@sardius

oh because since the 80s we’ve over optimized in the US to make 10 people richer than God with the implicit assumption it would trickle down for the rest of us part of that bargain includes not making the many aware that the few profit to an exponential degree compared to their effort, ala the culture wars that make it nearly impossible (at this time) for us to coordinate in an effective way couple that with the immense propaganda Americans receive from “right” and “left” (this includes our shows, fiction and news as well), we’ve achieved cultural stagnation and are desperate to “go back” to a time when things worked, but in reality there’s no going back the only way is forward, and that implies some pretty drastic reimagining of our current system, nearly all of which involve wealthy interests ceding some power (because they’ve refused any and all attempts to cede power to this point, very similar to Ancient Rome and how the senators reacted to the Gracchi brothers, also the Ming dynasty in its late stages) the controllers of power and propaganda know this, so it keeps getting sold we need to keep doubling down on the “American Dream,” which has long since dissipated we all want to believe this, but deep down we all know the truth, and hence a pervading attitude of cynicism and ennui prevails, because there’s no putting new wine into old wineskins. Typically at this late stage, society transforms itself a big conflagration of war that levels everything anyway, (see John Glubb and the life cycle of empires). US is approaching our 250th this year, the median year that this happens to late stage empires tldr: system over optimized for .01% of 1% value accrual has eventually broken, and those interests message us to just go back to the way things were. There’s no going back, so cynicism prevails. Only transformation will work, and that involves a more or less drastic reimagining our current American society

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