Reversal of the process of civilization
One of the most profound insights on the peril of our current economic system comes from economist Saifedean Ammous:
By accepting a system that is inflationary by default, we are agreeing to the reversal of the process of civilization.
How so? Well, as inflation devalues our savings, it forces us all to become investors, i.e. instead of being able to focus 100% of time on what we are actually good at, we have to dedicate an increasing percentage of our attention to ensuring that our money is productive.
More importantly, however, if we live in an uncertain world where we don’t know what our money is going to be worth, we start to increasingly discount the future. In fact we see this all around us: instant gratification on social media, addiction epidemics and procrastination are all a result of caring less about the future value of our actions today.
The result of all of the above is the reversal of civilization as we know it.
