I must admit that I'm increasingly trying to avoid anything to do with mainstream media and mainstream news.
The constant stream of negativity and fear porn has a way of wearing down even the strongest of us. Frankly, I have more than enough on my plate without a daily dose of disasters!
Of course, independent media and individual podcasters aren't a whole lot better, because they engage in the same kind of fear-mongering, even if the content is somewhat different.
Everywhere you turn, it seems like something terrible is happening. The cost of housing is so expensive that many people can't afford to live anywhere anymore; people work two jobs and they still can't afford to fund their lives; the cost of living is rising much faster than people's ability to pay for it.
Meanwhile the gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" is graduating from a gap to a canyon to a gaping chasm.
When I entered the workforce in the mid-1980's, the ratio of CEO-to-worker compensation was a ratio of about 40-to-1. Today, that ratio is more like 500-to-1. In just 40 years...
I look at it and wonder: which reality are we choosing here?
Although I am by nature an idealist it seems like we are definitely not choosing what I like to think of as the ”Star Trek reality” in which everybody gets what they need thanks to automation and money and inequality is a thing of the past.
Instead it seems like we're hurtling down towards a reality represented by some combination of ”The Hunger Games” and ”Elysium,” with a little bit of ”Idiocracy” thrown in for good measure.
It doesn't exactly make me feel very confident about the future, and there's a selfish part of me that's actually grateful that I am likely going to be dead and forgotten by this time the shit truly hits the fan and the end of the world as we know it manifests itself.
It's a prospect that does worry me for the sake of our grandchildren, however. What sort of world will they live in?
I suppose it's true that virtually every generation since the beginning of time has felt that — at least to some degree — the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Except the world of today is moving faster than ever before.
It also got me to thinking about how we — when we first encountered cryptocurrency — thought it was going to be the "disruptive technology" that would make a big difference in the world. Here we are, a decade+ later, and it seems more like that "disruption" has been usurped by the mainstream... and we're really no further anywhere than we previously were.
To whatever degree possible, I have tried to choose the reality that does not keep me permentantly chained to the mainstream hamster wheel. And I really don't like so-called hustle culture, and I'd just as well avoid it.
But what kind of reality can you really expect to create, anymore... when you step outside the mainstream?
Even so, I am going to continue choosing my own reality. Even if it leads me to the unfortunate end of the Hunger Games!
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your week!
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Created at 2025.07.30 00:38 PDT
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