[wand3r]

I am speaking more about American society. 60+ percent of people don't own homes or meaningful stock portfolios, they have almost no participation or skin in the game. The current administration is doing some horrible stuff (IMO), the previous administration did nothing and there is absolutely no vision. AI is going to take away all the jobs and opportunities. I really don't think this is a symptom of being "always online". The government is putting people in black bags, corruption is extremely blatant, trust in everything is at an all time low.

To turn this around on you, if you think society is doing well and has almost no chance of collapse you probably have a net worth/assets of at least 1 million dollars.

[SvenL]

Yes, if people think that society is defined by people owning houses and stock, then yes, society might be already collapsed. But I think this is not really what society is about.

To this extend, if AI takes all the jobs, people would be able to still be alive. Call me sci-fi romantic, but this is basically Star Trek. And they have still a society where everybody can pursue their interests regardless of income because computer and robots taking care of basic needs.

I think society has nothing to do with money, sharing and caring is more important. And every individual in a society can contribute to this, regardless of wealth.

[legitster]

I think you have those number backwards - home ownership and stock ownership are both over 60%.

Even so, the housing market problem is largely a modern one - we went from a society where the majority of homes were multi-generational to one where homes are nuclear. So per capita, the demand for homes has skyrocketed. But also as baby boomers are retiring and shedding assets, I would anticipate this situation could improve itself in 10-20 years.

The administration is doing some pretty horrible stuff by modern first world standards, but is not actually out of alignment with how politics existed before the Cold War. We'll probably witness the end of Pax Americana, but society can continue to exist even in illiberal times where war and violence are more common.

[wand3r]

Yes, sorry I misremembered. That was under 35. Its around 50% for people under 45. I am just pointed out the trends. I am not even sure what I mean by collapse, but maybe some sort of revolution or war. Most of society does not believe in the american dream, does not believe hard work is enough to succeed, we are seeing crazy amounts of inflation, government services are being cut, housing is WAY outpacing inflation. It's dangerous to have a society with 18-30 year old males unemployed, single and completely disillusioned. AI will almost certainly completely destroy the job market. What will happen in the next 10 years? Certainly something most of society would consider horrible, but is that a "collapse"?

[Jtsummers]

> we are seeing crazy amounts of inflation

We had two bad years, 2021 and 2022, and then it's declined. It's not stellar, it'd be nice if it were lower but it's not "crazy". In US history, the 1970s and 1980s were overall far worse, and if you look at other countries around the globe our worst isn't even that crazy.

https://www.investopedia.com/inflation-rate-by-year-7253832

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.DEFL.KD.ZG?locat... - Argentina. That's crazy amounts of inflation, and that's not even the worst out there. Meanwhile, Argentinian society is overall doing alright.

If the US collapses with 3% inflation, then it wasn't the inflation that caused the collapse. Something else is fundamentally wrong with a society that can't be resilient against that.

[mrpound]

Do you really think the government should be responsible for creating meaning in peoples lives? Most people who are unemployed are so by CHOICE. There are far too many people out there wanting to "create content" for a living, i.e. play video games on stream or spread antisocial propaganda. It's a thoroughly useless occupation that imparts no economic value to society or edification to the people consuming said "content". This idea that AI is going to "destroy" the job market is just an excuse, a cop-out a rationalization of ones failure to invest time =or energy developing marketable skills because "there's no point"

[Tadpole9181]

McCarthiesm and Vietnam and Japanese interment camps and slavery. Women and minorities didn't have rights. Native Americans weren't citizens. Companies owned towns and operated militaries against civilian labor. Life has been much worse and much more authoritarian in the American past, let alone the past in general.

The pendulum swings.

This might get worse before it gets better. Germany and Japan grew after Nazism. China, despite its flaws, has seen their people grow happier and is leading the charge in many domains.

The future is scary and the administration is doing harm. We may lose our advantages as a nation, we may struggle economically or scientifically. But a collapse of economy - let alone society - in just 10 years is astronomically unlikely outside of a nuclear or biological war.

Even if we plummeted to Russia's level of economy and corruption, Russia still exists after a hundred years of it all, with some of the largest scale genocides & repression campaigns in human history.

But that's not really happening. Despite it all, the US is largely doing fine? The markets seem to believe they can bear the worst of it until the pendulum swings again.