Quote:
Originally Posted by Crowbob
This is one of the more profound topics we have yet explored. One thing is for certain: we as a society and as an economy are in transition. The systems we have set up since around the nineteen thirties and during and after the Great Wars were conceived under fundementally flawed ideas. Those ideas being that there would always be economic growth, a strong demand for manufactured goods and that those manufacturing processes would always guarantee the need for labor.
We are seeing labor is clearly no longer in demand. A 60% non-participation rate would normally create enormous social upheavals-and it may still. We established the great social programs such as SS based on false assumptions. The current unsustainable immigration and entitlement messes are surely heading us toward an unimaginable calamity.
I do actually believe this nation is experiencing mass psychosis. It is in denial. It's as if the nation is watching a horror film, comfortably deluding ourselves with the false knowledge that in 90 minutes or so it will be over, the lights will come up and we'll all go out for drinks.
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I agree with all of this. My main issue typically is that a lot people around here seem to decry the changes and keep trying to say we need to get back to the "good old days." Sorry, but that ship sailed a long time ago and not clear there is much that could have been done to change it. I've said it many times - digital changed EVERYTHING. It is about more than the internet. It is a fundamental shift in every aspect of life other than the increasingly small number of analog/human things in life.
It really isn't about decisions that the politicians made or didn't make. Those just exacerbate things or prolong the agony. The old models don't hold any more as we're living in increasingly virtual/mixed realities that break time and space. A lot of people are getting left behind and others are getting ahead. Which has happened throughout history. What is different now is the rate of change, along with a fundamental shift (to digital) that is unprecedented in history. The invention of the wheel and Gutenberg come close - but no cigar.