Capitalism—the excessive kind, not the democratic version—is, in effect, our established church. Those who make a lot of money are the righteous, and those who squirrel away obscene amounts of money (people with names like Musk or Trump) are our saints.

And who is our savior? Why, none other than Charles Koch—after all, he has saved us from the ravages of climate change—with the able assistance of the angels, aka the roughly 500 exceedingly wealthy individuals who belong to the so-called ʻKoch network.ʻ

Over the past forty years, the network has quietly funded a broad array of endowed chairs at our universities, think tanks, publications and political campaigns, all with the same agenda: undermine public faith in science and government. By dismissing climate scientists as “environmental extremists” and tarring government as wasteful and inept—beliefs now taken as articles of faith by roughly half of the American population—the network has succeeded in protecting its cash cow (the fossil fuels industry) and preventing the type of meaningful tax reform that would ensure the viability of Social Security, Medicare and other vital programs for generations to come.

Make no mistake about the longterm game plan. Charles Koch himself once said that the networkʻs task was “to dismantle the statist paradigm” … in other words, end the liberal democratic tradition in which caring for those who cannot care for themselves falls to society as a whole. Radical libertarianism of the Koch variety, provides no safery blanket: no publicly funded social services and no public education.

So I agree that we are witnessing a regression of sorts. But young people stripping down on “Only Fans” and striving to make their fortunes as “influencers” is only a very small aspect of the massive corporate and individual greed that is distorting our society. The Kochʻs and their allies want us to focus on the minor issues—such as the profitability of marketing oneʻs birthday suit—rather than the web of lies about global climate change, which they have been spinning for decades.

I might also point out, as someone who has had the opportunity to travel and has stayed at clothing-optional resorts and visited nude beaches, the titillating aspect of public nudity has a limited shelf life: what you gawk at on Sunday merits nary a glance by Saturday!