital’s charter ensures patient welfare is prioritized. Each institution is a node in the network of moral enforcement, drawing strength from a collective agreement that “good” and “evil” mean something beyond raw force or naked self-interest.

But what if these institutional anchors break free from their moorings? What if hospitals are seen as businesses first, insurers as gatekeepers to wealth rather than health, and courts as arenas where influence trumps integrity? The moral frameworks that once guided us risk becoming hollow scripts, recited without effect. Good or evil, justice or injustice, these distinctions may degenerate into matters of perspective, convenient labels wielded by circumstance. Morality would fracture along with social order, splitting into a thousand localized codes, each shaped by shifting alliances and immediate survival needs.

This fragmentation would not be unprecedented. Throughout history, societies have relied on overarching belief systems, religious, philosophical, or mythic, to unify moral values. Think of how medieval Europe’s Christian cosmology reinforced hierarchical social structures, or how the Zoroastrian notion of Asha versus Druj underpinned Sasanian rule. Consider the esoteric teachings of Zurvan or the Gnostic figure Abraxas, who encapsulates both creation and destruction, good and evil, within a single primordial force. These traditions offered a stable cosmic narrative and allowed moral judgments to feel anchored in something absolute, whether divine will or cosmic balance.

Carl Jung, in his explorations of the collective unconscious, illuminated how archetypal themes {heroes and villains, saviours and tricksters} structure our understanding of morality. These deep psychic patterns, forged over millennia, guide us even when we believe ourselves fully rational. But when the institutions that have long channelled these archetypes into coherent norms dissolve, what happens to our moral compass? Without a recognized centre, be it church, state, or global consensus, we may revert to primal negotiations of power and survival, granting each clan, each household, or each corporate fortress the autonomy to define its own brand of righteousness.

In a future that increasingly resembles a neo-feudal patchwork, a dystopian vision reminiscent of cyberpunk fiction, moral clarity may vanish behind innumerable micro-sovereignties. Each domain could craft its own code of conduct, enforced by private militias or advanced surveillance networks. Within one enclave, murder is condemned unless sanctioned by the local authority; in another, it might be tacitly accepted as long as it maintains order or profits the ruling elite. Moral philosophy, once universalizing, becomes contingent and transactional, scattering like shards of a shattered mirror.

This is not mere speculation. Historical precedents show that whenever centralized institutions crumble, moral and ethical standards often revert to narrower frames: kinship ties, sworn oaths, tribal allegiances. Without a unifying narrative or respected arbiter, concepts like the categorical imperative {designed to hold true irrespective of circumstance} risk becoming quaint relics. Utilitarianism, once a guide for maximizing societal well-being, could devolve into a brute calculus of local advantage.

If environmental strains intensify, technology accelerates beyond social comprehension, and socio-economic inequality deepens, the moral landscape of the future may look more like a psychedelic mosaic of belief systems—each tinted by the old esoteric symbols lurking in the collective unconscious. The Gnostic Abraxas, embodying contradictions in a single deity, or Zurvan, the primordial time-god who equalizes all distinctions, might become apt metaphors for a fractured world grappling with moral chaos. Without shared structures to channel these archetypal energies, we risk a return to something more tribal, where “good” depends solely on which banner you fight under and “evil” is just the Other’s creed.

From the vantage point of our current crisis, it is vital to recognize that morality and ethics flourish only when sustained by credible institutions and widely respected frameworks. The assassination of a corporate executive in Midtown may seem like a single shocking event, but its reverberations point toward a future where consensus ethics falter. If that future is to be resisted, or at least guided into a more humane equilibrium, we must acknowledge that our moral philosophies are only as sturdy as the institutions and narratives that uphold them.

This is the challenge: to rebuild, or perhaps reimagine, moral frameworks and institutions that can withstand complexity and fragmentation, ensuring that even in a world of shifting loyalties and proliferating moral enclaves, we do not lose sight of our higher aspirations. Only then can we prevent the next chapter of human civilization from reading like a dark fable of feudal lords, corporate barons, and moral vacuums. Only then can we hope to steer our collective unconscious toward principles that endure, rather than shatter, in the storms to come.

Yet, if acknowledging the danger is the first step, the next is to consider how we might carve a more stable path forward. If we are at a point where old institutions falter, might we build new ones more attuned to the moral imperatives of our age?

This is where I, as a startup founder, see a glimmer of hope. My company, Bono, aspires to be a global legal infrastructure layer and “legal OS” that empowers ordinary people to navigate and enforce their rights. A much needed Backbone. It is not a saviour, but a tool. One part of a broader civilizational effort to restore trust, transparency, and fairness. If we drift into feudal conditions or neo-shogunate arrangements, we need at least one anchor of principle and clarity. If chaos roils the world’s systems, ordinary individuals deserve a platform that lowers the barriers to justice, helps interpret complex laws, and ensures that no one must stand alone before the entrenched power of institutions, be they corporate or governmental.

In an era when the winds of change threaten to blow us back into darker ages of fragmentation and might-makes-right, it is crucial to champion initiatives that preserve the essence of our collective human endeavour: the pursuit of fairness, dignity, and shared prosperity. The tragedy in Manhattan is a warning bell. Let’s not ignore its toll. Instead, let’s work together, across borders, backgrounds, and sectors, from all walks of life, to repair what is broken, reaffirm what is best in us, and ensure that even as old structures tremble, new ones emerge capable of leading us toward a more stable and humane future.

Ilya from Bono.