Do you really think there is real meaning to be had in continuing with this, at least tarnished, process of how we do society? Does it really make sense to continue to have your livelihoods tied to ever more consumption?
And remember, we are talking about what the new "Megamatronic Monster" our mutated Capitalism is now; the thing that can produce way faster than either we can consume (even if we could afford to) in any practical terms, any more than the planet could continue to support the influx of material resource to continue to make that, mostly waste, happen.
Do you really think that personal meaning lies down that path? Even if rich people decided to pay for a big part of fixing everything broken environmentally? Would you want to head down the path were the marketing to keep us consuming at the rate we will need to consume to keep the rich as happy as they increasingly want to be? Because that path is quite likely to lead to levels of addiction as yet unheard of, with new instrumentality designed specifically for that purpose, because, of course, the rich like to keep the gravy train going. And VR will give them that tool. And eventually a special internet will be free, absolutely involving, and exciting, and intoxicating in every respect; and they will have developed that special link, right to the spinal column somehow, for direct back and forth between the brain, the body, and a digital interlink; bio optical in nature perhaps. And once you try it on you will never be able to take it off. You will never want to take it off. And it won't feel like a slave collar at all, but that is what it will be.
This is the risk you face even if the planet were miraculously saved. And that in itself is a pipe dream unless the human race, as a whole, mobilizes. And I am pretty sure the world won't do diddly squat like that unless we decided to jump into it first.
Understand something very important here, however. You have it in your power to redefine work, and life for society, pretty much any way you can come to agree to do so. As such you can set things up to give yourselves a chance to have real meaning in your lives. To makes things work so that everybody will be needed to make it a win/win for everybody. This will require a lot of work on your part though. A lot of sacrifice. You will, in essence, be required to take real responsibility for yourselves as nearly independent city states; owning and running your own lives; making your own decisions on how everything gets done because you really will own the results (baring natural incidents of course, and understanding that the New Federation will want to help even if you have screwed some things up). And you will have to do this with the understanding that cooperation, and compromise, are the only ways it is going to work.
So that's where you are at now. Now that you, supposedly, sit there in media speak "pausing," trying to figure out what do any of us do next. And even though I am biased about this (a humanitarian Progressive by birth, come to a better understanding of balance, and a need for a "Grand Compromise" between Progressives and Libertarians), I still think you can count on the fact that doing "Business As Usual" isn't going to get you very far anymore. You are on a treadmill and debt is an instrument of control to keep you there. Running faster to stay where you are will be required, assuming you want to just "stay where you are." The planet certainly has had enough of what we having been doing. And then there is the fact that there are too many of us on it. Ignore that at your peril as well.
It is your choice. Think about it carefully. Better do something quick though. Time is a factor here.
Poll: Majority of millennials are in debt, hitting pause on major life events
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