The Sky is Falling!
I’m starting to feel like Chicken Little here as I repeatedly point out the systemic weaknesses, the lack of fundamnetal strength, and other issues because despite the undeniable truth in my arguments – things just keep plugging along.
It seems that the world just might not fall into chaos as Donald Trump and a global cadre of dictators and despots replace the peacea nd prosperity of times past with anxiety, depression, hatred and bile. No one around me has any money to spare – no one seems happy. Maybe that’s the problem – maybe I’m operating from a cognitive bias where we need change. We need the collapse in order to have a shot at building something better. I don’t know, but the sky seems like it is still pretty well in place.
The Mueller Probe seems to not be in any rush to present evidence that Trump and his cronies committed treason or are active puppets of Russia – there doesn’t appear to be any huge war on the horizon. The equity markets keep on going up despite the debt rates, the weakness in global growth, and the perils of trade wars, technology addiction, and mass psychosis.
Infrastructure keeps crumbling as the price for infrastructure keeps going up and up and up. Real income is falling as the cost for housing keeps going up and up and up. Mental health problems and global warming problems keep going up and up and up as the cost of fixing or dealing with them goes up and up and up too. Everything is going up. The sky isn’t falling, It’s going up in smoke.
I have to ask myself if I’ve been operating on a severe cognitive bias. I want the housing market to collapse because I can’t afford to buy real estate at the prices they currently sit at. I want the stock market to collapse because I have investments in cash, gold, and other market contrarian areas. I want Trump to be impeached and imprisoned because he represents everything that I think is wrong with society. I want billionaires to be guillotined (or at least for limits and responsibilities to be put on their wealth). I want cryptocurrency to disempower the U.S. government and the status quo of banks and power brokers. I want the whole human system to collapse so that humanity can have a chance at becoming something better than we have been. If that takes global warming, worldwide depression, and mass chaos – that seems a reasonable price.
So, perhaps I have been operating from the fallacy point that I’ve so often pointed out. I’ve been starting with a premise “The world is falling apart and heading into chaos” and I’ve been looking for the evidence to support it – and finding plenty of it. I don’t like admitting this. I’m very invested in and looking forward to the dystopian future where a collapse occurs.
Unfortunately, I am starting to think that the dystopian future collapse I have hoped for has been replaced by a different dystopia that very closely resembles the world we live in now. Crumbling infrastructure, a widening gap between the global rich and the global poor, a leveling of the playing field between the rich of all nations and the poor of all nations- meaning no more third world rich – just global rich and no more first world poor – just global poor. Increased violence. Xenophobia. A technological dictatorship run by ‘social credit’ and increasingly the erosion of the ‘free’ perks that made life bearable as parks become homeless camps, malls become refugee or migrant jails, libraries lose funding, schools divide between third world public schools and first world private schools. You will either be able to afford a self driving car or pay more for a self driving service than you now pay for a car. Just get in your fucking screen.
So, please pardon me if I’m wrong about the collapse. I’m simply hoping for a better world for everyone – but increasingly, it looks like we are not headed there. We are headed towards a better world for a small elite and a much worse world for the rest of us – not a world where we have a choice or can actually make a difference, but a tightly controlled, limited mobility, slave world where you are either a treasure holder or a piece of trash.
I’m still rooting for the collapse – but maybe the sky isn’t falling at all. Maybe, the sky has already fallen and will never go back up.