fakir

Your friend is making you insecure for just being yourself. He is a manipulative bully, not your friend.

I've had similar experiences - endless tiring bad faith discussions. I sincerely believe market socialism is a realistic step we can take to improve human condition, but they seem convinced against it and hell bent on 'revolution'. It's clearly a cult with group think, they've arrived at their conclusions by reading theory, not from personal experience, self awareness, empathy & logic.

Haha, and if you look in the diametrically opposite direction, you will find God! And clearly, God will kick the Devil's ass, always has and always will! PS: this coming from an anti-thiest

Exactly, that's another thing that I've learned recently - don't lose your shit when things seem to be falling apart - one, it's a system much bigger than your individual control, but two, and more importantly, those things tend to self correct for the better, like action-reaction, like a wave, or ying-yang and duality of life. It's quite liberating to see this way at the bigger picture.

Climate change, wealth inequality, fascism, war, the global epidemic of loneliness & depression aren't distinct disconnected problems. They are a singular globally connected problem. And it requires a singular globally connected solution. We'd need a few things -

1. We will need to take care of all human essential services like healthcare, education, food, banking, technology etc. Only things that add positive value to society. We can have a singular globally coordinated effort.
2. We will need an economic engine, so as to provide a UBI for all, reasonably paid based on cost of living. To generate income we can sell our products & services at a markup to non-union members.
3. We will need an army because the enemy has one and we need to defend ourselves.
4. Decentralization is also a defence mechanism. Don't build 1 giant bank, build a million connected credit unions all utilizing the same backend tools & processes. It's such a nice defense mechanism that we might even be able to skip the army altogether, which bank are you gonna breakup when we can open a hundred more tomorrow.

Haha, humans taking over AI jobs!

That business is just constant problem solving one after another and going through as many to-dos as you can day after day, while still maintaining sanity. That is persistence.

That business is always a house of cards that can fall apart anytime and so you must always keep your eyes on it. That is exhausting worry.

That business is so hard, you'll be tempted to quit everyday. To overcome that urge to quit you'll need a much bigger purpose or mission that drives you. Purpose brings determination.

That business really is about value creation for the entire ecosystem (customers, employees, vendors) and that a business is not above that ecosystem. Wall St & American capitalism is short sighted because it demands you pass lesser and lesser value to that ecosystem quarter after quarter, and that is like a slow axe to your own foot.

That most modern economic theory taught in business schools and used by execs in the biggest companies worldwide is all flawed because it fully relies on capturing and optimizing all sorts of business data, but the truth is that it is impossible to capture real world in data.

Lovely, great work!

Because their followers seem to accept everything they say as truth. It has been working.

It's not just corporations. It's the individual over the collective. And that is just the nature of certain societies, specifically more competitive societies. In India for example, the mindset of everyone in traffic is 'me over others' - fuck everyone else, i grab what space I can get. If I don't, the next fucker will. Like if it starts raining, your 1 hour trip is now 3 hours, not 1.5 hours because there will be a jam at every intersection in the city. There are just so many people on the road and infrastructure (and society / government at large) that hasn't lent itself to cooperation but rather competition. It becomes their mindset, it becomes everyone's mindset. That is why many from that region turn right politically. I bet it's the same for many Latin countries.

Hugs?

It's okay to doubt; doubt is natural for those who question and those who reflect, you are way ahead simply for reflecting, and choosing to live your life by being honest to the principles you feel are important.