The Yang Gang was the first meetup in Seattle where I didn't have to explain to people why the Japanese bond market raising interest rates was going to be a problem for US tech companies because that's where they were borrowing a lot of their money from over the last few decades. They just kind of...already knew about it and talked about it even before I had the chance to bring it up.
Kind of weird experience for me, because I think I subconciously learned to expect there to be huge frictions when talking about anything that mattered - especially if it was important.
The art groups I talk to usually have no idea what I'm talking about, while the finance people are too scared to mention it because they're vaguely aware that it's a problem but most of them have no idea what to do or how to respond. Here, someone else brought it up before I even mentioned it.
This is just one example of a multitude of problems and issues that our society faces today that we talked in-depth - as long as time would allow, anyway.
Lately I've been kind of trying to "go back to my roots" as to prepare myself for the things to come. Andrew Yang was pretty much right about most things he said during the campaign - including predicting that AI replacing people's jobs and the collapse of society was coming if something like UBI wasn't enacted very soon. Everyone thought we were crazy for saying such a thing a few years ago but these days - it doesn't seem so outlandish, does it?
Imperfect as our movement was - we did manage to get some shit done in ways that nobody expected and we can now confidently say that we were ahead of our time. A lot of the folks in the gang are entrepreneurs or have entrepreneurial aspirations - and I do think there's something to the idea that we might be one of the better prepared groups out there to deal with the fallout once all hell breaks loose.
Most of the campaign days were kind of a blur to me, honest. So much chaos - so many things going on - hostility was everywhere, coming from both sides of the spectrum - but those times were also moments of genuine hope and real connections based on honest ideas and conversations. At some point we're going to need to do it again...and this time, probably on a much bigger scale.
Here is the part where, if I were to be talking to the "normies" out there, I would make a plea to "prepare ourselves for the moment". But let's be real, here - most of them are still clinging onto past illusions of American exceptionalism and aren't even reading stuff like this right now. There is no preparing for this - it's just going to happen, and a few of us will be there to pick up the pieces when the time comes.
Not everyone from the movement is still around, but the ones left seem to be prepared - at least mentally, anyway. Our point of reference (the dollar) is about to fall out under us and survival will require a radical departure from norms to have any semblance of order in the future - it's not going to be easy, but it can be done. We were forged in the fires of doing the impossible, after all. 🔥