Scott Alexander

But GDP growth last quarter was 4.3%.

Without AI, it will have still been like 4%.

And I still hear people say they'll never be able to have a family, but it doesn't matter because it would be immoral to bring children into a world where they could never have any chance of getting ahead or living a normal life.

Even if we're in a mild recession now, that doesn't sound like mild recession talk.

Still, Kyla has spiritual copyright on Vibe Session, so maybe we need another phrase to discuss the longer-term hypothesis.

I propose, the Great Vibe-pression.

TTR writes, quote,

Then I got a job right out of college with a mediocre 3.6 GPA from a state school and went to work as an analyst for a mid-sized regional bank.

Got promoted internally a few times and lived very frugally with my wife, met at work.

Now I'm able to be a stay-at-home dad with our kid while she works from home.

We live in Oklahoma.

We bought new construction last year for $200,000 with some spare cash I had lying around in a brokerage account.

So I'm pretty fully cured of the doomerism.

Success is trivial.

My bosses and co-workers constantly praise the fact that I approach my job with gratitude and focused on identifying the goals and achieving them efficiently and optimally from 9 to 5 every day.

That's it.

No late hours, no connections or networking or anything else fancy.

End quote.

Good for TTAR, but I'm including this one here as confirmation that people graduating in 2014 felt like my parents and literally every single media outlet and professor were preaching doom at them.

Moose writes, quote, Every explanation for the vibe session that does not attempt to explain why there is a huge drop in 2021 specifically and persistently lower vibes for the following years should be disregarded.