I, within the last decade, watched a housing boom in my hometown go bust. I watched hundreds of houses stay vacant for many years. And it wasn't just houses going vacant, it was even many more houses being vacated because they were bought by people who built houses.

Watching something that once was a "sure bet" go bust is very humbling. Watching those speculators go bankrupt by the hundreds is very sad. It made me realize that this particular dinosaur could be very real.

Long term investment isn’t speculation. That’s why we call it investment.

Yeah, if you are dumping money into a bubble hoping to cash out at the top, you are taking a major risk. If you’re investing long term in an asset with literally centuries of history of growth, then you’re probably going to be okay.

And realistically, what’s the alternative? I guess government bonds?

Long term investment is speculation if it's predicated on an economic system that requires infinitely increasing growth on a completely finite planet with diminishing resources and no clear guarantee that we can fix any overshoot by going interplanetary in a cost-efficient way, or that technology will always magically step in to create enough new efficiencies to further exploit the resources that are present.

I’m not sure how to formulate a response to this. It’s so utterly misplaced. This is like saying that investment isn’t possible because eventually entropy will consume the universe. Yes, in some sense this is true, but in a much more practical sense you should still be planning for your retirement.

Even if you believe that in your lifetime the human race will collapse under the strain we’re creating on the planet, investing is still the appropriate hedge for your doomsday “die in a catastrophe” plans. You can refuse to call it “investing”, but then you’re just arguing for a pointless definition that no one else really agrees with.

I have a little retirement fund, and I also think that if I focused too much on it, I would neglect enjoying our present level of civilization while it lasts. You're the one arguing to absurdity (heat death of the universe), because it really does matter if for all intents and purposes one will likely not get to enjoy retirement investments due to social collapse. It's not a far away possibility, but very likely to begin within my lifetime. You see, it doesn't take depleting everything on the planet, but just enough so that the growth engine based on debt stalls. Inevitable conflicts will follow. Climate change is already causing considerable financial damage and instability, and that is only going to grow more pronounced. On the current emissions route, most of the land closer to the equator than Canada or New Zealand may be barely inhabitable by 2080 (At around +3 or +4 C). There's already trillions of dollars in property value at risk just from flooding that's basically certain in places like Miami, let alone whole latitudes. Some tangible investments will still be valuable, but the idea that the market will keep churning out monetary growth indefinitely is ludicrous. My investment hedge is only for very unlikely scenarios, such as plentiful fusion energy, or exponentially cheaper carbon capture being developed in time to prevent the global financial shock that will happen when the market realizes that whole latitudes of property value are simply disappearing in several decades, or that trillions will need to be spent to mitigate the natural disasters that are coming. It's not a one-day Rapture to expect, but decades of decline that await.

From what i can tell, the difference between speculating and investing is merely long term vs short term investing.

according to that definition, your parent poster would be correct, even if (or maybe once) your fears come true.

Waiting for the "Treasury Notes are assuming the government will still exist 10 years from now" from people who apparently hoard cash in 1.2% Ally Savings Accounts

It's 1.6% now /s

Gold.