Ask HN: How are you all staying sane?

All the issues you mention are about uncertainty.

Uncertainty is one of the largest perceived threats by the human brain, it’s normal you feel it like a threat, it can even cause you anxiety and force you to take severe and unnecessary decisions. If that’s the case talk to a mental health professional because it is not an issue.

However if mental health is not an issue, try some of the many techniques that are there on how to handle uncertainty psychologically, you may start with stoicism (a modern book is fine) and with distribution of risk only of the threats that are an actual problem to you and you have any little of control over them

Personally I just adopt an attitude of utter nihilism and fatalism. I remind myself regularly that I'm going to die someday, like a mantra. Everything I think or care about won't ultimately matter. The only rational choice is to try and make the most of today.

In a similar boat. I’m running “ClaudClaw” a clone of Openclaw to enforce discipline in my limited free time to get an AI agency off the ground, in order to try to escape the miserable corporate grind. On the one hand, it’s a massive productivity boost, on the other hand, this tech is going to further hollow out the middle class everywhere and make so many people redundant. I don’t have the luxury to simply quit and focus on it full time.

I believe we (humankind) have been transitioning to a phase of what I call "time compression." Everything is happening too fast compared to say 40-50 years ago. You can attribute it to many things (tech in particular), but primarily it's the fact that everyone has a terminal in their hands where they can access information, people, news, etc. at a whim. It's affecting both our mental health and our collective social fabric. I think humans were not meant to be overwhelmed this way; our mental capacity hasn't increased, but the stimuli have increased by orders of magnitude.

I don't have a solution to this problem. But one thing I've been trying is to immerse myself in a hobby I enjoy, and ignore most of the noise around me. I closed most of my social network accounts 9 years ago, and it has improved my mental health significantly. I still read the news, but I skim the headlines and go back to what I was doing. Yes, it does affect me, but I try to minimize its impact and focus on things that compensate their effect.

There's no silver bullet. Just know that you're not alone. Unfortunately time compression is here to stay (and it will probably get worse), and those of us who fight it back will hopefully stay sane.

If we are replaced, it means that a lot of other white collar occupations will also face replacement.

But, we are responsible for a disproportional parcel of the aggregate demand and also, the white collar middle class holds a giant share of all credit.

Put all these people out of a job, and you'll end up with the mother of all economic depressions ever.

Either the powers-that-be find a solution (like return to office was arguably a response to a potential office real estate value crisis) or something else will happen (communism? butlerian jihad?).

Given that all of this is completely out our control, we need to concentrate in what we can control:

1) Save money.

2) Cut expenses.

3) Stay ahead of the curve by learning fanatically.

4) Stay fit and healthy.

5) Don't get emotionally invested in every bit of news you see. Everyone got an agenda, everyone has bias, everyone commit mistakes.