> I here you, I really do but it's worth noting a few things for the sake of some gloomy young person reading this and not giving up hope.
Disgruntlement in a system is the first step in disruption, if it worked, than it wouldn't need disrupting. Giving up hope that it can work is also a per-requsite for even attempting to do something, you can't have one without the other.
> Firstly the Federal Reserve has committed to severely raising rates over the next year(s) to combat inflation.
From J Powell to Ben Bernakie these clowns have shown how their forced modeling of the economy always leads to these disastrous situations, I do fintech for a reason after having to focus an inordinate amount of my time since 2006 studying Global economics while doing my undergrad in biology and it's SPECIFICALLY because I regard these people as corrupt as they are duplicitous that I have no faith in this system: J. Powell just got caught for insider trading [0] and people act surprised: my real shock is that people still believe anything they say is true.
> You're over a consumption based economy? I can see what you're getting at but what's a viable replacement?
Honestly, it starts by deccoupling from fiat based currencies entirely for one, you cannot run massive deficit spending without the ability to create (and thus inflate) a currency into oblivion which is only possible because you have the monopoly on violence in your self-imposed dominion over a territory/People. Just having competing currencies is a net boon to humanity. The legislation landscape will reflect the values of the those who live in said communities. I foresee the collapse of the nation-state model in my lifetime, and the Balkanization of the World into city to micro-states may make things manageable.
Also, a new paradigm would have to accepted wherein the infinite growth paradigm are not aspirational (until we can colonize other planets and sustain Life off of Earth) but rather counter intuitively as a form of cancer that leads to the environmental issues we all seeing, and living with and know are having an immense impact on Earth which leads to a latent form of existential dread.
As a former founder this is contrary to everything that made me want to even try to create a startup as I was the first to market and even beat Apple to Market on a feature, but as I went on I realized that the enormity of the core problem I was trying to solve for (carbon sequestration via previously illegal commodity crop cultivation) wasn't even a tech problem or just a finance one: it was at it's core a Human issue in how they engage with the World, primarily consumption based lifestyles to offset the existential dread one feels from a seemingly detachment from reality given the need to be apart of a cyclical model that creates the very problem it is trying to solve: ranging from decade based economic crisis to environmental.
I think that startup life taught me a lot, and the most critical was that only if I was really successful that I wouldn't be needed any more.
That is how I think one should approach life in the 21st Century, get together with like minded people to solve an immense problem that you collectively feel passionate about, dedicate your Life to it as much as possible when you're young and idealistic and quite frankly reckless. This is the only way I think we can undo even a fraction of the issues we have inherited from the damage done from the 20th Century based economics of extinction.
To achieve this we'd need a UBI and and a level of AI and ML to be at achieve levels of efficiencies for most goods and services that are simply not possible right now: I study AI and ML because I have a diverse work history that spans Tech, logistics, and Biology/Agriculture/Culinary (I see them all as the same thing).
I've realized that even in achieving my goals with my startup and playing a part in essentially reversing absurd legislation at the nation-state level and creating a lucrative Market for a safer form of pain management and anxiety than what Big Pharma could offer at a time when the opioid crisis has hit jaw dropping levels of misery and death as direct result of this business model it still didn't hit at the core of the issue. The hemp Industry never matured beyond the MVP (CBD) and hasn't ventured out of it's safe space where 'the money is being made.' The point was to make provide for a business model that could allow for carrying the costs in using hemp based products in seemingly unprofitable endeavors until market product fit could be achieved: but after the green rush mentality set in after 2012 it attracted the worst people and led to consolidation which maximized for profits not progress.
I won't get into the geopolitics, because that will take much longer to discuss, in short I was in Ukraine in the Fall of '21 and no one believed Russia was going to invade either including locals. I was certain that by November it was absolutely going to take place given how the proxy war with Poland and Belarus took place and that it would be a humanitarian crisis as Hungary shut the border down and logistically speaking it would be as bleak as it has been. I'm glad the resistance has been better than expected and it has been a valiant effort thus far in defending Ukraine from this war crime based invasion.
I make the point about Gen Z because as the saying goes 'it's easier to make strong children, than it is to heal broken men.' I've given up on my generation and the previous ones because those of us who were ever going to act already have, and most have given into pessimism and nihilism or more commonly apathy; it's a waste of my time and effort to go any further than I already have with them (I don't like the word, but I sort of mentor 3).
This requires a radical shift in a value system and the good thing is that this is a natural byproduct from what has been occurring throughout their life times, and most seem the game is not just stacked against them, it's entirely built to serve previous generations: be it 996 in China or the social nets the US cannot afford to payout past the deaths of most boomers.
The game is up it's time to admit that and start building alternatives.