Humanity’s capacity for self-immolation is only outmatched by its obsession with the price of the fuel used to light the match. The looming shadow of an expanded conflict between Israel and Iran has sent the usual pack of financial vultures and armchair "geopolitical analysts" into a frenzy of predictive masturbation. We are treated to the spectacle of "market experts" weighing the lives of thousands against the fluctuating cost of Brent Crude. It is the ultimate expression of our species’ priorities: we can tolerate a thousand tragedies, but we cannot, under any circumstances, tolerate paying an extra fifty cents at the pump to fill up our emotional support trucks. The reality of the situation is as grim as it is predictable, yet we continue to treat the prospect of regional collapse as if it were a particularly stressful episode of a daytime soap opera where the stakes are limited to our bank accounts.

The narrative is as predictable as it is exhausting. On one side, we have the ideological zealots in Tehran, presiding over a population they’ve effectively shackled, playing a high-stakes game of "who can be more uncompromising" to distract from their own internal decay. On the other, the Israeli government, currently led by a coalition whose political survival depends on the continuation of a perpetual state of emergency. Between them, they represent the apex of human folly—ancient religious and nationalistic grievances fueled by modern ballistic technology. And yet, the "news" isn't about the existential dread of nuclear proliferation or the shattered lives of civilians who have the misfortune of living in the flight path; it’s about whether your suburban commute will cost more than a steak dinner next Tuesday. We have commodified the apocalypse and found its trading volume to be quite robust.

The analysts give us "scenarios" as if they’re reviewing a choose-your-own-adventure novel for the sociopathic. There is the "Limited Escalation" scenario, where oil prices stay "stable"—a word economists use to describe the slow, agonizing decline of your purchasing power that occurs while you aren't looking. Then there is the "Total War" scenario, where the Strait of Hormuz is closed, and oil rockets toward the stratosphere. It’s a fascinating look into the mind of the modern consumer: we are told to fear the closing of a maritime chokepoint more than the closing of human history. The Strait of Hormuz is the world’s jugular vein, and we are all just parasites hoping the host doesn't bleed out before we get our fill. It is a pathetic dependency that we refuse to acknowledge, preferring to believe we are the masters of our destiny while our entire civilization hinges on a twenty-mile wide strip of water.

The political response is, predictably, a cacophony of hypocrisy that would be amusing if it weren't so transparently cynical. The Left will issue sternly worded statements about the "unacceptable cost of war" and the need for diplomatic restraint, while quietly panicking that high gas prices will tank their polling numbers among the very people they claim to have enlightened. They want a green revolution, but they want it to be convenient, painless, and delivered by Amazon Prime without a surcharge. The Right, meanwhile, will pivot instantly to "energy independence," a phrase that roughly translates to "let’s strip-mine every national park so we can keep pretending it’s 1955 and we don't need the rest of the world." They cheer for the "defense" of Western values while simultaneously hoping for enough chaos to justify another decade of unfettered fracking and the deregulation of everything that makes the planet habitable.

Let us look at the "volatility" we so dread. Volatility is just the market’s way of saying it doesn't know which lie to believe today. The reality is that the global economy is a Rube Goldberg machine powered by the liquefied remains of Carboniferous-era ferns and the blood of people who happen to live on top of them. We are addicted to the very substance that makes these conflicts profitable. If there were no oil in the Middle East, the world would treat the Israel-Iran rivalry with the same bored indifference it grants to civil wars in central Africa. But because our modern "civilization" requires a constant intravenous drip of petroleum, every missile launch in the Levant is treated as a direct assault on the American dream of cheap plastic trinkets. We are not worried about justice or peace; we are worried about the overhead of our own vanity.

We are told to keep an eye on "spare capacity"—the industry's polite term for "how much more of this poison do the Saudis have in the basement?" It’s a pathetic reliance. We’ve built a world where the stability of the global financial system depends on the whims of hereditary monarchs and the ballistic accuracy of theological autocracies. It’s almost impressive, in a dark, suicidal sort of way. We have spent trillions of dollars and decades of diplomacy not to solve the underlying animosity, but to ensure that the animosity doesn't interrupt the shipping lanes. We don't want the fire to go out; we just want to make sure the smoke doesn't ruin the view from our balconies.

In the end, the oil prices will go up, or they will go down, or they will stay the same, and the result for the average human will be the same: a continued descent into a future where we are more concerned with the cost of our destruction than the destruction itself. The Israel-Iran conflict is just another chapter in the long, boring book of human stupidity, a narrative where everyone is a villain and the only victim is the concept of a future. We will continue to debate the "impact" on our portfolios while the world burns, oblivious to the fact that you can’t eat dividends and you can’t breathe crude oil. But by all means, check the ticker one more time. It’s the only pulse humanity has left, and it's fading fast.