Joan Westenberg

1 week ago | flipboard.com | Joan Westenberg

7 hours agoOn the Horizon of Knowledge: The More We Learn, The Less We UnderstandKnowledge is like an iceberg — every answer uncovered subsequently reveals even more questions submerged beneath it. In the pursuit of understanding, …1 day agoCrossroads of consciousness: whose decolonization is it in Nigeria? The call for decolonial discourse has increasingly gained global purchase, yet its growing visibility often masks an unresolved question: who …2 days agoIs Trump a Cult Leader?

1 week ago | theindex.media | Joan Westenberg

3 min They thought they could export the chaos. They thought nationalism was a currency that could be traded across borders, that autocratic rhetoric could be franchised like a fast-food chain, and that the world would follow their script. But instead of ushering in a new global rightwing order, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the far-right coalition orbiting them have triggered something else entirely: a deliberate backlash against conservatism itself. Three elections.

3 weeks ago | theindex.media | Joan Westenberg

A system that can't distinguish between confidence and competence isn't broken, it's doing exactly what it was designed to: reward the loudest voice, not the best idea. Promote the person who looks like a leader, not the one who thinks like one. Elect the swagger, not the skill. And once that system hits scale—when it's amplified by algorithms, saturated through media, and reinforced by social proof—the outcome was inevitable. We didn't get Trump by accident.

3 weeks ago | joanwestenberg.com | Joan Westenberg

— 2 min read I didn’t leave the attention economy because I hated it. I left because I understood it, because once you see the system for what it is—a parasitic loop that rewards noise over nuance, metrics over meaning, reaction over reflection—you have two choices. Keep optimizing for reach, or start optimizing for resonance. At some point, every creator hits a wall - it’s not burnout exactly. It’s misalignment.

1 month ago | joanwestenberg.com | Joan Westenberg

On the morning of June 6th, 1944, Hitler was sound asleep. The Allies were landing. Tens of thousands of soldiers were pouring onto the beaches. The tide was turning, the war accelerating toward its violent, inevitable end. And the man leading the Reich was in bed, untouched. His generals knew the crisis was unfolding. His inner circle knew. Everyone knew. But no one would wake him. Because by that point, Hitler wasn’t running a government.