Jason Rines (iThinkBig)

We're Living Through the Best of Times

Very insightful Leftfield. The producers in the US market have been pretty much beat on for eight years with little or no reward. Slaves will work for a roof and food for a time, until they decide it isn't worth it and stop producing. IE: Soviet Union, Cuba etc. Each government type has it's own fatality sequence, Democracy being 200 years, Despotism 20 and Communism 40.

About the article. One observation I have noticed recently is a visible increase in near-retired individuals whom have parked some cash and have begun a bit of roving soul searching. Meaning your not alone John. Perhaps such sabbaticals will reveal some answers.

As to this being an adventure, money is not happiness but does provide this sort of freedom of mobility. The Gen X'ers and Millenials will not have this kind of mobility for soul searching, more like an adventure in austerity and fight for God given rights such as freedom of speech and to not be looted at will, hopefully not having to literally fight the enemy within but near certainly will be fighting the enemy without. No, I prefer to have started my career in the 1970s but a good argument can be made about refinement by fire or that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

As for being an eternal optimist and how great life will be in 20 years, I agree. But the long dark night WILL get longer. The reason is evolution and those who resist believing they will live forever vs. those who eventual evolve past them.

The book referenced as an important read sounds like a decent recommendation. For those who want the net-out, it is called a climactic end to current centralization, a big decentralization process. What emerges afterward is the era of holographic thinking vs. current 2D or 3D thinking. It will be the era of quantum computing, the ability to assign septillions of historic data points with real-time data points and forecast the weather 50 years out at 97% accuracy. Large human beaurocracies will not be needed nor appreciated as all people on earth will represent themselves individually and vote collectively. That would mean slower advances but far more stable advances. Oh how the current lords of the universe must hate that thought!

So, I am an eternal optimist, but a realist when it comes to the heavy lifting, blood, sweat and tears the next twelve years will bring. Unlike the guy in London staring at thralls of people whisking by, the probable outcome is a guy rebuilding a new city ten miles from London or any other capitol in the world. The former being leveled by a final destructive world war. Makes sense outside of fear mongering or data analytics of geopolitical scenerios. First there was villages, then city states, nations, blocs of nations now down to East and West. Nothing refined ever occurs in this universe without some form of violent collision. It is not some fanciful hope of anarchy, but realism that propels my thinking.


On Oct 25 01:07 PM Leftfield wrote:

> Dave Wrixon opined accurately in another comment today that the Americans
> of today aren't those who rose to past challenges. I will add that
> the government of today, voted in by these Americans, is an enormous
> threat also, far larger and more intrusive than in past challenging
> times.
> Since your first loss is your best loss, the refusal to face reality
> during the '08 meltdown, rather, to add public debt to cure the problems
> brought on by excessive debt and leverage, for favored recipients
> threatens to lock in rule by a small upper class.
> Freedom is precious and I wouldn't take what's left of it for granted
> nor assume benevolence by our leaders (trust them). Toiling as a
> slave for the plantation owner takes "the gumption to get on with
> it" without much reward in this life.