The Civilizational Crisis Under Financial Bubbles: The Illusion of Liquidity and Structural Collapse

We are at the end of a highly financialized cycle. In this bubble market, certain cryptocurrencies may increase in value tenfold in just a month, but can also plummet by 20% in a single day. However, behind this superficial phenomenon lies a deeper issue: an oversupply of Liquidity, market distortions, and a civilization system gradually collapsing under its own contradictory pressures.

The S&P 500 index hitting a new all-time high has sparked enthusiastic celebrations, but a calm analysis reveals that this so-called "historic high" is merely an illusion of Liquidity. It is measured by a currency that has no substantial backing and is entirely driven by inflation. When considering inflation, the S&P index has actually seen almost no real growth since the beginning of the 21st century. This does not reflect the true "growth" of the economy, but is merely a picture of the expansion of the money supply.

The current issue is a fundamental structural problem, and interest rate adjustments can no longer fundamentally resolve it. There are three key issues worth paying attention to:

1. The Slow Collapse of the Debt System

The modern monetary order has reached its end. It is built on an ever-expanding foundation of debt, and now faces irreconcilable internal contradictions. Various strategies from the past—stimulus measures, bailout plans, policy adjustments—have all been based on a key illusion: the more debt there is, the higher the level of economic prosperity.

However, this illusion is breaking down. Productivity growth has stagnated, and demographic changes are in direct contrast to this system. The labor force is shrinking, the dependency ratio is continuously rising, and consumption is increasingly reliant on credit rather than income. This economic machine is aging and has lost its self-repairing ability.

The 2008 financial crisis should have shattered this myth, but it did not. Instead, it was the COVID-19 pandemic that achieved this, as it brought with it moral costs. The pandemic revealed that governments cannot protect their citizens in the most basic biological sense, and the actions of many governments indicate that the right to survival is not equal for everyone.

This has led to a decline in government legitimacy. Many institutions today resemble hollow shells propped up by surveillance, subsidies, and manipulation of public opinion. Recent high-level scandals are not anomalies, but rather reveal the true power structure: a complex system interwoven with crime, governance, and capital.

2. The Closed Development of Artificial Intelligence

The discussion about Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) remains in a naive optimism. Most people still believe that AI will be widely used like common office software, becoming a tool to enhance productivity and generating profit through a subscription model.

This idea is overly idealistic. If machines truly acquire the ability to self-improve, simulate complex systems, and design new types of weapons (whether biological, chemical, or information weapons), they will never be open source.

Historically, every powerful technology has ultimately become a tool for national governance, and superintelligence will be no exception. The actions of some tech giants suggest that their focus is not on enhancing consumer productivity, but on controlling the future trajectory of human development.

The public is unlikely to have direct access to true AGI. Instead, we can only interact with AI fragments that are strictly restricted and encapsulated, which are embedded in various user interfaces. Truly powerful systems will be hidden, restricted, and trained to serve specific strategic purposes.

3. Time Becomes the New Currency

Traditionally, money can buy comfort, safety, and social status, but it cannot buy time. This situation is changing. With breakthroughs in artificial intelligence in the fields of genomic research and synthetic biology, we are entering an era where longevity becomes an engineered advantage.

But this is far from a public health revolution that benefits everyone. Real advancements in life extension, cognitive enhancement, and embryo optimization technologies will be extremely expensive, heavily regulated, and politically controversial. Governments around the world are already overwhelmed by aging populations and are unlikely to promote universal life extension.

Therefore, the rich will not only become wealthier economically but will also biologically distance themselves from ordinary people. The ability to change the human genetic blueprint will create a new economic class: those who can break the natural lifespan limits through biotechnology patents.

Such a future cannot be widely promoted; it will become a path of privilege. Longevity will become the ultimate luxury, serving only a few. This is why most "longevity funds" perform poorly—the true return is survival itself, and survival cannot be scaled.

Three Tracks of Future Society

The current society is diverging into different development trajectories, each of which has its unique political and economic characteristics:

1. Numb masses: Immersed in the dopamine loop created by AI, social media, and virtual entertainment. They are overstimulated, malnourished, and politically insignificant. This is the survival state of the majority, a cheap and scalable anesthetic method.

2. Cognitive Elite: A small group that has been enhanced both biologically and intellectually. They no longer pursue mere economic returns but seek control over biology and death. This group is scarce, extremely wealthy, and increasingly difficult to reach.

3. Active Separatists: A group of people who choose the third exit path. They disconnect from mainstream society, seeking meaning in life outside of machines, attempting to preserve humanity in a world that constantly erodes the essential human experience. They may be spiritually affluent, but strategically they may be destined to fail.

The first type of person provides financial support to the second type of person. The third type of person tries to resist the first two.

Most people go with the flow, barely surviving, unaware that they have become products of the system rather than participants. However, for those who can see the future, choosing to withdraw is no longer a neutral stance, but an act of resistance.

Finding a clear strategy in chaos

The current market is filled with various noises. Cryptocurrencies, stocks, various yield games—these are just optional tools, not the path to salvation. The real challenge lies in how to survive during a system collapse and under what conditions to survive.

Key Insights:

• The current monetary system is continuously deteriorating.
• Superintelligence will not become a productivity assistant for ordinary people.
• Biotechnology will make time a scarce resource.
• The corruption of the power system is no longer concealed.

After understanding these, the question is no longer how to "beat the market", but how to prepare for an asymmetric future in a system that no longer serves ordinary participants.

True insight does not come from focusing on price trends, but from systematic thinking. Most people do not look up and see the bigger picture until it is too late to realize. For many, it seems easier to die in ignorance than to face the harsh reality with clarity.