Freedom from the rentseekers

I am looking forward to getting a bit of strange - well, some alt action at least. So far, several of my larger holds are yet to get a run up and while I won't sell out of any of them (I think), I wouldn't mind taking some gains and laddering into some others. The amounts I am talking about here aren't exactly large, but they are big enough to make things interesting for me and dream a little dream of free.

I don't know how much I would need to never have to work again for the income, but I do know how much it'll take to pay off my debts and at the rate I am currently doing it and as long as nothing major comes up, it will be clear as I am forced to retire. That is about 25 years away - which in my opinion is a very long time to be in debt. Of course, the greatest part of that debt is the house that we plan on living in for a long time to come, so at least that money isn't completely dead money, like rent.

Of course, this isn't an uncommon situation and likely much of the first world is in a similar set of conditions, where work is essentially necessary to live an adequate quality of life. Even then, quality of life isn't guaranteed. This reliance on the need for work of course sets up issues, especially under times of economic stress where people are being laid-off, but more importantly, through the changing labor needs driven by technological innovation.

While I am currently pretty well skilled, there is no guarantee that I am able to use my current skills to find enough income for the next 25 years, as in that time, a lot can change. While many will say that the solution is to reskill, that is not actually a solution for most individuals, as people are suited to different kinds of work and it can be like trying to change one's own DNA. Even if one can manage to change work, they are then going to be competing with people who are likely already suited to that field and have been doing it far longer. For example, I could probably learn to play a piano, but I am never going to be Mozart, or even "pretty good" in comparison to anyone who has been dedicating much of their life to it.

And, in my field of training, things can change very quickly, especially since what I am training could eventually be done by an AI - and I am not talking about the training itself. The program that I am currently training end users for, will likely evolve to the point where there really aren't many end users necessary, as the functions performed will eventually be learned by a semi-smart AI and improved upon and executed at 100,000x the speed of a bank of humans. This might not be available today - but how far away is it?

While I have always backed myself to be able to do some kind of work to cover my needs, I am skeptical if I will be able to stretch this as far as I need to in order to cover my debts, let alone build the nest egg required to survive comfortably past retirement.

However, through the work I am doing here and a bit of luck along the way, perhaps I will have enough value to be able to supplement the foundation in order to survive in the future. Maybe even, be able to provide some value for my daughter to be able to not have to worry about her early economic needs to the same degree I have spent my entire life so far - my largest cause of stress and anxiety.

Yet, perhaps all of this won't be needed at all as the world is changing and while I predict that it is going to get much worse before it gets better. If we make it through the worst of it, there is more opportunity for the required social and cultural paradigm shifts to happen so that we are more capable to manage our resources effectively as individuals and a group of individuals.

A friend of mine was saying how if there was a vote for the formation of the EU now, it wouldn't get voted through - and I agree. However, this is not a good criticism of the EU, as it wasn't formed now, it had its beginnings just after the bloodiest war humanity has created that saw tens of millions of people killed across Europe and other countries. Under those conditions, an agreement that unites countries and encourages them to work together rather than fight against each other, would look pretty good. While some can argue that the economic side of the EU is damaging, if the known alternative was war, would they choose to disband it?

Yet, the world we inhabit now in which we are the most connected globally, is also seeing the greatest amount of activity to disconnect from each other, the rise of nationalism, identity politics and populist policy, driven by people who don't remember real pain and have never seen the blood soaked streets from war. But, looking at what is happening in the US now and assuming that it won't be long until it spreads globally, I think that it won't be too long until we start to experience the reincarnation of the pains of the past, as if we never learned at all.

It is interesting to note that people believe that automation and AI can be combatted with reskilling, yet with all the knowledge, tools and resources we have available, we can't even manage ourselves to be any better than the darkest times in modern human history and instead, seem to be shooting straight for it. Are you "smart enough" to adapt to the coming world - are you aggressive enough, violent enough?

I am not. I am a pacifist - and see war as necessary because we are too stupid to adapt to the changing world and use our resources well. But, along that path to misery, there might just be enough pain for enough people to ask themselves, "is there a better way to live?", have that epiphany and pivot toward improvement, rather than regression to where we never want to be again.

I believe that along that path of pain, many will find that the reason for their issues is that they have given up ownership of lives and have become renters instead. Owning nothing, reliant on the rent-seekers to provide goods and services for every need for a fee. But eventually, the cost becomes too high to pay and the services stop and due to the lack of usable skills and job vacancies, there is no way to get back in. Many are going to be priced our of the market of life completely, unless they start providing for their future by, building and owning the market itself.

I think that this is where we are starting to turn in crypto now, where for even the people who have been here a while are waking up to what is actually going on here. We are building our future so that we will always be relevant and cannot be cut free by our rent-seeking landlords - because we own our own home.

It would be strange to me indeed if one day, I can attribute my economic freedom to my shared thoughts. In many ways, that might be considered an alternative lifestyle already. Perhaps this is where the hippie movement got it wrong, as they went communal and shared everything they had, but owned nothing. Maybe what they needed was decentralized ownership where sharing was incentivized instead.

Peace.

Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]