I learned to stop worrying and bomb the love. I’ve learned to replace acceptance with ambition, not because I’ve given up but because I have enough and more when I look around at life. I’m never going to have the kind of material possessions my more financially successful peers have, but I also don’t have their bills or stress. I’m not keeping up with anyone but me and mine anymore and it’s freeing.
I think Gen X is poised for some leadership role. We didn’t fantasize about being Wolverines and Ripley for nothing. We saw real life nightmares live on TV every day: Challenger, Sandinistas, drug lords, subway shootings, gang rapes, nuclear meltdowns, and like cockroaches were still here.
I agree with all the macro problems you point out. I too suffer depression, anxiety, and stress from the state of the world. The system is fucking rigged. However, I've also found solutions and reasons for hope as the antidote. The short-term present is a rocky transition akin to rushing from The Gilded Age to the post-WW2 era at 10x speed (HODL!!!). But the long-term future looks bright to me…
tl;dr "Fix the money, fix the world."
1) re: mortality - AI technology like protein folding (AlphaFold), quantum computers (modeling biology, chemistry, and drug discovery), yamanaka factors, epigenetic reprogramming, and other advances mean we might raise average lifespan / healthspan to 100 and beyond within our lifetime. For every year we live, science might give us more than a year back in anti-aging health advances. That's known as indefinite lifespan. More ambitiously this is known as Longevity Escape Velocity (LEV). In 2025, there is no guarantee being in our 40s means life is halfway done. It might only be ⅓ or less. Imagine being in 1925 before penicillin was discovered and seeing how much life expectancy increased. We may be at a similar inflection point in medical history.
2) re: corporate ladder - the reason we were taught to climb it and fit our creative round pegs into corporate square holes is to get closer to the money printer and central banks who have all the fiat money (US Dollars). S/he who is closest to the money printer, the federal reserve, and the gold wins capitalism. The further you are from centralized banking, the more you are subject to income and wealth inequality. This was recognized in the 1700s as the Cantillon Effect https://www.swanbitcoin.com/economics/cantillon-effect/
3) re: lack of economic agency (being forced into low-pay survival gig work, erosion of purchasing power), pensions, retirement funds, etc. This is late-stage capitalism, inflation, currency devaluation, and more. Ray Dalio does an excellent overview of how this moment in the American Empire is no different than the end of the British, Dutch, Chinese, etc empires. If you like this 5min intro (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB2r_eOjsPw) the full 45min version of "Principles for Dealing with the Changing World" is also on YouTube and brilliant (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xguam0TKMw8)
Lack / reduction of economic agency also tracks with the USA going off the gold standard during the 1971 Nixon Shock (WTFHappenedIn1971.com). The dollar no longer pegged to the gold standard, the government can now print as much money as it wants (2008's quantitive easing + COVID stimulus). This devalues all our savings and raises prices on assets like real estate out of reach for the average citizen. Going off the gold standard enabled money printing which is why Ray Dalio says "Cash is trash" - cash savings is a melting ice cube in your hand. Investments like individual stocks, index funds, and real estate don't do much better than real inflation. The Cantillon Effect means all of us creatives who aren't studio executives with multiple houses (cantillionaires) can barely afford the mortgage on our primary residence. If we can afford to own at all. As the World Economic Forum said - "You will own nothing and be happy" Bitcoin solves this with hard money. Digital gold. Deflationary, not inflationary.
In other words - if you count in Bitcoin, the price of housing keeps falling. Visuals:
But it takes about 100+ hours to fully understand Bitcoin. So here's a 3min PhD in macroeconomics and the Cantillon Effect - Exit fiat, enter Bitcoin (a Matrix meme) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOh-7SzI6gM
4) re: Generational Wealth - spend in fiat, save in Bitcoin (ideally dollar cost averaging). I haven't yet read the book, but the author of Bitcoin for Black America covers building generational wealth with Bitcoin in many interviews available on YouTube. Index funds in your 401k retirement accounts and pensions are fiat and at best do 7-15% per year averaged over a decade or more. But true inflation eats most of that. Bitcoin averages 40-50% per year for the past 10 years. That's better than Warren Buffet and most Wall Street hedge funds. Bitcoin is how you build generational wealth in 2025. For more - watch billionaire MIT graduate Michael Saylor's 60min presentation from 2024 Bitcoin Atlantis on capital preservation and generational wealth "Bitcoin is for everyone… Bitcoin is an instrument of economic empowerment… Bitcoin means that every person, every family, every corporation… can live their best life, achieve their greatest aspirations" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCkABdwjxtE
5) re: attention economy centralization - TikTok is a dopamine slot machine and YouTube isn't much better. Decentralized social media like BlueSky, NOSTR, and other platforms are already working to solve this problem (attract, extract cycle) and put algorithm control back in the hands of users, not corporations run by quarterly-profit minded shareholders paid for by advertisers. We don't yet have decentralized YouTube because video is harder than text to decentralize. But people are building solutions on GitHub right now.
6) re: stories to please shareholders - As always, genre film leads the way for experimentation. In March this year both Robert Rodriguez and Eli Roth both launched direct to audience investor crowdfunding for their new ventures on Republic. Now ideally fans, audience, community are the shareholders instead of quarterly profit driven MBAs. Inspired by Terrifier 3's massive success as a truly independent film. Web3 calls this disintermediation - cutting out the rent-seeking middlemen so rampant in Hollywood. Very early days, but decentralizing film funding and giving audience financial returns on investment (not just perks or blu ray pre-sales), connecting with community the way creator economy does gives me hope for the future of filmmaking. But it's going to take some years to mature to sustainability and scale out. Now we just need a decentralized Netflix for distribution. GitHub projects like Interplanetary Filesystem (IPFS) could be the backbone for such a platform.
7) the social contract is broken. We need to re-write the social contract for a post-WW2 globalization, post-internet, post-AI, post-robot world. For hope, look into Web3 for people building the future today. I **HIGHLY** recommend Chris Dixon's book Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet https://a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/read-write-own-intro/
Let me know if any of this shines some light through the dark clouds. Or if the rise of decentralized Web3 solutions excites you as much as it does me. The future will be built by us and our communities from the ground up. Not from centralized money & power from the top down. This is "The Great Reset." May we live in interesting times and skate where the puck is going.
Zack, You totally relate to not only myself but obviously to so many of us with your article! I’m the same age as you and totally get where you are coming from! I’ve always had to work hard all my life to obtain the opportunities I want to achieve in this world and I’m still working towards some of them as you know from taking your Optimize Yourself programs. I’ve been continuously making those next steps but for me and possibly many others it’s quite a big journey and a lot of life long learning! I love to learn so that keeps it fun! 🤩 thank you so much Zack!
This is so spot on - which is so depressing but I also have hope that there is a silver lining to it all. We x:ers are a unique bridge between the older and the younger generations and I think the value of that bridge will become more and more apparent with time. All these tech tools at our fingertips and we are young enough to learn how to use them and old enough to have learned how to tell stories before there were any fancy tools… but will good storytelling still rise to the top like cream or will it drown in the ocean of “content” swirling around in the digital blender. Can the younger generation distinguish between what is good or bad - does good or bad storytelling matter any more or is it just about algorithms and social media trends? Time will tell - but you’ll never know unless you keep fighting the good fight.
BEAUTIFUL!!! Dude, I gotta say: I'm a 68-year-old at the tail end of the soon-to-be-extinct Boomer generation, and every goddam thing you're saying rings ENTIRELY true for my antique ass, too! Relevance is as relevance does. And when you stop waiting to live, you take your life into your own hands. Which is right the fuck where it has always belonged.
Which is to say that it is never too late to start the next audacious garage band that brings back the music to the actual streets. And the next wave of films that bring authentic lived experience AND the unmitigated power of our dreams back to physical theater screens -- where we gather together, not cower apart -- will be a rallying point for the only kind of future worth having.
Which is to say I looooove your piece, and look forward to where you're going. Cuz that is where I'm going, too. THANK YOU!!!
Fantastic read. Get busy living, even if it's damn hard at times!
Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life.
Yes to all of this!
I learned to stop worrying and bomb the love. I’ve learned to replace acceptance with ambition, not because I’ve given up but because I have enough and more when I look around at life. I’m never going to have the kind of material possessions my more financially successful peers have, but I also don’t have their bills or stress. I’m not keeping up with anyone but me and mine anymore and it’s freeing.
I think Gen X is poised for some leadership role. We didn’t fantasize about being Wolverines and Ripley for nothing. We saw real life nightmares live on TV every day: Challenger, Sandinistas, drug lords, subway shootings, gang rapes, nuclear meltdowns, and like cockroaches were still here.
I agree with all the macro problems you point out. I too suffer depression, anxiety, and stress from the state of the world. The system is fucking rigged. However, I've also found solutions and reasons for hope as the antidote. The short-term present is a rocky transition akin to rushing from The Gilded Age to the post-WW2 era at 10x speed (HODL!!!). But the long-term future looks bright to me…
tl;dr "Fix the money, fix the world."
1) re: mortality - AI technology like protein folding (AlphaFold), quantum computers (modeling biology, chemistry, and drug discovery), yamanaka factors, epigenetic reprogramming, and other advances mean we might raise average lifespan / healthspan to 100 and beyond within our lifetime. For every year we live, science might give us more than a year back in anti-aging health advances. That's known as indefinite lifespan. More ambitiously this is known as Longevity Escape Velocity (LEV). In 2025, there is no guarantee being in our 40s means life is halfway done. It might only be ⅓ or less. Imagine being in 1925 before penicillin was discovered and seeing how much life expectancy increased. We may be at a similar inflection point in medical history.
2) re: corporate ladder - the reason we were taught to climb it and fit our creative round pegs into corporate square holes is to get closer to the money printer and central banks who have all the fiat money (US Dollars). S/he who is closest to the money printer, the federal reserve, and the gold wins capitalism. The further you are from centralized banking, the more you are subject to income and wealth inequality. This was recognized in the 1700s as the Cantillon Effect https://www.swanbitcoin.com/economics/cantillon-effect/
3) re: lack of economic agency (being forced into low-pay survival gig work, erosion of purchasing power), pensions, retirement funds, etc. This is late-stage capitalism, inflation, currency devaluation, and more. Ray Dalio does an excellent overview of how this moment in the American Empire is no different than the end of the British, Dutch, Chinese, etc empires. If you like this 5min intro (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB2r_eOjsPw) the full 45min version of "Principles for Dealing with the Changing World" is also on YouTube and brilliant (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xguam0TKMw8)
Lack / reduction of economic agency also tracks with the USA going off the gold standard during the 1971 Nixon Shock (WTFHappenedIn1971.com). The dollar no longer pegged to the gold standard, the government can now print as much money as it wants (2008's quantitive easing + COVID stimulus). This devalues all our savings and raises prices on assets like real estate out of reach for the average citizen. Going off the gold standard enabled money printing which is why Ray Dalio says "Cash is trash" - cash savings is a melting ice cube in your hand. Investments like individual stocks, index funds, and real estate don't do much better than real inflation. The Cantillon Effect means all of us creatives who aren't studio executives with multiple houses (cantillionaires) can barely afford the mortgage on our primary residence. If we can afford to own at all. As the World Economic Forum said - "You will own nothing and be happy" Bitcoin solves this with hard money. Digital gold. Deflationary, not inflationary.
In other words - if you count in Bitcoin, the price of housing keeps falling. Visuals:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/lg7bqv/updating_an_old_meme_on_inflation_and_deflation/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1hb16dk/once_you_see_it/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1d4vfk1/the_power_of_bitcoin/
But it takes about 100+ hours to fully understand Bitcoin. So here's a 3min PhD in macroeconomics and the Cantillon Effect - Exit fiat, enter Bitcoin (a Matrix meme) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOh-7SzI6gM
4) re: Generational Wealth - spend in fiat, save in Bitcoin (ideally dollar cost averaging). I haven't yet read the book, but the author of Bitcoin for Black America covers building generational wealth with Bitcoin in many interviews available on YouTube. Index funds in your 401k retirement accounts and pensions are fiat and at best do 7-15% per year averaged over a decade or more. But true inflation eats most of that. Bitcoin averages 40-50% per year for the past 10 years. That's better than Warren Buffet and most Wall Street hedge funds. Bitcoin is how you build generational wealth in 2025. For more - watch billionaire MIT graduate Michael Saylor's 60min presentation from 2024 Bitcoin Atlantis on capital preservation and generational wealth "Bitcoin is for everyone… Bitcoin is an instrument of economic empowerment… Bitcoin means that every person, every family, every corporation… can live their best life, achieve their greatest aspirations" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCkABdwjxtE
5) re: attention economy centralization - TikTok is a dopamine slot machine and YouTube isn't much better. Decentralized social media like BlueSky, NOSTR, and other platforms are already working to solve this problem (attract, extract cycle) and put algorithm control back in the hands of users, not corporations run by quarterly-profit minded shareholders paid for by advertisers. We don't yet have decentralized YouTube because video is harder than text to decentralize. But people are building solutions on GitHub right now.
6) re: stories to please shareholders - As always, genre film leads the way for experimentation. In March this year both Robert Rodriguez and Eli Roth both launched direct to audience investor crowdfunding for their new ventures on Republic. Now ideally fans, audience, community are the shareholders instead of quarterly profit driven MBAs. Inspired by Terrifier 3's massive success as a truly independent film. Web3 calls this disintermediation - cutting out the rent-seeking middlemen so rampant in Hollywood. Very early days, but decentralizing film funding and giving audience financial returns on investment (not just perks or blu ray pre-sales), connecting with community the way creator economy does gives me hope for the future of filmmaking. But it's going to take some years to mature to sustainability and scale out. Now we just need a decentralized Netflix for distribution. GitHub projects like Interplanetary Filesystem (IPFS) could be the backbone for such a platform.
7) the social contract is broken. We need to re-write the social contract for a post-WW2 globalization, post-internet, post-AI, post-robot world. For hope, look into Web3 for people building the future today. I **HIGHLY** recommend Chris Dixon's book Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet https://a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/read-write-own-intro/
Let me know if any of this shines some light through the dark clouds. Or if the rise of decentralized Web3 solutions excites you as much as it does me. The future will be built by us and our communities from the ground up. Not from centralized money & power from the top down. This is "The Great Reset." May we live in interesting times and skate where the puck is going.
Damn. You just taught a masterclass on futurism, my friend. Invaluable insights, thank you Brian!
Remarkable info. And definitely agree with the remarks about gold versus fiat money, the Fed, etc. Will have a look at some of your other links.
I appreciate that you read this in your own voice!
AI is a powerful tool, but many choose to use it to simply "phone it in".
Thanks for encouraging the storytellers to keep going.
Zack, You totally relate to not only myself but obviously to so many of us with your article! I’m the same age as you and totally get where you are coming from! I’ve always had to work hard all my life to obtain the opportunities I want to achieve in this world and I’m still working towards some of them as you know from taking your Optimize Yourself programs. I’ve been continuously making those next steps but for me and possibly many others it’s quite a big journey and a lot of life long learning! I love to learn so that keeps it fun! 🤩 thank you so much Zack!
This is so spot on - which is so depressing but I also have hope that there is a silver lining to it all. We x:ers are a unique bridge between the older and the younger generations and I think the value of that bridge will become more and more apparent with time. All these tech tools at our fingertips and we are young enough to learn how to use them and old enough to have learned how to tell stories before there were any fancy tools… but will good storytelling still rise to the top like cream or will it drown in the ocean of “content” swirling around in the digital blender. Can the younger generation distinguish between what is good or bad - does good or bad storytelling matter any more or is it just about algorithms and social media trends? Time will tell - but you’ll never know unless you keep fighting the good fight.
I felt all of this one in my BONES. Let's go!
BEAUTIFUL!!! Dude, I gotta say: I'm a 68-year-old at the tail end of the soon-to-be-extinct Boomer generation, and every goddam thing you're saying rings ENTIRELY true for my antique ass, too! Relevance is as relevance does. And when you stop waiting to live, you take your life into your own hands. Which is right the fuck where it has always belonged.
Which is to say that it is never too late to start the next audacious garage band that brings back the music to the actual streets. And the next wave of films that bring authentic lived experience AND the unmitigated power of our dreams back to physical theater screens -- where we gather together, not cower apart -- will be a rallying point for the only kind of future worth having.
Which is to say I looooove your piece, and look forward to where you're going. Cuz that is where I'm going, too. THANK YOU!!!
Indeed.
E allora io cosa dovrei dire !?
Right on, my brother! Thanks for reminding me of the power of GenX!
And thanks for taking the time to read!