[jff]

I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire generation selling ads, making social media startups – slaves with white collars. Internet hype has us chasing VCs and tweets, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no AI Winter. No Project MAC. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be Zuckerbergs, and Bill Gateses, and rock star programmers, but we won't. We're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

[narrator]

I think the projects Elon Musk is working on, especially SpaceX, are probably the most meaningful grand vision kind of innovation we have.

[TravisLS]

Precisely. Just because all the 25-year-olds are proving themselves by working on ad clicks today doesn't mean tomorrow's Elon Musk isn't among them.

A generation of kids cutting their teeth on smaller, more approachable products is going to grow up into a generation of seasoned entrepreneurs who can meaningfully allocate capital to solve bigger problems.

[chailatte]

So....after wasting a few years on failed useless ventures, then 10+ years on a successful useless ventures, then hopefully being one of the dozen companies in a decade to make billions either thru an exit or revenues, enough to finally launch your world changing venture and accomplish success in another 10 years or so?

Yeah, that explains why America is morally and monetarily bankrupt.

[Apocryphon]

What other nation in the world offers a better approach?

[chailatte]

America, early 1900.

[stcredzero]

People were complaining about the falseness and emptiness of life back then too!

[Apocryphon]

I'm pretty sure lofty world-shattering inventions are physically and financially more difficult to create nowadays.

[Apocryphon]

I'm sure that America's innovation exists beyond Silicon Valley.

[tybris]

Really?

[c0riander]

Reference: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/quotes?qt0479105

[wiredfool]

Thanks. I was beginning to despair that no one was going to catch it.

[colomon]

Heh. I actually recognized it from "A Night at the Hip Hopera", but never knew where they had sampled it from. :)

[SiVal]

Oh, boo-hoo. You've also apparently been raised to believe that someone (probably the government in some form) owed you the life of your dreams, and as it dawns that you might have to work for a living, you assume your "rights" are being violated, have a tantrum, and compose yet another leftist manifesto.

I suspect there is something wrong with how you were educated by "the system," but it's not what you think.

[epochwolf]

As someone already pointed out, this is a movie reference. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/quotes?qt0479105

[jff]

Here I was thinking that everyone on the Internet had seen Fight Club, and you go and prove me wrong.

[sdave]

(from India), This is the first movie i am going to watch now. Thanks jff.

[SiVal]

Doh! Sorry, jff. You're right, I haven't seen Fight Club, only Faculty Club, but the resemblance is uncanny....

[irickt]

Follow the imdb link: it's humor, you know.