commie

Consider therapy then. The lineage would be surely be glad if you stopped spoiling everything!

My answer was lost when the post was moved. So here's a shorter but less gentle version: obviously everything is in your imagination but the trouble is that you're saying things like 'I am the only being' instead of being silent. Connecting the two statements creates a bit of a problem. Do they come from the same place? Maybe if you worked out what you meant with that innocuous-looking comma, you'd see that can't be true.

What are your offspring? Considering they can drive Lamborghinis but aren't humans, it would seem you're an AI but that would imply they could just as well drive in a simulation.

There's antisemitic propaganda here. Like, Mein Kampf stuff from the same user now posting about Bill Gates. If they were to be banned, surely it should be for the antisemitic stuff and not for this. Don't you want to be aware of what people think? I don't know how old you are but this is not some kind of Internet phenomenon. People used to say even crazier things, only depending on your social background you might not have been aware of it.

It's only simple if you're lying... to yourself or to others. Your explanation is not only simplistic enough to be misleading about the actual global economy, it also happens to be wrong about the most basic facts regarding money in such a way that what you describe could not possibly work.

And here I was, thinking I had wasted your time by initially misunderstanding this "universe" thing. Glad to have been of use!

My life was never like that.. maybe to some extent as a young child but I can hardly remember. It seems like I've always been judging people from the outside of their hateful game and that I learned early on I had to take breaks from that and that you didn't need to believe in order to play along. So I guess it's no surprise I don't relate to this crisis of yours.

Hi! I went back to school at 25 and I think I was too old so I feel you on that front. Obviously you have a problem, shouldn't be forcing yourself all the time, and should seek help. But but doesn't have to be a doctor. Surely there is some kind of women's organization in your area providing free support and services. Equally obviously, I have no magic solution... but is the following really the problem? You don't need to care about any of this. Middle-class careers in particular aren't for everyone. It's obviously fine if you do find yourself caring about these things again as you heal but in the meantime, perhaps you'd notice there is something else you care about if you stopped punishing yourself for not caring about the things you think you ought to care about or simply for not being Superwoman? Children are people, not an achievement. Women often have children when they're much older than 35 these days but that doesn't mean it's a responsible choice. If you really want children, do you really need a career that would keep you away from them? Having both the children and the career remains the exception and not the rule.

That's very open-minded of you. I can't say that I honestly entertain the notion that there is a sensible answer to such whys. All this judging (weird, weird, weird) seems like it would be draining. Maybe take a break? Out of curiosity, how does that work? What's the connection between such an abstract belief and motivations?

That doesn't explain the point of holding dollar reserves, and ignores the diverging interests of the reserve holders and importers. Assuming you need to buy dollars somehow, why buy ahead? In my 4-point summary above, I assumed countries want reserves and gave reasons why they'd want to hold dollars as opposed to something else. But you are apparently trying to explain reserves... More importantly, your account only covers half of the equation. This isn't an issue today but back in the day, how come there were enough dollars overseas in the first place? Also keep in mind that dollars weren't the only thing US exporters would have accepted as payment. The sticky issue requiring explanation is how and why deficits of the trading partners of the US were financed. And for one thing, making dollars available to the importers ensured that exporters would end up with fat dollar balances instead of foreign assets...

That makes more sense than the oil thing, but still doesn't make sense. How would that have worked? 1) dollar debts and floating rates 2) problems with other currencies 3) share of USD (and USD-pegged currencies) liabilities of the parties involved global trade and FDI 4) politics In each case, the relative importance of these 4 is different (and in rare cases, the weight of the fourth reason could be negative). Additionally, in exceptional but important cases, very large dollar reserves can be used to support the dollar. Note that the first reason implies there's a sort of inertia to this matter as long as the dollar remains acceptable to both international debtors and creditors. And if anything, the US trade deficit is actually helpful in that regard.

Oil still is the key energy source. But it doesn't matter in which currency it's priced. This popular theory doesn't make sense. You can buy oil in many currencies now that most currencies can be freely exchanged for one another and you can easily hedge against currency risk anyway. Governments which worry about oil imports worry about logistics and the price of oil which is much more volatile than the dollar. You can of course hedge against changes in the price of oil benchmarks but the benchmark isn't what you'd end up importing. Even direct contracts with suppliers are routinely broken (regardless of price). The best solution is simply to store oil or indeed products. There are sensible reasons why central banks hold dollar reserves but they naturally are harder to explain to the general public.

That is a much harder question than it might seem. Putting aside the deafening noise which afflicts public discussion of such issues, it would be misleading to say that gold was the global currency before the USD. If you want to understand the history of the USD system, you will first need to have a basic grasp of what came before and I'm not sure that you can find resources for that online. Hopefully there's something out there but back in the day I had to fetch pretty obscure books in more than one library. Just in case: I am of course not talking about the circa 1970 Bretton Woods crisis (while interesting, it's nowhere as important as WWI). There are online resources for the way the current system works but that's quite technical and I don't know if someone has produced a good introduction that's not deceptive. So my advice is to start by elaborating (or changing entirely) your question. Otherwise you could easily fall down a rabbit hole you had no need to approach. The middle part is much easier to answer... in a nutshell: the USA won WWII and the only alliance which has emerged to challenge it so far was weak and crumbled decades ago. Other polities have long learned to work within the US system and replacing US hegemony would therefore at a minimum require the other big players to change their ways. Change is generally difficult and costly but much more so when it would require agreements between parties which are jealous of each other. The most likely reason for the USD will lose its current role is that the US government might sabotage it beyond repair.

It is a sad commentary on this forum that I need to be the one to explain this... You're not studying finance to play with your own money, are you? Forget about profits and losses on a portfolio. IPOs aren't a big deal either (certainly compared to buybacks) and any fool can bet on equities. FX, fixed income and derivatives is where the most the important qualified work happens. Recall what the function of financial markets is in the first place. How would this contemptible economic system function anywhere as well as it does without modern liquidity or indeed without ways to price risk? Do you also believe in the "invisible hand" or some other sky daddy drivel? Spreads do not grow on trees! This is work that people actually need to do. Even the software requires people to design and supervise it. At the margin you might be able to do some ethical stuff or put together products that might help select small caps or EMs with market access. You could also potentially catch swindlers if you work sell-side. But really, simply keeping the machine running is a contribution already.

Regarding 1) to 5), you probably do all this even when you're not focusing on it. In the unlikely event you do not find yourself doing all these things and more automatically, time for 6). And if you are rich, you may also want to tap 6) if you're bored. The nobody thing is overkill if you only wanted to get over yourself. But it's fine if you like it and as long you remain somewhat functional.

Of course no one has no problem with that... unbearable, I say.

Funny, that's the only time I have a use for it. I remember being unable to control my muscles or speak because of the pain and that pest was my best friend.

Talking about yourself in the third person comes off as unbearably pretentious. Social worth isn't "fake". It has survival value. I'm comfortable enough that I care much more about "the miracle of creation" but not everyone is so lucky. Having sense of superiority over people who harass you with stuff you don't care about is probably just a defense mechanism and is in any case not the same thing as social worth.

I drank water spiked with acid. Is this a non sequitur championship?

Indeed. So what?

You are apparently talking about the subjective contents of the dream rather than about the dream. You shouldn't conflate the two because on the one hand, you can observe others having dreams. And on the other, you can ask meaningful questions about the existence of the contents of the dream you are not having. And while these questions would very likely not be productive, that is not the same thing as not making sense. TBH I don't think questions about (non)existence are ever productive.

They are real. There you go.

I'm basically with you: if you're only going to believe in one thing, let that be it! But still, I do enjoy talking to figments of my mind. Refraining from doing so saves others nothing, precisely because the figments of my mind are only me. I also think many in this thread misunderstand what it means to say that objects are a product of perception (or that there is no objective reality). What I care most about however is: please stop dragging physics into this! That's painful.

You should read papers in other languages, especially if you you're not fluent enough yet in any other language. The Economist and Intercept are solid but the NYT and Time are junk. Read the FT or something Asian if you must read a daily in English. As to magazines, you should try something more challenging ideologically like National Review or Monthly Review. I suppose something more cultured like that NYRB or the Atlantic might also be worthwhile. This is a bit of an echo chamber (with a topping of lunacy). But most non-professional newsy content on youtube seems to be junk or worse. There's one reasonable right-winger I found with a channel called MFF. As far as the pros are concerned, DW has decent youtube content and there are also think tanks like the INET which have good content. Again, also look for Asian pros. A young person can't afford to be as ignorant of Asian perspectives as I am. But Youtube is best for non-political stuff or quirky politics-adjacent content like Contrapoints. Can't you do podcasts instead? Like when you're doing chores or commuting? Bloomberg's Odd Lots is a must.

See, I don't feel that I'm made of matter so I didn't think you were simply talking about feelings. How does that feel, I wonder... can you describe the sensation or something?