Comment by elric | Hacker News Reader

Comment by elric | Hacker News Reader

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The final paragraphs were the more interesting ones IMO. Especially the closing sentence:

> The tragedy isn’t that China is winning, it’s that the West stopped imagining better futures.

This one hits close to home. I saw an improvement in quality of life between the 90s and maybe 2005, but not so much since then. Not to say that there hasn't been progress, I mean tablets and pervasive internet & smartphone usage was unthinkable back then. But my life isn't any better for them. Cities feel worse, more congested, less money for public transport, more littering. Nature is disappearing all around me. Energy is WAY more expensive. Food quality is worse. Pollution seems worse. Hell, people seem worse, somehow?

Maybe this is all the disenchantment of middle age (or slumbering depression). But I haven't seen any political projects that fill me with joy in a very long time. Only dread. From shitty "free" trade agreements to Chat Control. Pouring more concrete and reducing train services. Endless austerity because we can no longer afford healthcare and/or pensions.

Yet at the same time, economic growth has mostly kept going, but it isn't translating to improved quality of life for Average Joe.

It's interesting you say energy has been getting more expensive. I was just thinking the other day how crazy it is that i've been paying about ~$3 a gallon since 07-08. It's remarkable actually.

This is a US only phenomenon owed to the petrodollar and the countless wars, coups and atrocities the US has carried out for oil.

2010 is the year I personally go with. I could be too young to realize it actually started in 2005.

Either way, "no longer trying" is how I would describe the US leadership over the last 2 (or more!) decades.

It was the point where people stopped listening to people who know what they are talking about, and instead to other idiots on social media, and "news" that was given a strong slant to appeal to a particular audience.

Democracy can't work when people don't have a functioning 4th estate.

"My ignorance and stupidity is just as good as your logic and facts!"

Maybe it's not a coincidence that public services got worse when everything moved online.

In the process lots of things have been captured by private companies that consolidated and got richer and more powerful than many countries.

Now we have a bunch of rent seekers who don't support our local economies, but pour profits through Bermuda-Luxembourg money funnels into their Scrooge McDuck vaults.

> Yet at the same time, economic growth has mostly kept going, but it isn't translating to improved quality of life for Average Joe.

Yes ... money has diminishing returns on happiness. Americans often have a really hard time understanding and accepting this.

Ask your favorite frontier LLM what Americans should be doing to improve their quality of life, based on what we know works in other rich countries.

Not an American and am not in the US, so I have no idea what your snarky comment was meant to accomplish.

“Average Joe” is an American phrase. I’m so sick of hearing people moan about problems without any effort at all to find proven solutions. You’re part of the problem.

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