If aliens were to descend to the sunny side of the Alps today and observe our daily lives, they would write the following in a report to the Galactic Federation: "This is a tribe that believes that wealth is created by laying Knauf and that the pinnacle of civilizational achievement is a vacation allowance."
Slovenia is a fascinating laboratory. We are the only country in the world where people on minimum wage drive cars that cost the average African village's three-year budget, while at the same time protesting that bread is too expensive. We live in a collective hallucination, in an economic Fata Morgana, where we replaced having with being and spending with creating.
The syndrome of “shiny sheet metal” and concrete monuments
Let's face it. Our national pathology is not alcoholism (although we try), but a complete illiteracy in understanding capital.
The Slovenian does not understand the concept of “asset”. For him, an investment is a car. A German one, of course. A diesel one, if possible. The fact that this pile of iron loses a third of its value the moment it leaves the showroom and that it is essentially a money sucker is irrelevant. What is important is that our neighbor Jože sees that we are doing well. Meanwhile, Jože is building an extension to the house in which only he and his wife already live, because the children have fled abroad or are in studio apartment in Ljubljana, so they don't have to listen to their father's wisdom about how to mix mortar.
We have built a land of concrete monuments to our own ego, in which we will freeze to death because we will have no heating. While global capital flows into algorithms, biotechnology and energy solutions, we invest in facades and paving stones. We are like that orchestra on the Titanic, except that we do not play music, but fight over who has the most beautifully polished instrument, while water is already flowing into our shoes.
Digital feudalism: We are farmers in foreign fields
But the real tragedy doesn't happen in our backyards. It's happening on our screens.
The global economy has changed radically. We have entered an era of digital feudalism. The owners of the platforms (Google, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft) are the new feudal lords. We, who use these platforms, who leave our data, our time and our money on them, are the modern serfs. The peasants.
And what does a Slovenian do? Is he the one who develops a new algorithm? Is he the owner of a piece of these fiefdoms? No. A Slovenian is a consumer. He enthusiastically buys the latest phone so he can watch other people live better than him.
Allow me to briefly delve into the brutal mathematics that Tony Robbins recently served up and which should be required reading in every Slovenian high school. If you have been faithfully standing in line for the last 15 years and buying every new model iPhone, you threw about 22,000 euros out the window for this privilege of 'status'. It sounds like a lot, but you can still live off that number.
But if instead of buying a phone, you bought Apple shares at exactly the same value every time they came out, you would have 326,000 euros.
Read that again. 326 grand. That's not change for a coffee. This is an apartment in Ljubljana. This is your financial freedom. This is the difference between being an owner of capital and being a mere cash cow for the tech giants. But no, you would rather have a pile of electronic junk in your drawer and a device in your pocket that in two years will be worth less than yesterday's bun."
A technological tsunami called artificial intelligence is coming. This is no longer a forecast, this is the weather forecast for tomorrow. AI will sweep away mediocrity. It will do the work that we Slovenians are so proud of: administrative paperwork, bureaucratic complications, and writing minutes that no one reads.
Our response to this? We'll probably set up a government commission to study the impact of AI on potato production and demand that ChatGPT pay contributions to the ZPIZ. Because that's our scope. Solving 21st century problems with 1974 tools.
The culture of comfort is a culture of failure
The worst part of all this is that we have lost our survival instinct. We have become fat and lazy – not necessarily physically, but intellectually.
The welfare state, our sacred cow, has lulled us to sleep. It has instilled in us the belief that it belongs to us. That we belong to a job, that we belong to an apartment, that we belong to a pension. News of the day: nature doesn't care what you are entitled to under the constitution. The economy doesn't care about your "rights".
If you can't create value that someone is willing to pay for, you're economically dead. And in the coming world, the definition of "creating value" will be drastically different from what we know today. "Hard work" will no longer be enough. Robots are harder workers than you. Algorithms don't go for coffee and they don't need sick leave because their back hurts.
Conclusion: Evolution knows no mercy
It may sound cruel. Maybe you'd rather read something about how "hardworking and industrious" we are and how Slovenia is a pearl. It is. A pearl that pigs are slowly pawing in the mud while they dream of truffles.
If we want to survive as a nation and as individuals, we must stop being a nation of servants waiting for a master (or state) to cut them a piece of bread. We must become a nation of owners. Owners of our knowledge, owners of capital, and above all, owners of our destiny.
Stop investing in sheet metal. Stop investing in walls that bring nothing but expenses. Invest in what is between your ears. And stop waiting for Golob, Janša or anyone else to solve your problems.
Because when the real winter comes – and it's coming fast – neither left nor right-wing politics will keep you warm. The only thing that will keep you warm is the fire you know how to light yourself. But if you've forgotten how to make a fire because you've waited too long for central heating… well, then good luck.
History teaches usthat those who do not understand the spirit of the times become its dung. And right now Slovenia smells like compost.
