[seibelj]

It’s one thing to be raised in such a way that you have no knowledge or example of how to live a productive, healthy life.

It’s another to actively reject traditional structures like hard work and family. There is a sizable cohort of online-types that actually thinks society would be better if the government ran everything, work was outlawed, rich people went to jail, and all manner of extremely insane ideas that they blame their own problems on. They actually think the world is ending because of global warming, democracy is under attack, and doom scroll every day reading horrible nonsense that will never happen.

I would argue the human condition is to think everything is failing and the apocalypse is coming at any moment. This a frequent phenomenon throughout history and every generation has this narrative. However instead of religion now it’s environmental destruction but I see that as another type of religion.

Narcissism is rampant throughout society and no one wants to feel any pain or have to struggle whatsoever for success. We live in the greatest time that ever existed and some people are more miserable than ever.

I choose to be happy and appreciate what life offers rather than despair at things I can’t control and ultimately don’t matter.

[archhn]

It's the best of times and the worst of times. Some are taking joyrides to space. Others are struggling to keep a roof over their heads. The inequality is real and tremendous. You may blame people for their lack of work ethic, etc, but there are many reasons for nihilism among the lower classes. Especially the industrial proletariat who has seen industry shipped overseas and suffered a dramatic decline in their quality of life. Many places that were once bustling with hard working Americans now look like warzones, or even worse: post-apocalyptic wastelands, replete with drugged out zombies. Generations of hard working Americans had the rug pulled out from underneath them. The myth of hard work = success and good life have been empirically proven to be false by their own experience. The same may be said of the American farmer who has been slowly strangled to death by big agriculture. Some of the hardest working people in this country have ended up with less than nothing--drowning in debt because larger economic forces sought to crush them.

I understand that from your position, things are great. But not everyone is living under the same material conditions as you. Desperate people, who feel crushed by the system, call for extreme measures--like complete government control a la communism.

Ultimately, you have a vested interest in maintaining your worldview because it secures your serenity. Unfortunately, this unwillingness to address the grievances of others and to ignore the material reality that proves that this is not the best of times for many people, will set you up to be blindsided by the furious subterranean forces building up under the guilded surface of this country.

[seibelj]

Things were way, way worse in the past. The US fought a civil war. The cities were systematically looted and burned in the 1960s and all manner of figures were assassinated. It is far, far from that today.

It is far easier today than ever to get material support with food stamps, section 8 housing, the EITC, food banks, and things are so good that we literally can’t stop the poor masses from illegally crossing our borders in order to live here.

There is a fever dream in the woke / intellectual left in America that some long struggling proletariat will rebel. This is against the ethos and culture of America as a bootstraps, capitalistic nation that even the leaders of the Democratic Party have to bluntly reject socialism (see Nancy Pelosi’s shouting at the question).

My wife is Vietnamese and her parents were boat people. The entire extended family despises democrats and specifically faults their hatred of meritocratic education as a sticking point. The left has no idea what minorities really think because the party is run primarily by rich white people who exist in an echo chamber.

America is the land of opportunity. It will continue to be so provided we do everything we can to stop the deranged, intolerant, anti-business left from ruining what makes our country the best in the world.

[archhn]

Even if that's the case, corrupt politicians and institutions will use the disgruntled proletariat to gain power.

Also, many corporations are pushing for central government too. Walmart now is a private company. In the future it may be "The Glorious Walmart of the New People's American Union." In other words, large corporations have the potential of becoming a part of the government and retaining their status...plus the untouchability of being an arm of the government. I would say we've been set up for this.

So what may happen is this. Large institutions may use the proletariat to overthrow the middle class and institute oligarchic collectivism, like 1984. It happened in China, and clearly the elites have no qualms about their system--given our utter economic interconnectedness with them.