There was once a golden age, its time has come and gone, and the worst part is, those of us who grew up in that age, remember it. As time goes by, and things become less golden, the sheen wears off, it peels back to reveal maybe layers of lead, we start to fight, but its often too late.
At some point in time, we worked from 8 to death, we gathered food, tilled soil, fed animals, built our own farms, attended festivals, met friends, made enemies, had no expenses to deal with, just the gnawing stomach when times were lean and the fear of lean times when times were plentiful.
Then we left the farms, put on shirts, studied in school from 5 to 12, got city jobs to pay for food, and realised we had whole afternoons, lit with candles to entertain ourselves. Musical Instruments? Local friends? maybe some home-still juice? everything we needed.
But Winters were still cold, they needed wood from the forests delivered, or gas piped into the house. This cost money, so incomes needed to increase, so jobs needed higher pays, but through badly managed economies, we needed the elderly to leave work to allow young people to start, else they'd be unemployable, so now the retirement age came in.
Then we started to create entertainment, and whole industries of entertainment, but we needed money for entertainment, this meant more studies, so we went to school from 4 to 21, to get better paid jobs, but we needed electricity for entertainment, so we needed to create bigger plants, more power, more logistics, more grids, more networks, til now, its all one big network, called the Internet.
So, we're all entertained, so much so, that we don't have time for anything else, we're all connected, so much we don't want to connect.
Its like when I traveled overseas for years and years, I was not here, so when I visited, everyone wanted to see me, talk to me, visit me, because I was not available, but when I moved back here, 'we'll catch up' can mean not seeing friends for years and years, yet they live a stones throw away.
A Lack of something, creates desire for something.
Now, things have gone past this spectrum, we've passed through the eye of the storm, and things are taking a turn for the worst. instead of making lives better for everyone, we're reverting back to the old ways.
Old people, need to work longer to pay the bills, so they push for older retirement limits, this often provides governments with more income as unretired 60+yr olds are usually on the higher spectrum of incomes = more taxes. So the age of retirement creeps from 60, to 65, to 70.
Soon enough people will be working while in school, but because they're doing it all part time, they'll be in school longer, til 30 or worse.
They'll be unable to earn enough to start saving enough to create a nest, let alone a nest egg, so they won't be able to retire, as the prices of house climbs up and up beyond the means of any 30-40yr old.
The price of schools, education, healthcare, medical aid, living, gas, electricity, banking fees, transfer fees, it'll all go pear shaped as the cost to live will outdo the cost to die. the middle class will be squeezed, having children will be so expensive, only the top 1% will be able to put their kids through schools, the rest will go back to working menial jobs, curating videos or likes on entertainment social media for pittance, just to afford food, while living in sweat boxes.. better than outside in the cold.
The poor will be trapped in the never ending cycle of economical slavery, the middle class struggling to make do, with the rare few rising from the pile to greatness, giving hope to the rest, but its all part of the system in place to ensure the mass middle class don't rise up to topple the system. The few elite might cease to exist, as they slowly but surely put all the decisions into the hands of AI, too fast to be unplugged, the elite slip back down into the system themselves, unable to stop any changes.
Just like those babyboomers, realising now that they messed up so much, they're unable to make any changes, the system is a runaway train. The young are too engrossed in their mobile entertainment wallets to notice the chains being clamped around their feet.
How to escape? and where to escape to? remote forests? back to nature? I don't want to escape all of it, just the part where bills became more dominant than income, where people paid for entertainment, than make their own with their voices, their instruments, their hands and their minds.
The Goal?
I'd prefer a future where electricity is free, solar panels and watermills take care of it all. People work 20 hour weeks, study 10 more all their lives, can afford to buy a place to live by the time they are 30, so they can devote the next 20 years to something bigger than mortgages, bigger than themselves, 'Sundays' are forced offline, enjoy a full day off where shops and offices and banks and everything is shut, and TV is off and people have no choice but to get outdoors and just be.
Can we work towards that? please?
At some point in time, we worked from 8 to death, we gathered food, tilled soil, fed animals, built our own farms, attended festivals, met friends, made enemies, had no expenses to deal with, just the gnawing stomach when times were lean and the fear of lean times when times were plentiful.
Then we left the farms, put on shirts, studied in school from 5 to 12, got city jobs to pay for food, and realised we had whole afternoons, lit with candles to entertain ourselves. Musical Instruments? Local friends? maybe some home-still juice? everything we needed.
But Winters were still cold, they needed wood from the forests delivered, or gas piped into the house. This cost money, so incomes needed to increase, so jobs needed higher pays, but through badly managed economies, we needed the elderly to leave work to allow young people to start, else they'd be unemployable, so now the retirement age came in.
Then we started to create entertainment, and whole industries of entertainment, but we needed money for entertainment, this meant more studies, so we went to school from 4 to 21, to get better paid jobs, but we needed electricity for entertainment, so we needed to create bigger plants, more power, more logistics, more grids, more networks, til now, its all one big network, called the Internet.
So, we're all entertained, so much so, that we don't have time for anything else, we're all connected, so much we don't want to connect.
Its like when I traveled overseas for years and years, I was not here, so when I visited, everyone wanted to see me, talk to me, visit me, because I was not available, but when I moved back here, 'we'll catch up' can mean not seeing friends for years and years, yet they live a stones throw away.
A Lack of something, creates desire for something.
Now, things have gone past this spectrum, we've passed through the eye of the storm, and things are taking a turn for the worst. instead of making lives better for everyone, we're reverting back to the old ways.
Old people, need to work longer to pay the bills, so they push for older retirement limits, this often provides governments with more income as unretired 60+yr olds are usually on the higher spectrum of incomes = more taxes. So the age of retirement creeps from 60, to 65, to 70.
Soon enough people will be working while in school, but because they're doing it all part time, they'll be in school longer, til 30 or worse.
They'll be unable to earn enough to start saving enough to create a nest, let alone a nest egg, so they won't be able to retire, as the prices of house climbs up and up beyond the means of any 30-40yr old.
The price of schools, education, healthcare, medical aid, living, gas, electricity, banking fees, transfer fees, it'll all go pear shaped as the cost to live will outdo the cost to die. the middle class will be squeezed, having children will be so expensive, only the top 1% will be able to put their kids through schools, the rest will go back to working menial jobs, curating videos or likes on entertainment social media for pittance, just to afford food, while living in sweat boxes.. better than outside in the cold.
The poor will be trapped in the never ending cycle of economical slavery, the middle class struggling to make do, with the rare few rising from the pile to greatness, giving hope to the rest, but its all part of the system in place to ensure the mass middle class don't rise up to topple the system. The few elite might cease to exist, as they slowly but surely put all the decisions into the hands of AI, too fast to be unplugged, the elite slip back down into the system themselves, unable to stop any changes.
Just like those babyboomers, realising now that they messed up so much, they're unable to make any changes, the system is a runaway train. The young are too engrossed in their mobile entertainment wallets to notice the chains being clamped around their feet.
How to escape? and where to escape to? remote forests? back to nature? I don't want to escape all of it, just the part where bills became more dominant than income, where people paid for entertainment, than make their own with their voices, their instruments, their hands and their minds.
The Goal?
I'd prefer a future where electricity is free, solar panels and watermills take care of it all. People work 20 hour weeks, study 10 more all their lives, can afford to buy a place to live by the time they are 30, so they can devote the next 20 years to something bigger than mortgages, bigger than themselves, 'Sundays' are forced offline, enjoy a full day off where shops and offices and banks and everything is shut, and TV is off and people have no choice but to get outdoors and just be.
Can we work towards that? please?
