When the "killers" not only make the rules but also keep the score and hand out the prizes, everyone starts adopting their framing whether they want to or not. We end up using their language, their metrics, their ways of valuing things, even when trying to critique them.
It's like trying to argue against money while having to use dollars to make your point. Or trying to fight social media's effects while having to use social media to spread the message. The tools and frameworks we have to work with are already shaped by the systems we might want to question.
Even in academia or activism, people often end up adopting economic frameworks to argue for human value - "here's the ROI on kindness" or "the market value of preserving this community." We find ourselves translating human values into killer's terms just to get a hearing.
They're "killers" using the language of economics rather than economics accidentally producing killer-like outcomes. Those who control the dominant frameworks of value and exchange end up controlling how everyone else has to think and talk about... well, everything.
When you have to use their tools, speak their language, and play in their arena to even participate in society, that's not some sophisticated philosophical puzzle - it's just raw control wearing a suit and carrying a spreadsheet.
Reflections
Who makes the rules? More importantly: who keeps score? When the same people do both, everyone else ends up adopting their frameworks whether they want to or not. You use their language, their metrics, their ways of valuing things - even when you're trying to critique them.
Try arguing against money while using dollars. Try fighting social media while needing it to spread your message. The tools available for resistance are already shaped by the systems you're resisting. This isn't paradox - it's power.
Watch how it happens in practice: activists adopt economic frameworks to argue for human value. "Here's the ROI on kindness." "The market value of preserving this community." We translate what matters into their terms just to get heard. We learn to speak killer language to make the case against killing.
Is there a way out of this? Or is the first step simply seeing it clearly - recognizing that when you have to use their tools, speak their language, and play in their arena just to participate, that's not complexity. That's control. Raw control wearing professional clothes and carrying metrics that define success in terms that serve the people who made the rules.
What would it take to build different frameworks? Or is the real question whether building new frameworks would just create new killers?