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Comment by ThorsBane | Hacker News Reader

This is because people are internalizing too much negative clickbait and letting it become their worldview.

American optimism is a trademark feature of being American and being in America. We must retain and encourage relentless optimism in American innovation and American capabilities and the American spirit. It is this spirit that emboldens NATO and all nations and peoples loving free exchange, free education, free upwards momentum for the motivated, and freedom for the brave and the bold.

And we try to lift up all boats as the tide rises higher for us, and we demonstrate this over a very long track record now. Don't fall victim to authoritarian bullshit or fear mongering or gas lighting or astro turfing or internet psyops from abroad.

The United States is poised for significant continued growth and innovation.

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This is something you could say in 1980. In 2023, it's jingoistic ignorance given the past forty years. See https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-... -- the middle class is essential for a prosperous and healthy society and it is being hollowed out completely.

It is possible we will turn away from the dark path. But I don't see how. Dem politicians don't want to use their power. GOP politicians only want to use power to further enrich the already obscenely wealthy and allow every other segment of society to be forced into religious cults. COVID has made us all stupider and less healthy.

Things are more complex on the GOP side than your summary indicates. The gulf between the legacy GOP (think Mitch McConnell) and the MAGA wing is substantial and growing, and there are stark class and racial differences. According to a recent CNN poll:

"Trump’s base is made up of Republicans whose households pull in less than $50,000 a year. He led this group of voters by 22 points over DeSantis in our CNN poll. He trailed DeSantis by 13 points among those GOP voters making at least $50,000 a year. This is a 35 point swing between these two income brackets."

Note, too, Trump's clear lead among GOP voters of color.

"Trump was up an average of 55% to 26% over DeSantis among Republican (and Republican leaning independent) voters of color in an average of the two polls."

The anti-Trump press has generally not come to terms with his followers more likely to be working class and persons of color.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/19/politics/trump-voters-of-colo...

"keep smiling as the boot continues to crush your face and breaking your jaw"

Optimism is a trademark feature of a population untouched by traumas of war or famine (how many wars were fought on American soil? Would you say American military veterans are an optimistic bunch?).

Otherwise it's an individually variable characteristic.

Yes I would say most American veterans are optimistic, and budgets should be, will be, and are being increased to take care of them and to elevate their status even more. Especially in these trying times.

There is no boot crushing this face or jaw. Everyone is working together to win together across the entire United States. It is cheap online astro turfing and gas lighting and psy ops bullshit that would suggest otherwise. The data shows that the long-term view of the American narrative is intact and stronger than ever.

It is individually variable because we are talking about hundreds of millions of individuals. But it is universally applicable, across the United States, because it's built into the basic charter of the country (the Constitution) and has also been taught to the children for decades still. We may be experiencing a slight negative blip in the road by confronting a lot of negativity and toxicity and psy ops online for now, but the reliable data and the verifiable real-world experience across the United States on this front resolutely demonstrate that American Optimism is truly a value that continues to exist and fuel the next batch of massive innovation in products and services boosting everyone including the lowest classes.

Each generation has less share of the overall wealth than the previous generation. When does the hopeful idealism convert into positive material change?

History books are quite clear about this. When all other options are exhausted, violence has a way of presenting new ones.

Violence is almost never a rational choice because it is the last choice. It is a final choice. There are thousands of possible branches still remaining to individuals even if GPTs were to accelerate to GPT-5 and beyond within some months from now.

Even if the majority of work as we know it now becomes automated, that will unlock a universal basic income that elevates all people to the status of being a diligent researcher, scientist, engineer, or college student in training towards one of these directions as everyone gets massively boosted because of ChatGPT and other tools and friends like that coming online. The end result of this boosting is a generous universal basic income that makes ancient the concept of needing to work for a "living."

Instead people will work to continue the next wave of innovation in products and services across all industries, and in commodity extraction and acquisition even from celestial bodies. Mining operations are already being spun up. 3d printed rockets are being tested in flight.

What this means is that momentarily human beings will have entirely new classes of work opportunity that are more badass and interesting than anything before it.

Expect astronaut openings by the millons.

The share fluctuates over time as systems evolve and change. The share is not the most relevant piece because shares are tied up in slow-moving ownership structures that may be complex to liquidate if you want spending power.

The real value that matters here is how far individual wealth goes. For example, what is the average square foot dwelling area that an American has access to now versus what was considered reasonable and find in their parental generation or grandparental generation or even further back just 100 years ago?

Answer: People now have much higher standards of a basic standard of living even if the shares or if the currency amounts and ratios may differ. This is the true North Star in assessing whether or not wealth is meaningfully being distributed and allocated.

Diligent and disciplined individuals are able to channel hope and idealistic energy into massive positive material changes in the United States.

"Spirit" is downstream of economics.

It is upstream - the economics take place within the broader context of Pax Americana and American thinking.

says the rich guy

My parents worked on collectivized farms in the Soviet Union and started with 0. They worked for rations. My grandma didn't even finish 4th grade and my parents didn't get to go to high school. I started with 0 too.

but... are you rich?

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