>>33342I'm not sure if anything could cause a great depression today. There were different circumstances then (namely, uninsured deposits at banks). A recession, sure, but I've lived through enough of those not to find them that scary. Even being poor in the US during a recession is like winning the "where to be born" lottery. To be clear, I'm not saying that from the vantage point of blind patriotism. I'm saying it from the vantage point of a parent with a nearly 30 year old son who is willingly homeless and who gave up his ID and won't get mental health help, and I swear it's [in part] because being homeless is so comfortable in the US. This honestly wasn't my opinion even a few years ago, I always thought those public benches with a bar in the middle to prevent homeless people taking a nap on them were evil, but now I understand the concept. We had him on the waitlist for government subsidized housing (they've literally paid us in months where neither of us had a job, to pay off the electric bill), we had him on food stamps in his own name, he moved out because we wanted him to get a part time job to help with bills while his SSI application pended. He had medicaid for about a month before he moved out, hasn't been to a doctor since he was 14. (I'm his stepdad in case you're wondering where the fuck I've been his whole life).
And yet I'm completely optimistic. You're right to say
>on the cosmic scaleBecause that's entirely the level I think on. I've accessed my past life memories and the space between worlds that people visit during Near Death Experiences (I have a condition that makes my heart stop periodically, got a pacemaker for it now yay 🙂, so I've been 'dead' for a few seconds a few times). I'm 100% convinced that children come into this world remembering who they were before they came here, but by the time they pick up language, they've forgotten most of it and are conditioned out of accessing it. I once had sex with a woman who was tracking her ovulation to make sure we didn't conceive. After I left the state, I had a "dream" of an alien abduction experience where my sperm was harvested by grey aliens. The next morning, she called me to say she was pregnant. I completely believe there are grey aliens and they are hostile to us. I also completely believe the US government knows about them and has since at least Roswell.
And yet I'm completely optimistic.
Everything has consistently gotten better for humanity throughout all of time, if you just zoom out your timescale by like, at least twenty years. Do it by fifty and it's even more obvious. I don't believe Jesus was a man, but I do believe the bible has instructions for how to live a full life. God is the universe, and also the consciousness which projects into that universe.
<I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing?<Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are?<Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?<“And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. <And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?<“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ <These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly [source] already knows all your needs.<Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.<So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.Don't think of these words as scripture. Think of these words as yourself, in a past life, writing a reminder down for yourself in a future life. (Fun fact, the middle east is pretty close to India, and ancient Christians believed in reincarnation. Modern christianity has very little resemblance to the OG form, but you probably knew that.).
>i don't expect us to enter a post-capitalism world without bitter strifeTo paraphrase a Buddha, we suffer because we wish to be free of suffering, and that desire to be free of suffering is itself the true pain. It's a daily chore to release that desire to be free of suffering, but I've got about three years of excellent practice at it since my daughter died three years ago. As Epicurus said:
>“Every pain is easily disregarded; for any intense pain is brief, and the suffering brought on by a physical pain that lasts long is slight.”Well, it's true for psychological pain too. And financial pain. To return this to your economic doomer mentality:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States#Great_Depression_onward_(1929%E2%80%93present)Look at the duration column. Even the great depression only lasted three years. The older you get, the faster time goes. It's the same general pattern as the Wheel of the Year, just on a slightly slower timescale. A recession is an economic "winter", and the economic "seasons" each last about a year and a quarter. (Add the "duration" and "time since last recession" columns). These pains are predictable, and I'm just Joe Schmoe recognizing the pattern. I understand it's an argument from authority, but I do believe that the people with their hands on the rudder of the economy can notice the same patterns I notice and have a bit more understanding as to how to address them.
I for sure see an AI bubble that's ready to burst, but I don't really see how it's going to affect me. It's going to affect shareholders in these speculative AI venture firms, a class of which I am not a member. It will hit the mutual funds, but the whole point of a mutual fund is that it's insulated against this sort of thing, so it won't hit them *that* hard. The people it will hit worst are the speculators, the people just trying to make a buck off of other peoples' work with no understanding of what they're doing or of its ramifications. There's probably a marxist word for this group of people that I don't know because I'm a 420chan refugee outside the poltical spectrum. But I don't have pity for them suffering when a bubble bursts.
>i certainly don't expect LLMs to be the catalyst for that transitionZoom out your perspective. Everything has been a catalyst, and everything has been part of that transition. The NHS was founded in 1948, Medicaid was established in 1965, and both programs have expanded since their inception. The trend, both globally and in individual nations, is for more services to become public over time. Look at the Lifeline program for phone service in the US, first implemented in 1985, expanded to wireless in 2005, ten years ago they even started offering a paltry credit towards internet as an alternative for phone service. Give it another ten years and I bet they'll be paying for the full internet contract.
>i expect years of struggle aheadYou're right to expect that (see my Buddha quote above), but that's just the human condition. Struggle. I suppose in my post of quotes, that leads me to a good quote to end this ramble on.
>One must imagine Sisyphus happy.