It's fascinating to me that some commenters react to this essay saying it's "profoundly insightful" when my first reaction was it's very vague and fully of major inconsistencies.

Here is just one example: he opens his argument calling Western societies a "systemic train wreck" and yet concludes toward the end: "As a society, we are so much richer, so much luckier, than we have ever been"

Which is it? Are we a trainwreck or are we rich & lucky?