1. Conversation started from him saying that since he's started day trading he is starting to see the forest for the trees, and how it seems like wealth is just getting more and more centralized to fewer and fewer people, which could indicate the impending collapse of society.
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5. Me: Wow I sure am getting manipulated into handing over all my wealth while simultaneously living in the most prosperous time in human history with access to technology and medicine and entertainment and food that my ancestors could have only dreamed of or killed for.
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7. Okay buddy, yeah the world is falling apart. It's not just in your head.
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11. Him: Falling apart? The financial systems are being shifted into a more centralized controlled system. Your economy right now has been artificially inflated for almost 20 years. 21 of 30 trillion dollars printed were done in the last 5 years. Things don't happen overnight. A recession is predicted at over 50% wirh a chance of depression by 2030 without economic policy reform. Our national debt is at runaway unsustainability.
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13. There is also a teetering bank crisis going on that is still an aftershock of COVID.
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17. Me: Cool story. Quality of living and access to medicine, food, education, technology, entertainment, even housing believe it or not, the rates of people having these things are higher than they have ever been, and the quality/sophistication of these goods and services are of a higher tier than they have ever been in the past.
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19. You can keep looking at autistic numbers all fucking day, but the reality is that even most peasants today live more lavishly, peacefully, and longer than almost any king or queen or conquerer of the past.
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23. Him:You're comparing ancient times to today's economy.
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25. In no way relates to today's economy with yesterday's. Holy shit balls
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29. Me: Everything I just said applies to 10, and 20, and 30, and 40, and 50+ years ago.
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31. I thought you were trying to say this is all part of an organized plan by the global elite. I'd have thought they'd been laying the groundwork for quite a while now, I mean I've been hearing this same stupid conspiracy for the last 30 years so it's not like you just came up with it.
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33. Or... Wait, did you think you came up with this theory all on your own and that it just started in the last couple of years? Holy shit balls.
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37. Him: I didn't day I came up wirh any conspiracy. I'm saying the majority of most conspiracies are nonsense. All of the real conspiracies are focused around the global grip on the world's money supply.
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39. All the other nonsense is just psychopaths being pyschopaths with celebrities and nonsense.
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41. AI is the real conspiracy and where it's headed.
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45. Me:  I mean I just don't know how much I care about money funneling into less hands. That's kinda just what happens as humanity becomes more efficient. Yes capitalism and free markets and all that are great, but IDEALLY it would indeed be nice if everything was just under one umbrella, and all my friends used the same perfect social media so we can all stay in touch forever, we all used the same perfect banking app with no fees and instant transfers, we all use the same phone network with cheap rates and no need to unlock your phone to use a Sim card from a different carrier, none of that shit.
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47. Of course we as a society need to keep an eye on things and make sure shit isn't going haywire behind the scenes, you don't want companies running monopolies and being anti-consumer, but at the end of the day if we as a species keep becoming more intelligent, better at communicating with one another, as we all start to speak English more and kill each other less, eventually we're going to figure out ways to have just like 1 awesome internet company instead of 3 shitty ones. We're gonna figure out ways to make it so that your grocery store rewards card works at every grocery store, so you don't need 50 different cards on your Keychain for all the different stores you go to. Centralization and singularity is literally just business as fucking usual, it's not a bad thing by definition, which is what you seem to be treating it as.
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49. If I wanted to measure wealth and happiness in society I would probably not look at how money is being centralized and I would instead focus on something that actually fucking matters. Like how many people today have cars, or phones, or access to internet, or quality medical care, or housing.
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51. Like the only reason you have the time or technology to bitch about this asinine crap is because of how awesome we are doing right now as a species. Please go outside.
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55. Him: You do know centralization of power and wealth to a small percentage of people never ends well right? Your thoughts are exactly what they will sell you and then BAM. What freedom? You don't own shit.
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59. Me: I mean I own more now than my grandfather ever did. The only reason I haven't surpassed my father yet is because he's still active in his career and has a 30 year lead on work history and pay. And naturally, if I could go back in time and meet my GREAT grandfather when he was my age, bring him back to the current year and show him how much medicine and food and porn I have access to, he'd probably kill himself from boredom when I dropped him back off in his time. And if he didn't kill himself don't worry, he died at age 38 from a disease that we only figured out a cure for 10 years ago, so... And as long as I don't fuck em up, I expect my kids are going to do crazier shit than I ever got to do. And it just goes on.
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61. You can screech about how "this is how they always get you!" and I mean yeah, every society collapses eventually, just like every human dies. Nothing lasts forever. But I mean shrug that's just the cycle my dude, maybe this time will be different. We have good reason to believe it will be, I mean there is something unprecedented happening literally every single day, and this is the craziest and most epic period ever in human history. To just whine about centralizing wealth while ignoring all the wonders that modern day life brings is one of the cringiest and most terminally-online displays of immaturity I have ever seen.
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