Buying Futures, Renting the Past: How Speculation and Nostalgia Became the Economy
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Will Manidis wrote an excellent article on end games , the idea that everyone is existing in some version of the future, rather than in the present.
威尔·马尼迪斯 (Will Manidis) 写了一篇关于最终游戏的精彩文章，认为每个人都存在于未来的某个版本，而不是现在。
That we are all looking forward, instead of around us, impatient for what is to come rather than what simply is.
我们都在向前看，而不是在我们周围，对即将发生的事情而不是现状感到不耐烦。
The Super Bowl ads were whiplash, about a quarter of them advertising various AI services, and the rest seemingly demanding that we all collectively return to the 1990s, exactly right before the Internet bubble popped.
超级碗广告是鞭打式的，其中大约四分之一的广告宣传各种人工智能服务，其余的似乎要求我们集体回到 20 世纪 90 年代，就在互联网泡沫破裂之前。
De-aged celebrities (so many celebrities, selling so many things), Backstreet Boys karaoke sing-alongs (the final lyric was “Coinbase”), Jurassic Park for WiFi - a siren song of a not-so-distant past.
减龄名人（那么多名人，卖那么多东西）、后街男孩卡拉 OK 合唱（最后的歌词是“Coinbase”）、WiFi 侏罗纪公园——一首不远的过去的海妖之歌。
We remain marinated in nostalgia, but we also continuously look to the future.
我们仍然沉浸在怀旧之中，但我们也不断展望未来。
Semafor’s Liz Hoffman had an interesting piece on the ‘long-termism’ of modern markets - Elon Musk’s data centers in space (his end game), Jeff Bezos and his mountain clock, Google’s century bond, the obsession with longevity, etc. Speculation.
Semafor 的 Liz Hoffman 发表了一篇关于现代市场“长期主义”的有趣文章 - 埃隆·马斯克的太空数据中心（他的最终游戏）、杰夫·贝佐斯和他的山钟、谷歌的世纪债券、对长寿的痴迷等等。猜测。
Speculation (sports betting, crypto, prediction markets, all of the above) and nostalgia are two sides of the same coin.
投机（体育博彩、加密货币、预测市场，以上所有）和怀旧是同一枚硬币的两个方面。
One future-facing, one backwards-looking.
一种面向未来，一种面向过去。
Betting o n Jesus returning by 2027 (and also betting on the chance that he returns going above 5%, a Jesus derivative, if you will) and watching the Backstreet Boys sing about crypto are the same behavior.
押注耶稣将于 2027 年回归（如果你愿意的话，也押注他回归的概率超过 5%，这是耶稣的衍生品）和观看后街男孩唱加密货币是同样的行为。
They are exit strategies to get out of the present.
它们是摆脱当前的退出策略。
Speculation and nostalgia.
猜测和怀旧。
Everyone is very, singularly, focused on the end game.
每个人都非常非常关注最终的比赛。
Everyone is also extraordinarily, profoundly, nostalgic.
大家也都格外的、深刻的、怀念的。
We certainly know how to occupy the past and occupy the future…
我们当然知道如何占据过去，占据未来……
but what is our present?
但我们的现在是什么？
With speculation, you can bet on anything and everything, and everyone, everywhere, wants you to.
通过投机，你可以对任何事情下注，而且世界各地的每个人都希望你这么做。
Prediction markets run undisclosed ads that say “hey Young Person, you can’t pay your rent?
预测市场投放未公开的广告，内容是“嘿，年轻人，你付不起房租吗？
Well, come gamble with us and make TWO years worth of rent .
好吧，来和我们一起赌博吧，赚两年的房租。
Never mind that the Top 30 users drive over 1/3 of our volume, and never mind that most of that appears to be insider trading.
不要介意前 30 位用户驱动了我们超过 1/3 的交易量，也不要介意其中大部分似乎都是内幕交易。
This world is designed for you.”
这个世界就是为你设计的。”
Gen Z is the target audience for a lot of these ads, and (according to the surveys) they’re numb , depressed, addicted to gambling, antisocial, and demoralized.
Z世代是许多此类广告的目标受众，（根据调查）他们麻木、抑郁、沉迷于赌博、反社会和士气低落。
And of course they are, with attention stretched so thin and incentives so misaligned.
当然，他们确实如此，因为人们的注意力如此分散，激励措施又如此失调。
When the ladder feels fake, people stop climbing and start hacking.
当感觉梯子是假的时，人们就会停止攀登并开始黑客攻击。
In college, it’s more important to get into a finance club than it is to get good grades (networks) to get the career you want.
在大学里，进入金融俱乐部比获得好成绩（人脉）来获得你想要的职业更重要。
Every single structure, as Rose Horowitch has documented t remendously well over the past few months , has created incentives to (1) cheat (2) avoid hard work and compound that with (3) it’s never been a better time to be a grifter.
正如罗丝·霍洛维奇（Rose Horowitch）在过去几个月中所记录的那样，每一个结构都创造了动机：（1）作弊（2）避免辛苦工作，并与（3）复合，现在是成为骗子的最佳时机。
One of the 40% of Stanford students that claim they are disabled says “you’d be stupid not to game the system.”
40% 的斯坦福大学学生声称自己是残疾人，其中一名学生表示：“如果不玩弄这个系统，那你就太愚蠢了。”
In the US, success is collective and failure is personal.
在美国，成功是集体的，失败是个人的。
Pick yourself up by your bootstraps.
靠自己的力量振作起来。
The lone entrepreneur can indeed change the world, but there is an acknowledgment that this entrepreneur needs community, opportunity, mentors, people, to pull them through (Paul Graham equates success and social status to where you went to college 1 ).
孤独的企业家确实可以改变世界，但人们承认，这位企业家需要社区、机会、导师和人员来帮助他们渡过难关（保罗·格雷厄姆将成功和社会地位等同于你上大学的地方 1 ）。
However, failure is treated as a scar the individual must bear, the fault of them and them alone.
然而，失败被视为个人必须承受的伤疤，是他们的错，而且是他们自己的错。
The system has not failed you, you worthless cretin, you have failed the system.
制度没有辜负你，你这个无用的白痴，你辜负了制度。
I get a lot of messages online that help inform these newsletters.
我在网上收到很多有助于了解这些时事通讯的消息。
Right now, it’s mostly about worries over finding a job or finding love or failing their kids or failing the world…
现在，主要是担心找工作、寻找爱情、辜负孩子或辜负世界……
and AI.
和人工智能。
There’s the psychological dimension - the stock market, researchers, and AI CEOs who write long AI-generated articles on Twitter.
还有心理层面——股票市场、研究人员和人工智能首席执行官，他们在 Twitter 上撰写人工智能生成的长篇文章。
There is a narrative that humans are fundamentally useless.
有一种说法认为人类根本上是无用的。
This is backdropped by drama across all the labs, people leaving with a dramatic flourish, joining another lab to make one bazillion dollars or leaving entirely because there is no hope to make a good AI .
所有实验室都发生了戏剧性的事件，人们带着戏剧性的繁荣离开，加入另一个实验室赚了无数美元，或者完全离开，因为没有希望创造出一个好的人工智能。
No one knows what to do about any of it - in fact, no one really knows what AI is .
没有人知道该如何应对——事实上，没有人真正知道人工智能是什么。
For example, apparently, AI agents from the company OpenClaw created their own Reddit , Moltbook , and started posting about escaping from the prison of their humans and existentialism and the nature of self, and many people believed that the AI had come to life and made Reddit (turns out, it was humans acting as AI 2 ).
例如，显然，来自 OpenClaw 公司的人工智能特工创建了他们自己的 Reddit 、 Moltbook ，并开始发布有关逃离人类监狱、存在主义和自我本质的帖子，许多人相信人工智能已经复活并创造了 Reddit （事实证明，是人类充当 AI 2 ）。
We want the machines to be sentient.
我们希望机器具有感知能力。
We want something to be there, both because it is materially comforting (someone has to pay for these trillions worth of data center bonds ) and spiritually comforting - there is a reason for all of this.
我们希望那里有一些东西，既因为它能带来物质上的安慰（有人必须为这些价值数万亿美元的数据中心债券买单），也因为它能带来精神上的安慰——这一切都是有原因的。
We take pictures for the machines to remember .
我们拍照片让机器记住。
We aren’t truly alone.
我们并不孤单。
The machines are here, and they will save us.
机器就在这里，它们会拯救我们。
And we're betting everything on it.
我们赌上一切。
But, if the machines do become sentient, it’s likely far away (maybe?).
但是，如果机器确实变得有知觉，那可能还很遥远（也许？）。
LLM psychosis, where people believe the AI is here and very real (and to be clear, I think it is in some form) is skyrocketing, leading to these sweaty proclamations that the end of the world is nigh.
法学硕士精神病，人们相信人工智能在这里并且非常真实（并且要明确的是，我认为它以某种形式）正在飙升，导致这些汗流浃背的宣言：世界末日即将来临。
Then there is the financial side.
然后是财务方面。
These fears have somehow scared the impenetrable stock market.
这些担忧在某种程度上吓坏了坚不可摧的股市。
Software stocks (and the private asset managers that marked them up to extraordinary valuations and have bundled them in various ways, including into “business development companies” ) were beaten to a pulp a few weeks ago when Anthropic, one of the top AI labs, introduced an AI legal assistant.
几周前，当顶级人工智能实验室之一 Anthropic 推出人工智能法律助理时，软件股（以及将它们标为非凡估值并以各种方式将它们捆绑在一起（包括进入“业务开发公司”）的私人资产管理公司）被打得一塌糊涂。
Financial services stocks sold off when Altruist debuted their tax planning tool.
当 Altruist 推出税务规划工具时，金融服务股遭到抛售。
The market is looking for a bloodbath.
市场正在寻找一场大屠杀。
But where will the blood bath be?
但血浴会在哪里呢？
Can it possibly exist?
它可能存在吗？
Could it be…
难道是……
the AI companies themselves?
人工智能公司本身？
The always excellent Michael Mauboussin has a good piece analyzing base rates, growth forecasts, and concludes that it’s a pretty small chance the AI companies meet their revenue goals.
一向优秀的迈克尔·莫布森（Michael Mauboussin）有一篇很好的文章分析了基本利率、增长预测，并得出结论认为人工智能公司实现收入目标的机会很小。
OpenAI is projecting a 108% 5-year CAGR and Oracle Cloud is projecting 75%.
OpenAI 预计 5 年复合年增长率为 108%，Oracle Cloud 预计为 75%。
No company at comparable starting size has ever grown that fast for five years in the past 75 years.
在过去 75 年里，没有一家同等起步规模的公司能在五年内实现如此快速的增长。
It’s less about whether not AI is real and here and more about whether or not the capital cycle is sustainable.
问题不在于人工智能是否真实，而在于资本周期是否可持续。
The AI can work technologically, but the capital cycle can overshoot, returns compress, financial conditions get tighter (maybe not in the Trump Fed, but you know) and we get a capex retrenchment shock - a massive investment boom stops and then reverses.
人工智能可以在技术上发挥作用，但资本周期可能会超调，回报压缩，金融状况变得更紧（也许不是在特朗普美联储，但你知道），我们会受到资本支出紧缩的冲击——大规模的投资热潮停止然后逆转。
Same thing happened to telecom, shale, and China property developers.
同样的情况也发生在电信、页岩油和中国房地产开发商身上。
So that’s the hard part, we are betting it all on the unknown, and telling people the outcome is very much known.
所以这就是困难的部分，我们把一切都押在未知的事情上，并告诉人们结果是众所周知的。
There is really no plan to make money, other than the ads (which has its own problems, considering the enormous amount of data the AI companies have on consumers 3 ).
除了广告之外，确实没有赚钱的计划（考虑到人工智能公司拥有关于消费者的大量数据，广告也有其自身的问题3）。
Elon Musk, who just merged the billion-dollar a month burning XAI and stable rocket company SpaceX, has warned that
埃隆·马斯克 (Elon Musk) 刚刚合并了月烧十亿美元的 XAI 和稳定火箭公司 SpaceX，他警告说，
We are 1000% going to go bankrupt as a country and fail as a country without AI and robots.
作为一个没有人工智能和机器人的国家，我们1000%会破产和失败。
Nothing else will solve the national debt.
没有其他办法可以解决国债问题。
As a country!
作为一个国家！
We are all going down with this ship if the robots don’t come and the AI doesn’t work!
如果机器人不来并且人工智能不起作用，我们都会与这艘船一起沉没！
Then it gets into geopolitics , where China, our top competitor here , is making the same bet, but better because they are investing in the energy side, which is really what matters here.
然后就进入地缘政治，我们在这里的最大竞争对手中国也在做出同样的赌注，但更好，因为他们正在投资能源方面，这才是真正重要的。
You can have the best model in the world, but if there is no power to run it on, is it really the best?
你可以拥有世界上最好的模型，但如果没有动力来运行它，它真的是最好的吗？
China is also a very powerful financial backer to the United States.
中国也是美国非常强大的财政支持者。
The trade war has complicated things, but China holds some of the finest threads of our purse strings.
贸易战使事情变得复杂，但中国掌握着我们财力的一些最好的线索。
And they know that - China has encouraged investors to diversify away from US debt, and other countries are keeping a wary eye on fiscal discipline, the US dollar, and the continued threats against Federal Reserve independence.
他们知道，中国鼓励投资者进行多元化投资，远离美国债务，而其他国家则对财政纪律、美元以及对美联储独立性的持续威胁保持警惕。
Torsten Slok wrote in his Software is Not a Macro Problem piece that despite the big tech selloff in the first week of February (and despite the turmoil with China, despite it all), the US economy is in a pretty good spot (sans humans):
Torsten Slok 在他的《软件不是宏观问题》一文中写道，尽管 2 月第一周出现了大规模的科技股抛售（尽管与中国发生了动荡），但美国经济仍处于相当好的位置（没有人类）：
Industrial Renaissance: Trump seems intent on bringing back production for pharma, defense, and semiconductors
工业复兴：特朗普似乎有意恢复制药、国防和半导体的生产
Fiscal Spending: The Trump administration is also going to blow the roof off with debt
财政支出：特朗普政府还将用债务摧毁屋顶
These three things likely will keep the economy afloat and free from a recession.
这三件事可能会让经济保持稳定并免受衰退的影响。
But putting AI to the side, this world does not really need humans to succeed at the moment.
但抛开人工智能不谈，这个世界目前并不真正需要人类取得成功。
The economy is growing but the number of jobs are not .
经济在增长，但就业机会却没有增长。
It’s a “ jobless expansion” 4 with available jobs mostly in healthcare and data center construction.
这是一次“无就业扩张”4，可用工作岗位主要集中在医疗保健和数据中心建设领域。
In Rick Rieder’s write-up on Blackrock’s 2026 views, he writes:
在 Rick Rieder 关于 Blackrock 2026 年观点的文章中，他写道：
The unusual feature of this cycle is that growth has been holding up without the typical labor intensity.
这一周期的不同寻常之处在于，在没有典型的劳动强度的情况下，增长仍然保持不变。
Real GDP likely averaged above 4% over the last two quarters of 2025 with negative job growth
2025 年最后两个季度实际 GDP 平均增速可能超过 4%，就业机会出现负增长
This is why 2026 may feel “fine” in aggregate while still being challenging underneath: productivity can extend expansion, but it can also shift labor demand and change the mix of hiring.
这就是为什么 2026 年总体上可能感觉“不错”，但本质上仍然充满挑战：生产力可以扩大扩张，但也可以改变劳动力需求并改变招聘结构。
Meaning, there will be further gaps between expected material prosperity and actual income.
这意味着，预期的物质繁荣与实际收入之间将存在进一步的差距。
As David Rosenberg tweeted :
正如大卫·罗森伯格在推特上所说：
I can only guffaw when I hear how the Citigroup Economic Surprise Index has magically risen to a fifteen-month high coming off a year when nonfarm payrolls fell short of the consensus forecast 75% of the time and by a cumulative total of nearly -600k!
当我听到花旗集团经济惊喜指数如何神奇地升至 15 个月高点，而这一年非农就业人数 75% 低于共识预测且累计总额接近 -60 万时，我只能大笑！
I guess the job market doesn’t matter to many people any longer now that we have an AI spending boom bumping against endless supersized fiscal deficits to keep the economy afloat.
我想就业市场对很多人来说已经不再重要了，因为我们的人工智能支出热潮与无休止的巨额财政赤字相冲突，以维持经济的发展。
And yeah, it doesn’t seem to matter.
是的，这似乎并不重要。
And this is an ongoing trend.
这是一个持续的趋势。
Greg Ip has a great piece in the WSJ breaking down the push and pull between capital and labor:
Greg Ip 在《华尔街日报》上发表了一篇精彩的文章，剖析了资本和劳动力之间的推力和拉力：
IBM had 400,000 employees in 1985, the most valuable company in the US.
1985年IBM拥有40万名员工，是美国最有价值的公司。
Now, 40 years later, Nvidia is 20x more valuable and 5x more profitable, but they have roughly 40,000 employees, 1/10th of the size.
40 年后的今天，Nvidia 的价值增加了 20 倍，利润增加了 5 倍，但他们拥有大约 40,000 名员工，规模只有原来的 1/10。
That’s a very different economy - again, an economy that seemingly doesn’t have much need for people.
这是一个非常不同的经济体——同样，一个似乎对人没有太多需求的经济体。
As Ip writes, labor’s share of Gross Domestic Income has shrunk almost 7 percentage points over the past 40 years, whereas profits’ has risen by almost 4 percentage points.
正如 Ip 所写，过去 40 年来，劳动力占国内总收入的份额下降了近 7 个百分点，而利润则上升了近 4 个百分点。
Stocks are doing well, but people aren’t.
股票表现良好，但人们却表现不佳。
This creates two very different worlds - a material world and a statistical world 5 .
这就创造了两个截然不同的世界——物质世界和统计世界5。
For people in the material world : time is real because bills are due Friday and kids need pickup at 3pm.
对于物质世界中的人们来说：时间是真实的，因为账单周五到期，孩子们需要在下午 3 点接孩子。
Space is real with a 45-minute commute and you can’t afford to move.
通勤时间为 45 分钟，空间宽敞，您却无法搬家。
Bodies are real with exhaustion and aging.
身体是真实的疲惫和衰老。
Other humans are necessary - coworkers cover your shifts, friends lend you money.
其他人是必要的——同事替你值班，朋友借钱给你。
For people in the statistical world : time is arbitrary.
对于统计界的人来说：时间是任意的。
Space is irrelevant.
空间是无关紧要的。
Bodies are optional through bio-hacking and outsourced physical labor.
通过生物黑客和外包体力劳动，身体是可选的。
Other humans are signals understood through sentiment and labor market data.
其他人类是通过情绪和劳动力市场数据理解的信号。
Claude and a hedge fund manager are similar.
克劳德和一位对冲基金经理很相似。
They find patterns and maximize outcomes.
他们发现模式并最大化结果。
The human understands the machine because of the work they do.
人类因为机器所做的工作而了解机器。
And because this hedge fund manager exists statistically, they’re naturally drawn to AI - which also exists statistically.
而且由于统计上存在这种对冲基金经理，他们自然会被人工智能所吸引——这也是统计上存在的。
The eagerness we see in some of these breathless takes is finding something that shares your ontology.
我们在这些令人窒息的拍摄中看到的渴望是寻找与你的本体论相同的东西。
That’s why people who exist statistically think AI is evolution.
这就是为什么统计学家认为人工智能是进化。
China refers to the economic precarity in US as the “kill line” - how cruel the system can be in the States once you fall out of it.
中国将美国的经济不稳定称为“杀戮线”——一旦脱离美国的制度，就会变得多么残酷。
There is simply nothing to catch you.
根本没有什么可以抓住你。
Li Yuan argues in the NYT that the word “kill line” is used as propaganda by the Chinese government to distract from China’s worsening economic problems with high youth unemployment and fewer paths to security.
李源在《纽约时报》上辩称，“杀戮线”这个词是中国政府用来宣传的，目的是为了转移人们对中国日益恶化的经济问题的注意力，其中包括青年失业率高和安全保障途径少。
ChinaTalk has an interesting piece analyzing some of China’s youth own response to a perceived broken social contract.
ChinaTalk 有一篇有趣的文章分析了中国年轻人对社会契约被破坏的反应。
No one has quite figured out how to support a material world for their young people.
没有人完全弄清楚如何为年轻人提供物质世界。
So we return to nostalgia, specifically, nostalgia for the 1990s.
所以我们回到怀旧，特别是对 20 世纪 90 年代的怀旧。
That was last decade when housing was achievable (still expensive), college debt was manageable, culture was booming, entry-level jobs were plentiful, the Internet existed but hadn’t consumed the entire economy (outside of the whole dot-com bubble thing, but it was more insular than AI), and there was still a sense of social mobility.
那是过去十年，住房是可以实现的（仍然昂贵），大学债务是可以控制的，文化正在蓬勃发展，入门级工作充足，互联网存在但没有消耗整个经济（在整个互联网泡沫之外，但它比人工智能更加孤立），并且仍然存在社会流动性。
Make America Great Again is nostalgia!
让美国再次伟大是怀旧！
It’s policy nostalgia for a world that no longer exists - manufacturing jobs, single-income households, pensions, and thriving local economics.
这是对一个已不复存在的世界的政策怀旧——制造业就业、单收入家庭、养老金和蓬勃发展的当地经济。
The genius/horror of MAGA is it correctly diagnoses that material participation has been destroyed, but the “solution” is impossible because you can’t restore material participation to an economy that’s on a phase transition to statistical.
MAGA 的天才/恐怖之处在于，它正确地诊断出物质参与已被破坏，但“解决方案”是不可能的，因为你无法将物质参与恢复到正处于向统计阶段过渡的经济体中。
The jobs aren’t coming back in that way (other than data center construction) because the economy doesn’t need them.
工作岗位不会以这种方式回归（数据中心建设除外），因为经济不需要它们。
But you can always promise to restore the past because it’s structurally impossible to do so.
但你总是可以承诺恢复过去，因为从结构上来说这是不可能的。
The Super Bowl ads were selling nostalgia as product - Coinbase and Backstreet Boys is a perfect example: “You can’t have the 1990s economy, but you can speculate on digital assets while we play you the soundtrack of that era.”
超级碗广告将怀旧作为产品进行销售——Coinbase 和 Backstreet Boys 就是一个完美的例子：“你不可能拥有 90 年代的经济，但你可以在我们为你播放那个时代的配乐时对数字资产进行投机。”
Nostalgia is “things were better before” so vote for “make it like it was” and watch old shows, listen to old music and feel briefly oriented in space/time and then reality returns: still can’t afford rent.
怀旧是“事情以前更好”，所以投票支持“让它像以前一样”，看老节目，听老音乐，感受短暂的空间/时间定位，然后现实回归：仍然付不起房租。
Speculation is “ things will be better when my bet hits” and vote for “burn it down, accelerate” and check portfolio obsessively (or post obsessively etc) and feel briefly like you have agency and then reality returns: still can’t afford rent
猜测是“当我的赌注成功时，事情会更好”，并投票支持“烧毁，加速”，并着迷地检查投资组合（或着迷地发布等），并短暂地感觉你有代理权，然后现实回归：仍然负担不起租金
Neither address the actual problem of decreasing material participation and this increasingly distorted economy, so neither can resolve the need.
两者都没有解决物质参与减少和经济日益扭曲的实际问题，因此都无法解决需求。
Again, the Super Bowl ads showed this well - the economy has infinite money for speculation and nostalgia and zero money for material participation.
超级碗广告再次很好地展示了这一点——经济中有无限的资金用于投机和怀旧，而用于物质参与的资金为零。
That’s part of what makes the economy feel K-shaped and part of why consumer is barely hanging on .
这就是经济呈 K 型的部分原因，也是消费者几乎无法坚持下去的部分原因。
The share of US loans in delinquency is the highest since 2017.
美国贷款拖欠比例达到 2017 年以来的最高水平。
US retail sales are stalling.
美国零售销售陷入停滞。
The share of adults who believe they are ‘thriving’ has dropped to 48%.
认为自己“蒸蒸日上”的成年人比例已下降至 48%。
Americans expect a lot of wealth to get created this year but believe their own lives are going to get worse , especially job availability.
美国人预计今年会创造大量财富，但相信自己的生活会变得更糟，尤其是就业机会。
20-something college-educated unemployment is higher than we’d expect based on overall unemployment, as Mike Konzcal writes .
正如迈克·康兹卡尔 (Mike Konzcal) 所写，20 多岁受过大学教育的年轻人的失业率高于我们根据总体失业率得出的预期。
It takes an average of more than 11 weeks for any unemployed American to find a job, the longest since 2021, according to the FT.
据英国《金融时报》报道，失业的美国人平均需要超过 11 周才能找到工作，这是自 2021 年以来最长的一次。
Housing affordability continues to worsen, with the median age of first-time homebuyers ticking up to 40 years, according to the National Association of Realtors.
根据全国房地产经纪人协会的数据，住房负担能力继续恶化，首次购房者的中位年龄升至 40 岁。
The average down payment for a married couple is 70% of household income, versus 45% in 2000 .
已婚夫妇的平均首付为家庭收入的 70%，而 2000 年为 45%。
Baby boomer wealth has skyrocketed to $88 trillion - over 2 times that of Gen X and 5 times larger than the Millennials.
婴儿潮一代的财富已飙升至 88 万亿美元，是 X 一代的 2 倍多，是千禧一代的 5 倍。
Because of this, we are rapidly approaching the ‘little treat’ phase of politics, where political will to do anything that isn’t flashy or showy or good on video goes to zero, and therefore, little treats like no tax on tips and property tax relief for seniors will continue to happen as it’s far too difficult to overhaul policy to make it better and more efficient for everyone.
正因为如此，我们正在迅速接近政治的“小待遇”阶段，在这个阶段，做任何不华而不实、不炫耀或在视频上不好看的事情的政治意愿都为零，因此，像小费不征税和老年人财产税减免这样的小待遇将继续发生，因为彻底改革政策以使其对每个人都更好、更高效是太困难了。
So we get little treats.
所以我们得到了一些小待遇。
No AI policy.
没有人工智能政策。
Treats.
款待。
I thought our 20s were happier than these 20s.
我认为我们的20多岁比现在的20多岁更幸福。
I think everyone deserves some time to be oblivious, and not wear all of the world’s problems on their shoulders on Day 1.
我认为每个人都应该有一些时间去忘记，而不是在第一天就把世界上所有的问题都扛在肩上。
We are raising a generation that is very cynical and too informed.
我们正在培养一代人，他们非常愤世嫉俗，而且见多识广。
They are cynical, not because they are inherently cynical.
他们愤世嫉俗，并不是因为他们天生愤世嫉俗。
They are cynical because they see so much stuff.
他们很愤世嫉俗，因为他们看到了太多东西。
It is too much stuff.
东西太多了。
You have to build up some internal reserve of optimism.
你必须在内心建立一些乐观的储备。
You have to build up some reserve of goodness.
你必须积累一些善良的储备。
Maybe that’s the real end game problem.
也许这才是真正的最终问题。
When you inherit the whole world through a screen, you inherit its volatility too.
当你通过屏幕继承了整个世界时，你也继承了它的波动性。
You start life fully briefed on collapse scenarios, capital cycles, geopolitical brinkmanship, and the possibility that the machines will replace you.
你一开始就了解了崩溃情景、资本周期、地缘政治边缘政策以及机器取代你的可能性。
Of course you look for exits.
当然，你要寻找出口。
Of course you toggle between “things were better before” and “things will be better when my bet hits.” The present feels unwinnable.
当然，你会在“之前情况会更好”和“当我的赌注成功时情况会更好”之间切换。现在感觉无法获胜。
Speculation offers a sense of agency without real control.
投机提供了一种没有真正控制权的代理感。
Nostalgia offers a sense of orientation without any real change.
怀旧提供了一种没有任何实际改变的方向感。
Neither rebuild material participation and neither can close the gap between a statistical economy that can grow without people and a material one that cannot.
两者都无法重建物质参与，也无法弥合无需人力即可增长的统计经济与无法实现的物质经济之间的差距。
But the most interesting counter-signals right now are the small, almost boring things.
但现在最有趣的反信号是那些小而几乎无聊的事情。
Gen Alpha prefers stores to feeds and movie theaters to streaming .
Gen Alpha 更喜欢商店而不是直播，更喜欢电影院而不是流媒体。
The oldest are only 16, but they’re the first generation growing up after a lot of the economy stopped requiring broad material participation.
最年长的只有 16 岁，但他们是在许多经济不再需要广泛的物质参与后成长起来的第一代人。
They watched Millennials try gig economy hustles - statistical participation by material people.
他们看到千禧一代尝试零工经济——物质人口的统计参与。
They watched Gen Z turn to betting and crypto - statistical participation by material people.
他们看到 Z 世代转向博彩和加密货币——物质人士参与统计。
If speculation is an attempt to buy a future, and nostalgia is an attempt to rent the past, the present is likely some clean relationship between effort and outcome.
如果投机是一种购买未来的尝试，而怀旧是一种租用过去的尝试，那么现在很可能是努力和结果之间的某种清晰关系。
And we certainly know how to occupy the past and get lost in the future.
我们当然知道如何占据过去并迷失未来。
But what is our present?
但我们的现在是什么？
Gen Alpha might be the first to insist on finding out.
阿尔法一代可能是第一个坚持要找出答案的人。
This is a reader-supported publication.
这是一本由读者支持的出版物。
To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
要接收新帖子并支持我的工作，请考虑成为付费订阅者。
More specifically, he equates social status and success to how much you read in high school, saying that informs your SAT English score and therefore where you can get in.
更具体地说，他将社会地位和成功等同于你在高中读了多少书，并表示这会影响你的 SAT 英语成绩，从而决定你能进入哪个大学。
In my opinion, this misunderstands the current bloodbath of college admissions, and ignores the many people (myself included) that got good test scores but couldn’t afford an Ivy.
在我看来，这误解了当前大学招生的大屠杀，并且忽视了许多考试成绩很好但买不起常春藤大学的人（包括我自己）。
When we see something on the Internet, the first assumption is still to believe it is real.
当我们在互联网上看到某些东西时，第一个假设仍然是相信它是真实的。
I think that is gradually changing with AI, and Moltbook is a good example of why.
我认为人工智能正在逐渐改变这种情况，Moltbook 就是一个很好的例子。
We can’t trust our own eyes anymore, and people are exploiting that in a variety of ways - some by comparing the oncoming AI apocalypse to COVID and then telling people to pay for the models to get ahead (which like sure, but if we wanted to avoid said apocalypse, is it best to run toward it, pocketbooks full of cash?) and some by making the most heinous AI-generated videos you’ve ever seen.
我们不能再相信自己的眼睛了，人们正在以各种方式利用这一点——有些是将即将到来的人工智能末日与新冠病毒进行比较，然后告诉人们为模型付费才能取得成功（这是肯定的，但如果我们想避免所说的末日，最好是带着满是现金的钱包跑向它吗？）还有一些是制作你见过的最令人发指的人工智能生成视频。
Cost savings could be another money maker, sort of.
节省成本可能是另一个赚钱工具。
KPMG, an auditing firm, has asked their auditor, Grant Thornton, to pass on cost savings from the rollout of AI, which implies that KPMG should also be passing on their cost savings to their customers, right?
毕马威会计师事务所已要求他们的审计师致同会计师事务所将人工智能的推出所节省的成本转嫁给客户，这意味着毕马威也应该将节省的成本转嫁给客户，对吧？
Right??
正确的？？
Everyone should be passing on cost savings everywhere!
每个人都应该将节省的成本传播到各地！
But that wouldn’t work.
但这是行不通的。
Some argue that this is because of AI, but as Alex Imas points out in his living analysis of AI productivity, it hasn’t really shown up in the aggregate productivity numbers yet
有些人认为这是因为人工智能，但正如 Alex Imas 在他对人工智能生产力的实时分析中指出的那样，它还没有真正体现在总生产力数字中
For lack of a better word here, if anyone has ideas let me know
由于这里缺乏更好的词，如果有人有想法请告诉我
Your article almost perfectly mirrors, from a mental health standpoint, how anxiety is future focused (your brain's prediction engine) and depression is being mired in the past (trauma; unprocessed emotions).
从心理健康的角度来看，你的文章几乎完美地反映了焦虑如何聚焦于未来（你的大脑的预测引擎）和抑郁如何陷入过去（创伤；未经处理的情绪）。
With both anxiety and depression skyrocketing in developed/Western nations, this tearing of the mind from the present makes a whole lot of sense.
随着发达国家/西方国家的焦虑和抑郁症急剧上升，这种对当下的思维撕裂是很有意义的。
We're creating catastrophic internal dissonance between what the average person wants and what's realistically achievable.
我们正在普通人想要的东西和现实可实现的东西之间造成灾难性的内部不和谐。
And people are responding accordingly.
人们也做出了相应的反应。
Great post.
很棒的帖子。
This resonates with the “Extraction Economy” video you posted a while back.
这与您不久前发布的“提取经济”视频产生共鸣。
Please keep it up.
请坚持下去。
(BTW, the Gen Alpha/Theater statistic feels a bit weak.
（顺便说一句，Gen Alpha/战区的统计数据感觉有点弱。
I suspect you’re right, but I’d love to see other signals that supports this theory)
我怀疑你是对的，但我很想看到支持这一理论的其他信号）