We are rapidly hurtling towards an inflection point in societal history.
We have no had a depression in nearly 90 years now....the pain of the 2008 financial crisis was bad, do not get me wrong, but it could have been exponentially worse. The crash of 1927 and Great Depression that followed would have seemed like the good old days had things turned fractionally different in '08...however, bailing out the bankers and financial institutions means the inevitable depression was not truly averted, only delayed. And when it does hit, it is going to hit with a force multiplier this time because governments around the world are not in position to backstop the entire economy.
What is going to collide? A future jobless economy, where there are a very tiny fraction of the population doing extremely well, a small group struggling to stay in the consumer economy a bit longer and a massive number of people whose jobs and industries are going to disappear...including paralegals, secretaries, long haul drivers, and anyone else who relies on labor and their body to earn a living. Only those who have a developed skill or trade (college education alone will not be sufficient by 2025, if it even is now). Plumbers, electricians, and the like will do OK, office managers and low level executives will get squeezed hard but lab techs and researchers, engineers and developers will remain viable.
Then all of this happens as two mammoth events in human history also collide - Climate Change going past 2 degrees total warming (and on its way to 4 degrees or more) and the retirement of the Baby Boom generation and their swamping of healthcare, geriatric care, retirement funds and the brain drain from the economy all come along for the ride. Just as we fall into a period of massive government debts and inability to increase funding, we will need money more than ever before to keep social safety nets from failing entirely. Just when we need experienced engineers and researchers to get us from now to tomorrow, they will be retired, and dead or gone.
The current path is one where we are all in a car, a madman is at the wheel, he is drinking and swerving and screaming at everything while paying zero attention to the potential consequences of such action. It is sad, it is dangerous, it is likely the death knell of society too.
It is gonna be real ugly, real soon and for a really long time afterwards too.
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