Will things only get worse?

[Ryan M]

I’ll admit that I’m not very educated in this area but with inflation at the rate that it’s at and the cost of living becoming so high here in the United States I’ve been wondering where this country is headed. Will it only become harder and harder to afford to live here and get basic needs meet for the average person? 50 years from now will there just be homeless people and millionaires, with virtually no middle class? I ask this because it feels like we’re in a broken system where everything only gets more unaffordable over time. Is there any hope? Why is there no solution

 

Luckily I work for myself and I’m doing fine but it’s kind of scary being an entrepreneur these days because if things don’t work out, having a job doesn’t even seem like an option. Life must just be nothing but survival at that point

[tvaeli]

Humans also need to evolve. With emerging AI, you have another problem - AI is serving the rich class, not you. AI beats an average person in IQ tests and routine work.

You need to be artistic with your work, as it's only about generating a better database for AI, and do a high quality work with low pace, with creativity and vision - this way, the AI would need you.

As AI is beating humans and evolving, humans have to beat AI and evolve - luckily, they are free to use AI. Otherwise, there will be extreme rich few with bunch of robots, and the others getting poorer and poorer.

You need to fight the AI patent law, so you can get some money when AI is using your data, but your common work - like cooking, building houses ..it can be copied and pirated, and unless you are providing to quality and growth, as soon as they have 100 000 examples of one work, they do not need you much any more. But, when people stop working in general, AI would have no data and no human sense of accuracy, and they would slowly become inaccurate and die out - so, luckily, this part of work is still needed. Soon, they don't need your labor work and 8-hour workdays, but they need a slow work with very careful effort to provide examples into the database of activities; also you need to verify the work of others. Even the police would be only one large database.

The question is - how to evolve humans so that they all would beat AI in something. They need to constantly do that. I guess a spiritual development, enlightenment, unlimited potential - those things can well be your keywords.

[Breakingthewall]

I would say that there is the possibility that society will change in a profound and rapid way. Maybe some traumatic event could occur, maybe it is something that happens gently. Let's hope for the latter, although a dramatic crisis could occur at any time.

Society as it is set up makes sense as long as it is necessary for the very rapid evolution that is taking place. but reality tends to readjust itself and does so without any delicacy. We will see where events turn. interesting moment

[actuallyenlightened]

10 hours ago, Ryan M said:

50 years from now will there just be homeless people and millionaires, with virtually no middle class? I ask this because it feels like we’re in a broken system where everything only gets more unaffordable over time. Is there any hope? Why is there no solution

If things get that bad you could expect there to be a revolution where the ruling elite die off (think French Revolution) with a new constitution being written. Inequality is dangerous in that way

[aurum]

11 hours ago, Ryan M said:

Will it only become harder and harder to afford to live here and get basic needs meet for the average person? 50 years from now will there just be homeless people and millionaires, with virtually no middle class? I ask this because it feels like we’re in a broken system where everything only gets more unaffordable over time.

Highly unlikely. Inequality comes in waves. There will be a correction.

11 hours ago, Ryan M said:

Is there any hope? Why is there no solution

There are solutions. And whatever solutions we don't have could be worked out. 

The issue is implementation. People have to be ready for solutions.

[BlueOak]

The pattern is when something gets too top-heavy, it falls over. 

Until a political flip, revolution, or large conflict of some kind. Yes. Hopefully, a non-violent conflict will occur.

People are well suppressed, but you can only march so far right until you end up on the other side of the political spectrum. The dynamic begins to flip. A good example in our age would be microchipping, a social score, or social engineering. Even the extreme focus on immigrants to the point where populations are being managed in fine detail, is edging toward an authoritarian social outlook.

That's something people don't generally understand, so it's fun to watch it happen in real-time, maybe that's why I am still around here, tuning into politics now and again.

I know a socialist will tell me most of that's more fascist, yeah, but can you see how it's getting closer, and a point where it flips the spectrum completely? It just becomes a matter of how it's done rather than what's being done.

Edited April 9 by BlueOak

[royce]

@Ryan M Go Live In Thailand , Amazing there 

[Leo Gura]

Inflation is close to old levels.

Regardless, the solution is to make yourself productive and valuable so that you earn good money and don't have to worry.

This has always been the principle to live by, so nothing has changed.

Be more creative, more productive, and more valuable. That's what your mind should be worried about, not inflation.

Edited April 9 by Leo Gura

[Davino]

I have the feeling that people don't consider the importance of middle class. A healthy society usually is a Gaussian distribution centered in the middle class, with few people very poor or very rich. Although this is a game of contrasts, I see a tendency towards polarization in many spheres.

A healthy society is one that facilitates the enrichment of the individual with collective structures as well as having safety nets so that people don't fall into extreme poverty and they can trampoline outside of bad life circumstances.

[Leo Gura]

Do not wait for the government to save you. That never works. Save yourself.

Edited April 9 by Leo Gura

[Davino]

38 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Do not wait for the government to save you. That never works. Save yourself.

I always wanted to build myself in way that, independently of the historical political system ruling society I would be able to live happily and successfully.

Being an active member of society involves cocreating government and I would like to build a nurturing ecosystem rather than a hostile one. That means, the collective doing its part nurturing the individual and  the individual person, thriving self-sufficiently from the collective, as best as one is able to.

[Twentyfirst]

On 4/9/2024 at 4:30 AM, Davino said:

I have the feeling that people don't consider the importance of middle class. A healthy society usually is a Gaussian distribution centered in the middle class, with few people very poor or very rich. Although this is a game of contrasts, I see a tendency towards polarization in many spheres.

A healthy society is one that facilitates the enrichment of the individual with collective structures as well as having safety nets so that people don't fall into extreme poverty and they can trampoline outside of bad life circumstances.

Meh, the middle class was always peasants dressed up in nicer chains 

[BlueOak]

On 4/9/2024 at 9:30 AM, Davino said:

I have the feeling that people don't consider the importance of middle class. A healthy society usually is a Gaussian distribution centered in the middle class, with few people very poor or very rich. Although this is a game of contrasts, I see a tendency towards polarization in many spheres.

A healthy society is one that facilitates the enrichment of the individual with collective structures as well as having safety nets so that people don't fall into extreme poverty and they can trampoline outside of bad life circumstances.

I agree, I keep making that point but it gets a lot of pushback.

It's about balance. As an easy example, if 30 million or 30% of people are in the middle class with a fair amount of collective wealth, then politics will have to represent their interests as well. Money rules politics. So the poor can be ignored, suppressed, or given lip service. Only the people with money need to be engaged with on a practical level, because what can the poor do? Nothing. Suppression has reached the level of the poor never organizing into a collective mass.

If a healthy middle class exists, then the average person's interests are closer to being represented by their government. The average person is closer to the middle class than they are to a billionaire. 

I get people shouting EXTREME LEFT WING VIEW
I sit there thinking, what? We've gone so far that advocating for a middle class is now somehow considered socialist. 

Socialism, for those confused, would be a leveling of all classes, not a hierarchy of classes.

Edited April 12 by BlueOak