The question is what part will we play--statistic or participant in a better world?
If you value your peace of mind, you should not read my new book The Revolution No One Sees Coming because it's telling you what you don't want hear by tearing down the facades obscuring all the expediencies that maintain the illusion that the precarious status quo is solid and sustainable.
To claim the status quo is solid and sustainable is a parody of a farce of a satire, which nobody wants to hear even though it's obvious:
the status quo Has reached its limits, and neither the expediencies of borrowing trillions of dollars every year or the oft-proffered reforms (Modern Monetary Theory, adopting bitcoin, returning to the gold standard, stablecoins, etc.) can fix what's broken because what's broken is the layer below "money" and "technology"--the nation's moral foundation has collapsed as maximizing self-interest is all that matters.
Everything else--for example, the stability and sustainability of the nation's social order, economy and government--is of no concern. If we get rich, nothing else matters.
What everyone wants to hear are technocratic solutions that require zero changes or sacrifices, solutions that are transactions: buy a new tech gizmo, buy stablecoins, etc., solutions that leave the status quo and our own lives untouched because the fixes are magic: life continues to get more unaffordable as costs rise, debt continues soaring, but never mind, it's magic.
Except there's this funny thing about history: it's like a pendulum, and when the pendulum reaches an extreme of unfairness and extreme concentrations of private wealth and power, it swings to the opposite extreme.
All this is disturbing, so better not read my new book. It feels a lot better to believe that healthcare premiums can go up 13% every year, credit card and student loan default rates can soar, AI will chomp through the world (soon on every shelf in Walmart) and everyday life will go on just like it does today for another 10 or 20 years because Dow 100,000 will make rich people even richer. Um, yeah, sure, because understandably, it's what we want to hear.
Or slip into the fantasy world of AI will deliver Super-Abundance and wealth for all of us, electricity will be free, and we'll all be on permanent paid vacation--a parody of thinking, but it's what we want to hear.
Everyone wants solutions that leave everything the same, but reality has leapfrogged fantasies and fairy tales. Do I like being the one to tell you what you don't want to hear? No, but here's the thing.
It's like being on the beach on a sunny day. The bay is placid, kids are playing in the sand, and never mind the peculiar movement of the water. Why ruin a peaceful day? What good would getting stressed out do? Indeed.
Somebody says the receding water is a signal of a tsunami, but all the doom-and-gloom forecasts of tsunamis have been false, so ignore it.
That this isn't a forecast, it's a signal, is lost.
A few people can grab surfboards and attempt to ride the incoming 30-foot wave. Most of us cannot. Our only chance to avoid being swept away is to move to higher ground before the wave of change arrives. Waiting until the beach chairs are tumbling in white-water is too late.
We want a specific prediction of the tsunami's arrival. It doesn't work like that. The disturbance in the water may fade, and we take that as the all-clear. But it isn't. Change is tricky like that.
Don't read my new book, because it's calling attention to the peculiar tremors in the water. It's not a forecast of doom and gloom, it's a forecast of change that we'll all be part of. The question is what part will we play--statistic or participant in a better world?
Don't read my new book, because it suggests ignoring all the rah-rah cheerleading and all the distractions, and instead listen to your own gut, your own assessment that's telling you something is seriously amiss and the herd is nervous for a good reason.
Moana Jones-Wong at Pipeline, North Shore, Oahu, Hawaii
A handful of the most experienced surfers in the world may ride the incoming wave, but many of them will wipe out, too. As Clint Eastwood memorably said in the film Magnum Force: "A man's got to know his limits." The same can be said of entire nations.
So try this: bookmark this page and read it again on April 30, 2027.
read the first 4 chapters for free
My new book is now available at a 50% discount: $12 for the print edition and $6 for the Kindle ebook.
This sale ends on November 20.
The Revolution No One Sees Coming
read the first 4 chapters for free
My new book:
The Revolution No One Sees Coming ($18 print, Kindle $9) first 4 chapters (free)
New collection of five intriguing stories: Jumble Bin Stories (Kindle $6, print $12) read samples for free (PDF)
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