__matthew__

Hmm, if you're interested in expanding further I'd love you to share more detail. What specifically in the scenario I proposed would require foresight?

I suppose you could say the government passing some form of increased welfare could require foresight but even that is primarily reactionary (a reaction to the public unrest from record rates of unemployment and poverty). If you look at the civilian unemployment rate, it's quite low right now, around 5%. In the worst of times, it's been 10-15% during which there were huge pushes for the government to step in (ie. covid relief / 2008 financial reforms). That makes me think that if we experienced sustained high (15%+) unemployment it's quite reasonable to predict that there'd be enough pressure for the government to provide some significant form of relief.

If anything, my pessimism would stem from social unrest due to the polarization of media, the hyper optimization of content, and similar negative byproducts of capitalism plus advanced optimization. But I view these all as distinct problems separate from the problems discussed here (the economic conditions induced by late-stage capitalism).

Everyone here has written echoes of the same viewpoint: the wealthy got too greedy and so now the whole world will die as they stand and watch.

While I understand the allure of such narratives that paint a world falling into pieces at the hands of the ultra-wealthy, I think it's worth exploring an alternate vision of late-stage capitalism. One where despite being grim, we avoid descending into a completely unrecognizable dystopia.

In this scenario, nearly the entire workforce is displaced by robotic and AI-driven automation, leading to a massive societal shift. With most traditional jobs gone, the public faces mass unemployment and widespread poverty. Outcry erupts as the majority falls below the poverty line. With nearly all jobs displaced, for most people only two options remain: attempt entrepreneurship or face unemployment.

Confronted with growing public unrest, governments reluctantly implement basic welfare measures such as small universal basic income or food stamps, providing just enough for people to get by. Meanwhile, the majority of global funding is redirected toward research and development, primarily powered by these new forms of automation. This fuels breakthroughs in production and technology, eventually driving down the cost of quality goods. Over time, even those relying on minimal welfare begin to see modest improvements in their quality of life.

Meanwhile, the wealth gap grows wider than ever. Billionaires, enriched by the automation economy, turn their attention to ambitious but arbitrary ventures like constructing moon bases, developing underwater cities, or investing in life-extension technologies. Occasionally, these projects destabilize society—whether through anti-competitive practices or efforts to sidestep government oversight—but as long as governments hold their ground (a non-trivial task), their effects on the majority remain limited.

What results is a fragile balance: a world with basic welfare programs supplying the masses, incremental technological progress, and a stark divide between the majority and the ultra-wealthy. It’s far from utopian, but it avoids outright collapse. As innovation continues, life gradually improves for everyone—even though the wealthiest always dictate the terms and reap the greatest rewards.

The first stat is a little misleading IMO. While the median car cost has increased ~2x (inflation adjusted), an entry level car price has only gone up ~1.2x (1971 AMC Gremlin vs 2023 Kia Rio LX; $1.8k/$14.8k vs $17.8k) and that's more important for measuring relative quality of life.

Of course add on to that the fact that there's easy access to second hand car markets and the number of features included with that base model vs the 1971 AMC Gremlin and it doesn't seem like things are much worse.

Basically, average car prices increasing could just indicate that people are willing to spend more on cars for whatever reason that may be (better features, more car-centric culture, etc.). For this reason I'd like to see similar stats but about entry level options within each category. Probably less sensationalistic but still interesting.

That being said, I bet stats for the housing market and others would still show a notable increase even at the entry level, but I'd still like to verify this before blindly jumping on the sensationalist bandwagon.

Formally speaking, it is not trivially apparent that if one side of a V formation, then there are more birds on one side of a V. If this were true then it would imply that birds always fly with a precisely consistent spacing such that there are never more birds on the opposite side just flying closer together.

So if the statement were true it would actually be a relatively novel observation, but I question the legitimacy of the claim.

Anyways, I probably shouldn't be formally analyzing a shitpost about bird formations cross posed to a meme community lol

Fair. I guess in my case I'm actually looking for boring titles because I see reducing my engagement as a whole to the platform a good thing even if it means I don't watch some genuinely interesting / informative content. Basically I am less likely to fall into a rabbit hole of watching "just one more video" by some creator I enjoy when I should be doing something else.

I respectfully disagree. Any high quality creator is tangibly penalized by YouTube's recommendation algorithm for not optimizing their titles and thumbnails. A rare few choose to take this penalty but I don't blame the many quality creators who choose to take part in the game that YouTube has made for everyone.

Yes, the alternate titles may not be perfect, but I'd take any random person's attempt at a title over the hyper optimized ones any day because I'd rather make an informed decision to watch something even if there is some degree of inaccuracy than to make a completely uninformed decision based on what an algorithm predicted would most likely get me to click and get hooked on a video irregardless of my own will and whether I am satisfied at the end of watching it.

Sure, to be pedantic, I could clarify: "I think the fediverse will realistically never gain mainstream adoption without a large organization with either a massive existing userbase or the ability to invest in large organized marketing efforts."

This could be technically true through some Fediverse collective that receives a large amount of donations, but I don't see this as very likely to happen and even with organized marketing efforts there's no guarantee of effectively converting this into adoption.

Unpopular opinion: Threads deepening ties to the fediverse is actually a really good thing for the fediverse as a whole.

I feel like realistically the fediverse will never gain mainstream adoption on its own. People like to believe in this beautiful future where the fediverse "wins out" and beats all the major social media networks, but I just don't see this happening. This is why I think Threads is actually really important for the growth of the fediverse and realistically one of the only paths to broad adoption.

Beyond this, I also separately really like the idea of being able to use a platform like Threads with my irl friends while still having access to open source clients etc. (ie. preventing situations like the Twitter API debacle which fucked over 3rd party clients)