Comment by solardev | Hacker News Reader

Comment by solardev | Hacker News Reader

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> how many of those problems are the result of an apathetic, nihilistic American population and not the foundational systems America is built on?

"Apathetic" is not really a word I'd use to describe most Americans I know, especially the working class. "Informed but powerless" is more like it. Nihilism is the likely result of this sort of learned helplessness from a lifetime growing up in an unresponsive democracy. From the get-go, our foundational systems emphasized wealth over democracy. It was a system designed to empower a certain type and class of people, to liberate them from the English Crown's influence, but not really a democracy for all. Through our history, we've consistently encouraged wealth creation and resource exploitation/monopolization over democratic participation, and where democratic advances were made, they happened against strong headwinds and strong oppression from the wealthy. Slave owners, robber barons, industrialists, tech owners... this has never been a society friendly to the common person.

Prioritizing wealth creation is probably beneficial to most people. As Adam Smith observed:

"It deserves to be remarked, perhaps, that it is in the progressive state, while the society is advancing to the further acquisition, rather than when it has acquired its full complement of riches, that the condition of the labouring poor, of the great body of the people, seems to be the happiest and the most comfortable. It is hard in the stationary, and miserable in the declining state. The progressive state is, in reality, the cheerful and the hearty state to all the different orders of the society; the stationary is dull; the declining melancholy."

Not that it should come at the expense of exploitation, and Smith would likely agree. He was critical of rent seekers and slavery and was very much interested in the well being of common people.

His observation, I believe, it also applicable at a smaller scale when looking at companies. Growing companies are great to work for with lots of excitement, perks, and new opportunities, even for average or mediocre employees. Stagnant companies are difficult and melancholy, not much advancement, raises are small or non existent. Declining ones are miserable as everyone is fighting for survival.

When I talk about apathy, I look around and I see people who care more about Kim Kardashian than history, politics, or financial literacy. I look around and see people who care more about their fantasy football stats than their children's grades. I see people who would rather veg on the couch watching the same reruns over and over again instead of learning a new skill. I see ignorant ideas like America oppresses its people when in fact it's the American people who've forgotten that America enables them to be their best selves if they're strong enough to achieve it.

America was not founded for the common people. It was founded by the exceptional people who risked everything to come to this hostile continent in search of freedom from oppression. Freedom from serfdom. Freedom from debt. Freedom from religious persecution. Freedom to live how they wanted to!

America's population has forgotten its morals and what it means to be American. We are like the fat people in wall-e floating in our bubble, complaining at our minor inconveniences, and not knowing where we're going. We are fucked unless we turn this ship around.

I couldn't agree more on all the above. Bread and circus. At some point this will bring hard times.

> this has never been a society friendly to the common person.

Nope, and in fact the American Dream is exactly this - it's saying that if you work hard / are lucky / have talents / have connections / have resources (the more you have the higher chances you have), you too can rise above the common person and join the ruling class of

> Slave owners, robber barons, industrialists, tech owners

Of course this is out of reach for most people, and for the vast majority of people, as soon as they climb out of the common class, they immediately look down upon the common people, since they are now above the peasants. This is human nature. Everyone who complains about the rich will do the same thing as the rich as soon as they become rich

It can take generations of working hard to break out. It took five generations for my family to break out of deep poverty into the upper middle class.

Note that I also listed

> are lucky / have talents / have connections / have resources

The more of these you have, the higher your odds of success. Just hard work on its own, like you see, is not necessarily enough

"I am a great believer in luck, and I find that the harder I work the more luck I have."

— Thomas Jefferson

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