(My apologies for typos.)
Back in the 2007-2008 timeframe, I recall feeling we were coming to a crescendo of madness. I had discrete reasons for doing so, ranging over several years, which I’ll try to list here, although some have faded from memory:
- The Pets.com fiasco, with that ridiculous Super Bowl commercial;
- The financial irresponsibility of Congress in the sessions of 2001-2006 (107th – 109th) as they plunged America into debt;
- The revocation of the Glass-Steagall Act and the consequent concentration of great wealth and great foolishness;
- The dot-com-bubble, and its popping;
- The pretextual Iraq War perpetrated by a GOP administration that promptly engaged in Abu Ghraib torture sessions and lied about it;
- Republicans stating that Geo. Bush was God’s pick to be President;
- The financial excesses of Countrywide Financial and other such institutions.
The world seemed to be coming apart at its metaphorical seams.
At the end of all that, and more, what happened? The Great Recession. A lot of wealth disappeared as speculators lost their shirts and America lost its honor.
How are things today?
- The laboriously negotiated JCPOA canceled by a jealous GOP;
- Russia invades Ukraine without provocation;
- War drone development;
- America bombs Iran without provocation;
- COVID-19 reminded us that a plague could reduce us horifically, while nitwits run around screaming conspiracy theories;
- The American political system is populated by parties that have forgotten how America works;
- America’s President is suffering from dementia and his own Party won’t admit to it;
- Ditto the previous President;
- Back to the current President, he, his staff, and his entire Cabinet appear to be grifters and liars;
- Republicans earnestly state that Donald J. Trump is God’s pick to be President – once again, God hates the United States;
- Market capitalizations in excess of $1 trillion observed;
- LLM AI systems of dubious worth has the corporate world galloping about in terror like wildebeests surrounded by lions;
- A $500 million bill for a month’s worth of use of the Claude LLM AI is rumored;
- Cryptocurrency threatens to destabilize societies and destroy trust, and are losing value rapidly;
- And the world is backing away from the dollar as the international currency.
Once again, it seems like madness is running loose. What’s to follow?
I have a bad feeling about this. I wonder how human network experts evaluate this.
