charles hugh smith-7 Reasons to Loathe Lists

Irony alert: yes, I am posting a list to critique articles that hook readers with lists: you know what I mean, the endless stories based on lists: 7 dumb things we do with smart phones (#1: turn them on, #2: continue texting while we distractedly drive off a cliff), 6 best gifts for pets, 9 greatest celebrity comebacks, 10 foods to avoid, 10 foods that reduce cancer, 5 chilling revelations about Benghazi, 15 hottest housing markets, and so on.

1. Lists are crack cocaine for curiosity. We already know the 10 foods to avoid, and that nine of them are our favorites, but we can't resist seeing if there is some outlier in the list we didn't know about.

2. Lists activate our desire to contest the selection. What, no John Travolta on the greatest celebrity comebacks? That is so wrong....

3. Lists compel us to read them in order to substantiate our mastery. Very few things are more satisfying than "ha, I knew that."

4. Lists activate our need to find our place in the hierarchy. Are we in one of the hottest housing markets, or not even on the list? We want to know our status in the pecking order, even if it entirely arbitrary and meaningless.

5. Lists encourage mind-candy addictive behavior, i.e. jumping from one bite-sized list of low-value, repetitive content to another. As if the culture isn't already attention-deficit disabled enough.

6. Lists challenge us to guess which filter was used to derive the list. What was left off the list, and why? Was it overlooked, edited out because it was taboo (or not taboo enough)? The editorial process of fabricating the list is generally unexplained, but we can't ascertain how clumsy or misguided the list might be until we read it. But by then, the list has accomplished its purpose, i.e. logged a page view.

I mention my "Hollywood ending" for 2013: a stock market collapse that utterly discredits the Federal Reserve's policies and all those who supported them. We also discuss the insane costs of sickcare.

Things are falling apart--that is obvious. But why are they falling apart? The reasons are complex and global. Our economy and society have structural problems that cannot be solved by adding debt to debt. We are becoming poorer, not just from financial over-reach, but from fundamental forces that are not easy to identify or understand. We will cover the five core reasons why things are falling apart:

1. Debt and financialization
2. Crony capitalism and the elimination of accountability
3. Diminishing returns
4. Centralization
5. Technological, financial and demographic changes in our economy
Complex systems weakened by diminishing returns collapse under their own weight and are replaced by systems that are simpler, faster and affordable. If we cling to the old ways, our system will disintegrate. If we want sustainable prosperity rather than collapse, we must embrace a new model that is Decentralized, Adaptive, Transparent and Accountable (DATA).
We are not powerless. Not accepting responsibility and being powerless are two sides of the same coin: once we accept responsibility, we become powerful.

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