With every passing day, it feels like we’re finding it more and more difficult as a society to discuss real, complex issues with the depth and nuance they demand. Not just to understand the challenges we face but also to understand each other.

Money should, in theory, be a relatively easy thing to understand. We interact with it every day after all. Unfortunately, it’s not quite as simple as just ‘the money in your account’. That being said, just because something isn’t straightforward doesn’t mean we should seek to make it harder than it needs to be.

It feels as though as more time passes, we’re drifting further into an age where true independent thinking is quietly fading away. It’s not that we’ve lost intelligence or the capacity to think, at least, not yet.

I hadn’t planned on writing about this topic, but in light of the recent government proposal to introduce digital ID’s, and the social chatter that followed, I wanted to put down a few of my views.

Over the past decade or so, Stoicism has undergone something of a renaissance. Social media and online platforms have no doubt played a large part in this, not least because it’s easy to lift a quote from a philosopher and stick it on an image or post to drive engagement.

Over the past six or seven years, I’ve found myself increasingly questioning whether the education system is truly set up to help children learn and develop their minds or merely to cultivate a culture of compliance. More recently, through personal experiences, that question has become more pointed on whether we’re also failing children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)?

Unfortunately, the more time spent thinking about and observing the topic, the clearer the answer becomes.

I maintain a mastermind group where we share discussion on thought provoking topics as well as supporting each other with business and personal endeavours. We meet quarterly for a review but late last year we introduced something that initially I didn’t think I’d take to but has become one of the most valuable assets of our group.

Over the years I’ve changed how I consume information. My relationship with social media and news feeds has also shifted considerably over recent years to the extent that especially for the prior my usage has all but dwindled down to zero.  

The final jump away from socials was largely due to personal events and the passing of a loved one. I’m the quintessential ambivert;

"How you do anything is how you do everything."

A simple statement and yet a powerful truth if adopted as a principle in both life and work. I’ve spent many years closely examining and musing over what defines those who are successful in life versus those who just wander through.

I’m a generally optimistic person, which isn’t always easy in today’s world and is made more difficult if you allow yourself to descend too far into the world of social media and mainstream news. Fortunately, my social media exposure is incredibly limited and as far as possible I keep my consumption of news confined to a relatively curated list of sources.

So, what has any of this got to do with AI doomerism?  

Governments around the world have taken on eye-watering levels of debt, and whether you realise it or not, you're paying the price every day. In this post I want to discuss how national debt quietly erodes the populations wealth to provoke further thought on what it means for you and how to take back control.