Luddites have always feared machines and automation would create systemic unemployment. It hasn't. AI is just the new source of fear as far as I can tell. People seem to have trouble grappling with automation eliminating drudgery on one hand, and eliminating those same old jobs on the other while ignoring the new jobs that can now be done with that labor previously more essential elsewhere.

Utopians have always promised a future of leisure. It has never arrived. I doubt it ever will. But the taxes and regulatory burdens imposed by the government sue as hell don't help us move that direction. Perhaps we could live in luxury on 4 hours a day of labor without that burden. Who knows?

But then, our idea of "luxury" is a moving goalpost. I have more cool stuff than any 80s/90s kid could have dreamed of just on my smartphone. It replaces a Game Boy, camcorder, Walkman, and more. Sure, each new technological advance unlocks the next step in miniaturization and power, but now it's somehow necessary for me to buy a new $1000 iPhone because marketing? There is definitely something fishy going on.

My deeper concern is the ongoing effects of money supply inflation as it continues to ripple through the economy. Sale p[rices at the grocery store are now higher than regular prices were pre-COIVD, but the average Joe just think there's a mysterious greed spike at play, and not the chaos under the surface of our illusion of a steady economy.