I loved the story. It spoke to me. I'm optimistic. Things work in cycles. I think I know what would happen next. First, the human touch component would move out of the commodified middle class model to high-cost gentrified models and to low/no cost homebrew models. Second, the middle class psychedelic exposure would result in hundreds of thousands more psychedelically adept humans, inspired to create meaningful, conn…
> we appear to live in a good world that offers us a beautiful future. That sounds quite entitled. Sure, if you are a well-off individual in one of western democracies, or one of very few riding the success wave elsewhere. For the rest, the world is changing for sure, some things get better, many things (environment, true freedom) are getting worse. The sentiment you describe was common for hippies too, world-reshapi…
Of course that's cold comfort to the people in places that are still going downhill, or who are "getting better" but still pretty shit. And environmental catastrophe is an existential threat. So it's not all sunshine and lollipops. But I don't think it's reasonable to say we're sliding straight into the abyss, either.