don’t smoke, it kills

tax the rich

the money might well go to bezos, but if we then tax bezos, that ain’t amount to shit.

I’m also for student loan forgiveness, but again, we never addressed the cost of school so basically we burdened future generations with debt so bankers can get paid.

Yes, i agree, the state should not go into debt to give “free handouts”, because you’re just burdening future generations to give resources to a few greedy assholes. We have the same situation here in germany. lots of voices say “we should go into debt to pay for our expenses”, but what would realistically happen is that all that money goes to the rich, and we’re stuck with the debt. that is why i oppose going into debt. rather, the rich must be taxed at first, and then we can distribute these resources among the poor. it will cause a little bit of inflation, but not enough to outweight the benefits (IMO). the people would still on average gain a net benefit this way.

No, i think you’re wrong. It has nothing to do with Russia. Rather,

Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall (TRPF) is at work and is causing wages to decline over time. This was predicted as far back as the 19th century, and it took a long time (longer than most people expected) to carry out, but now we’re seeing the consequences.

Through the centuries, we (humanity) have seen multiple waves of development:

• agricultural
• industrial (heavy machines)
• informational

Now, the last of these three big waves is coming to an end (rapid internet enshittification), humanity ceases to be able to give meaningful employment to the people. This is why we’re seeing a rise in bullshit jobs and working poor - because wages are falling.

People like Trump held the belief for a long time that it was because people were getting “lazy and inefficient”, and if they return to power, they’re gonna kick everyone’s ass, reduce avocado toasts, and get the economy flowing again. Truth is, however, and Trump will have to admit this, that the people’s employment/economy is slowing down NOT because of lazyness, but because there’s simply not much left to do for us humans here on earth. This is why we’re going to see mass unemployments in the coming decades, and Trump’s attempt at “efficiency” isn’t going to solve things.

In my opinion, what we need now, is Universal Basic Income (UBI). It stabilizes society and gives people guarantees about their future. I am saddened that so many people seem to oppose it, but i think it would be a really good idea and we should work towards it.

does it include netflix?

i guess this depends on whether you see yourself as a person who deserves basic goods, or if you see yourself as a workforce who needs to be told what to do to be happy.

It would be good to explain every abbreviation at least once.

Well, this has been known for decades, the Club or Rome’s report (Limits of Growth) predicted this in the 1970s. Here’s a graphic from 2004:

We need UBI (Universal Basic Income) or people are going to not be able to afford basic commodities any more. We already see working poor, it’s gonna get worse. Demand UBI.

Technology design peaked here:

Ich finde die AfD beschissen, aber wir brauchen eine ordentliche Gesprächskultur. Nicht mit der AfD zu reden, ist genau dieses Denkverbot, das die AfD zu recht bemängelt.

coffeine

Because they aren’t items on the list

don’t they eat scraps?

anything but metric

• “Insist on doing everything through ‘channels.’ Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.”
• “Make ‘speeches.’ Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your ‘points’ by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate ‘patriotic’ comments.”
• “Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.” “Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.”
• “‘Misunderstand’ orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can.”
• “In making work assignments, always sign out the unimportant jobs first. See that the important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers of poor machines.”
• “To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.”
• “Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.”
• “Multiply paperwork in plausible ways.”
• “Make mistakes in quantities of material when you are copying orders. Confuse similar names. Use wrong addresses.”
• “Work slowly. Think out ways to increase the number of movements necessary on your job”
• “Pretend that instructions are hard to understand, and ask to have them repeated more than once. Or pretend that you are particularly anxious to do your work, and pester the foreman with unnecessary questions.”
• “Snarl up administration in every possible way. Fill out forms illegibly so that they will have to be done over; make mistakes or omit requested information in forms.”

But … but we’re already doing every single one of them 🥺

ooh shit, how did that happen? was it a crazy ex? i hope you get better soon. i know how demanding these post-stress syndromes can be. (i’m struggling with something similar, but not as severe)

I don’t think there’s a lot you can do … a lot of problems are big and complex, like food getting expensive, a staggering economy, … but what you can do is to talk with your friends and build social connections. If it doesn’t change reality, at least it makes you feel better :) and i mean it, lots of mental health problems (that are so widespread today) can be at least alleviated by social contact. And maybe gives society a little bit of extra stability … if people are connected in meaningful ways.

Apart from that, i can only pray that people take the world and the future seriously, and think twice before they put children into this world.

Do you have a matrix chat account? I would like to talk to you in more detail.

I have collected these thoughts discussing with a small group of friends.

To really understand long-term development, it isn’t enough to just consider “pop econ”, as you rightly put it. I have considered some thoughts into it that are right on the border between reality and mysticism, for lack of a better word. The reason people do things is because deep inside, they are moved by the meaningfulness of it all. That is why it makes sense to consider the world’s fate on a story-telling scale.

People believed during the 1960s that economic growth was the right thing to do. As we all know (The Limits to Growth) it can’t go on that way forever, in fact it has to come to a halt. That is why the economy is in turmoil, and people must have fewer children or we face a large unemployment crisis in the future.

When that exactly will be is a subject to debate, and i put 2040 because there’s Renewable Energy that has to be set up, including everything that has to do with it (green steel, …). So that takes a few (maybe 20) years to install. After that … what comes after?

In my eyes, the unemployment crisis is bigger than the food crisis. Acres lose fertility, yes, but they retain 40% fertility in the long-term, even with all the insects dying and the mycorrhiza dissolving. Since people only use 30% of (technically) possible food-sources today, this should work out.

Somewhere around 25% less world GDP than now in 2070 from climate change destroying everything.

I don’t think we’ll have (and i hope we won’t still have) “GDP” in 2070, honestly.

I get reborn in the world that i helped create …

The labor market is a free market - this means that prices are regulated by supply and demand.

If people have fewer children, there will be fewer workers, and therefore lower supply in working hours. This will mean wages would go up - and quite significantly. This is why i think it would make sense to implement policies to encourage people to have fewer children, or at least not standing in the way of DINKs (double income no kids). Because i want to keep the quality of life up.

So i guess, yes, it does make sense if the population number drops (peacefully). High unemployment rates typically precede social unrests, and i foresee high unemployment rates around 2040. Because economic growth is slowing down, and it is unlikely that it can be brought back to the rapid pace it had in the 1960s.

But it is economic growth that causes the most demand for workers. Simply maintaining things does not require such a high work input.

In my experience, things are a bit similar in Austria, Europe. I had worked an internship in a software development company around 2016, and things were splendid. Everybody was in a good mood, and things seemed to move smoothly. One year later, in 2017, people were holding back a bit more.

I went there again in 2019, and it was okay. In 2020, the business closed.

I think the halt of economic growth is a global phenomenon. Throughout human history, there used to be three big waves of development:

• agricultural (farmers) - biochemical work
• industrial (machine operators and construction) - mechanical work
• information (IT) - electrical/information work

now, it seems to me, the economy is fully developed, and growth slows down. The only growth i foresee in the future will be the settlement of Mars (because mars can theoretically hold up to 1 billion people), and “cleaning up” on Earth (renewable energy).