Impatience, greed, laziness seem to be the traits I pick up in people I interact with online and in person more than anything else now. Everything is more expensive, the content I used to enjoy consuming or making myself like game development are in such terrible states I have very little hope for what they will turn out being like in the future. Everyone just seems to be trying to make as much money as possible while trying to use their brain as little as possible and it’s so draining to be surrounded by that all the time.
I don’t want to participate in this, I literally want to unplug and go live in the forest somewhere. Anyone else?
A good side effect of becoming the person you wish others were is that many people secretly feel the same way, and you'll attract good people by being so. You'll ofc also attract charlatans and pretenders and naturally get better at distinguishing the two. And soon you'll realize that there are good people, or good communities out there! And now that you've practiced your form of virtuous behavior, it's more likely that they'll welcome you with open arms.
When your environment changes so does your thought process and then habits. If one becomes cynical of the world the best antidote is imo to find a small world of like minded people, and first step is almost always to become a virtuous person yourself
Get into offline meetings and promote your ideas. Give your voice to the locals as well as the online communities.
Suffice to say, what I see now is infinitely worse: people treating Dario, Altman, Musk (and people that should be locked up for life) as gods is disgusting. From financial, social and political aspects (which is to say all aspects), we are absolutely cooked. I was having this discussion with my mom as well as friends and we are all on the same page: say we want to just disappear and not deal with it, there is no one country on earth that can provide sanctuary.
In the 2010s, the tech industry was a place where smart people could be smart and reasonable. The crypto-bollocks was it's special corner where people that had no understanding of cryptography and decentralization could larp around. AI just let them spill out into the rest of the tech world. Add the griefter economy, the idiotic act of making stupid people famous and the fact that, at large, people are not self-aware at all and we get to where we are: Idiocracy was not a comady but a prediction for the very near future - one which we are already in.
Simple example: planes have been capable of taking off and landing on their own with 0 human input. 5 years ago, no sane human being would have boarded a plane without a pilot. Hundreds of millions would jump on board now without batting an eyelash. Not only that but if any slop-corp made a fully slopped-together plane, people would start bidding for tickets to be the first on board. All while people like Jensen are openly saying "Knowing maths is not important. For example I don't know my own address".
The only hope I have is that there will be a great collapse soon - things need to get worse before they get better.
Living through these times now is like 14-year-old me receiving a new birthday present more or less every day.
Multiple times a week I get the sense I won the "lucky to not have been born a generation earlier" lottery.
I feel better-prepared for this than almost anyone. I have everything I need, I can work with my hands, I can build any software I need, I own my own business for 16 years. I have a 38 acres of forest and game, a big garden. I'm a generalist, born in the perfect year to understand how computers actually work, remember DOS, remember before 9/11.
I've never been more excited about the world, and I have never felt I could have this much power (without great wealth) as an individual. I can't wait for robotics to land in similar fashion. I hope biomedical advances can keep my folks alive until we beat this game.
E.g. we're literally commercializing alchemy now.
Not "sort of kind of if you squint and pretend"... literally honest-to-goodness alchemy.
https://x.com/marathonfusion/status/2113001073019662481
I am living in a Sci-Fi novel from my youth
I grew up poor and it doesn't bother me at all but I still need funds to buy land, build a roof over my head, etc. So the plan right now is to save money as best as I can.
1. Spending years of your life earning enough money so that you can begin to live at some later date is not a good way to live. Tomorrow is not guaranteed, and even if it was, you will be different and everything and everyone around will be different.
2. Human beings are not meant to live away and disconnected from everyone else. We are community creatures, even if not always very social.
I do think people overall would be happier if it was culturally, socially desirable to be, or at least come across, as humble, and consume little, especially the more resources you have. Think Warren Buffett -- maybe he does spend a lot on himself, but at least he does not come across as if he does and he certainly does not brag about it. The opposite of Instagram culture. Anyone going against this would see fierce backlash, reputational damage etc.
A new religion of sorts.
Perhaps then people would not feel the need to keep up with the Jones' as much, always feeling as if they don't have enough, worrying about their status. Once people have enough, they can have more choice in what they work on, and perhaps the economy can restructure towards more activity that actually makes people's lives better.
As is, people can't seem to stop even using Meta products or X or buying Tesla cars, despite most people likely having poor opinions of the people at the top of these companies. I do not really understand why. It is easy, these companies have no moats, there are easy alternatives, and it would change the world.
It's expensive only if you want to feel like you're away from everyone, but actually stay very near to everyone.
You can buy a decent acreage (30-80 acres) for less than a new truck.