[rland]

The last several decades have seen a huge decline in people's actual material well being, wealth, and personal security, full stop. If you have not noticed this, congratulations, you are lucky.

It's not just "the media" and "the culture" and "the discourse..." it is material fact.

So, yes, you read the room right. The reason none of these discussions are productive is because the material strife is consistently and purposefully sublimated into cultural/personal strife, so that it any change which would arise -- which happens when people actually understand material reality -- is prevented.

The rage is cultural because if it were not cultural, things would materially change.

[drstewart]

Sticking the word material in front of things doesn't make them true. Full stop.

[rland]

Okay.

People are doing worse than in the past. They have less secure jobs, less wealth, less opportunity, more debt, and worse health than they used to have. They are less upwardly mobile, their incomes increase less, and their incomes are lower than they used to be. More people are imprisoned, houseless, etc. than they used to be. People are dying more often of preventable causes and they are overdosing and killing themselves more often. You can look up the statistics and charts on each of these claims; aside from minor quibbling and in some sub-sets (computer programmers being an example of such!) these things are true across the board.

These are things with political solutions that are entirely ignored. As opposed to "womxn are disrespected" type things that are discussed in their place. I wanted to emphasize "material" so that I could emphasize that these things are not culture things.