12 ms·

As an American it's not surprising at all. Six figures of student loan debt, job insecurity, healthcare insecurity, rampant poverty / homelessness, the most des

As an American it's not surprising at all. Six figures of student loan debt, job insecurity, healthcare insecurity, rampant poverty / homelessness, the most despicable president to disgrace the white house (who didn't even win the popular vote), stay-at-home orders because the U.S. couldn't manage the crisis, lack of community (doesn't help that 99% of the country is sprawl), rampant obesity, and general lack of hope. The U.S. is more and more resembling a failed state, a mere shadow of what it used to be.

3pt14159 6y ago
Don't forget the internet and the constant FOMO and comparisons to people at their best points in life, or the fact that the social dynamics of dating have gotten crazy. Attractive, fit, intelligent men get a completely outsized proportion of the interest on apps like Bumble and Tinder, while even median men are mostly ignored. America is in the worst shape in the West, but these trends are getting worse here in Canada and elsewhere too.
- rwc 6y ago
  uh “Attractive, fit, intelligent” seems like a winning combination regardless of the era.
  - huonpine 6y ago
    Yes, but Attractive, fit and intelligent are different in every era.
- sdwa 6y ago
  I agree about the toxicity of social media, it's why I don't have an Instagram and, well, Facebook is dead among my generation anyway so it's not an issue. >Attractive, fit, intelligent men get a completely outsized proportion of the interest on apps like Bumble and Tinder, while even median men are mostly ignored. Is this a real problem though? I've heard about how women rate most men as below average, yada yada, but monogamy is still dominant, it's not like these hot men are building harems---on aggregate the vast majority will end up with a life partner, just as always. Am I missing something?
  - sometw 6y ago
    You're missing a few pieces that contribute to the decay of society: - No they don't build harems, but they are more likely to wait before settling down with a long term partner. Also, perhaps it's the circles I've run in, but monogomy is far less dominant than it was in the past, and serial dating is far more common, especially when you start looking at some folks interpretations of 'empowerment'. I'm using airquotes here because I'm thinking of someone who would literally always be 'getting over' her last relationship with her current one, but would be checking OKCupid and POF because they were starting to have doubts about the current one. There's a question of how much psychological damage online dating scene does to how one deals with interpersonal relationships. Most of the 'serial' daters I know get more and more bitter with every failed date, and post more and more vitrol on social media about the opposite gender. There's also the issue that Dating profiles really often remove so much of the important part of a relationship; getting to know someone, which is a good test of communication.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - jiggunjer 6y ago
      Serial dating? Parallel dating is in nowadays!
    - tjs8rj 6y ago
      Definitely agree with this. I have a roommate that serial dates and she's gradually gone from "im getting over my breakup" after dating a man for 3 years to "ug can we just get rid of men" and telling my girlfriend to dump me when I'm standing in the room. She's gotten very bitter, and self-destructive to her original intention (finding a soulmate) breaking things off with new guys when they don't pick her up random things or run odd errands. While this is just one example of the few I've seen, and of course this is just my experience, but I would hypothesize that serial dating combined with a culture of "empowerment" + unlimited options is detrimental.
- all2 6y ago
  > Attractive, fit, intelligent men By and large these are results of choices people make, not accidents. A guy with visible abs didn't just wake up one day and have abs. He put in the work. Same goes for attractive or intelligent. Taking time to find clothes that fit, discovering a flattering hair style, and generally not being a slob can put an average man into the "attractive" group. By intelligent, I mean "witty" or a good conversationalist. Wit/conversation are learned skills. Yeah, some people are better at it than others, but you can still learn. Don't feel trapped on the outside. You can be excellent if you so choose.
  - seph-reed 6y ago
    Read these books: 1. How to win friends and influence people 2. The Art of Seduction 3. She Comes First: The Thinking Man's Guide to Pleasuring a Woman They all seem like terrible/manipulative books, but read them anyways. Glean what fits your ethics. In terms of online dating: work out, buy nice clothes, get 2-3 good photos. Or don't do online dating and go out to the same (mixed gender) place over and over for a while. It's all work. It sucks. Good luck. If the above is too much, beat Dark Souls, then try again.
    - all2 6y ago
      Two books that have been useful to me are "No More Mr. Nice Guy" and "When I Say No I Feel Guilty".
  - 3pt14159 6y ago
    I didn't feel right about putting it in my original comment, since it didn't seem relevant and honestly it feels weird to type this out on HN, but I'm attractive. Before Tinder and Bumble I didn't have trouble dating but now it's crazy. It's effortless to get dates with attractive, successful women. Things didn't used to be this imbalanced and I don't think it is completely fair to say to someone with a less attractive face or to someone that isn't over six feet that they should learn how to dress properly and that will sort things out for them. Yes exercise and proper nutrition go a long way, and I tell multiple people a month about the basics of nutrition[0] or about how to exercise[1] but I don't pretend that this will fix everything. I think it is important that lucky people are honest about the current situation. [0] Way more fibre, no refined sugar, more protein, no transfats. [1] Bike to get around and http://reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness http://reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness
- Ididntdothis 6y ago
  “Attractive, fit, intelligent men get a completely outsized proportion of the interest on apps like Bumble and Tinder, while even median men are mostly ignored.“ Is that even true? I am not very pretty (but fit and some level of intelligence ) . When I did online dating I had no problems connecting to women around my age and with similar attributes. Most guys who were complaining wanted a supermodel half their age. And they were surprised that they only attracted crazy people that way.
  - troughway 6y ago
    Yes, OkCupid did a study awhile back which they unfortunately took down. You can still find archived versions of it.
    - gxon 6y ago
      Is this the one? https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/yourlooksandyourinbox.html https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/yourlooksandyo...
      - troughway 6y ago
        That's the one.
- aianus 6y ago
  > Attractive, fit, intelligent men get a completely outsized proportion of the interest on apps like Bumble and Tinder, while even median men are mostly ignored. I exported my data from Tinder and I've had to swipe 25,000 times per successful long-term relationship. That's a pretty terrible ratio but it only works out to ~10 hours of swiping and another ~10 hours of dating per successful relationship that lasts months or years (or maybe forever!) As a result I've only been single for a small minority of my adult life.
- ping_pong 6y ago
  This sounds like the philosophy that drives the incel groups. If you were to ask women they would say the exact same thing as well. And internet dating is very heavily driven towards superficial things, whereas if you meet someone IRL you might be able to find things to connect on.
  - troughway 6y ago
    >And internet dating is very heavily driven towards superficial things No, internet dating is no different than real life, it just mirrors the nature of things and is very harsh. Some people might find things that certain people want superficial, but that's ascribing morality to a very biological and carnal need.
    - naasking 6y ago
      > No, internet dating is no different than real life, it just mirrors the nature of things and is very harsh. It's a little different. People are typically more polite in person. Their behaviour online reflects what they would do if there were no consequences.
      - prawn 6y ago
        Also, I think if presented with a list of interests online, you'd be more inclined to rule people in or out of contention. Whereas, if you met in person, you might notice chemistry before you realised you liked different movies and music, for example.
  - umanwizard 6y ago
    It’s a logical fallacy to imply that someone’s argument sounding similar to the ideology of people you don’t like has any bearing on whether it’s valid or not.
- triceratops 6y ago
  Don't date online? It's not surprising that an image-based communication medium will favor physically attractive people. You don't have to play that game if you would actually make a good partner.
- hackerNoose 6y ago
  This effect is called hypergamy and it's always been around. Tinder and the likes just exaggerate it. It's sort of like increasing wealth inequality but for men's dating. There's been genetic studies which show that most women that have lived procreated, while during some periods most men did not. Upside is that if you belong to the top 5% of attractive men this is the best time to be alive :)
brighton36 6y ago
this guy has it figured out: https://youtu.be/FM5HkpyXxsQ https://youtu.be/FM5HkpyXxsQ . We need to throw a party. It's time to celebrate. Emancipation is in sight.
fred_is_fred 6y ago
I would take sprawl over being trapped in an apartment for 2 months.
- JSavageOne 6y ago
  True but it's not either/or. In Korea everyone lives in apartments, and they never had a lockdown. Live has practically been carrying on as usual throughout the whole pandemic, minus the closing of schools, libraries (checkout only), and churches for a brief period of time.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
- ryanwaggoner 6y ago
  What a perfect encapsulation of the individualism that drives the special American breed of blame-the-victim mentality. It allows society to erode the well-being of huge swaths of the population while simultaneously making them feel ashamed of their inability to triumph over the ruthless machine grinding them into the dirt. Yes, we need personal responsibility, but maybe we could also stop making it harder for people to eke out a decent living. Maybe then we could rightfully claim the title of "the land of opportunity". As of now, we rank lower than dozens of other industrialized countries in terms of social mobility and economic equality.
  - thelean12 6y ago
    While the person you're responding to has a horrible tone, I've sort of grown to agree with the general sentiment. Most of the problems I've seen people face can be solved on their own, or could have been prevented on their own. Pandemic made you lose your job? Absolutely not your fault. Massive injury or illness wipe out your savings and leave you in debt? Absolutely not your fault. These are things we can and should be improving. But it's really hard for me to feel bad about people who end up with a massive amount of school loans. There are plenty of state school options available. Work moderately hard in high school and you'll get a massive discount on college, too. Would it be great if it were free? Absolutely. But it isn't. And that shouldn't be an excuse for ending up with a massive loan afterwards. Job sucks? So many people I meet aren't even trying to apply to new jobs. It was like pulling teeth trying to get my sister to apply to just a few jobs a week (when I applied to a dozen a day when I was starting out).
    - guevara 6y ago
      Glad we can see eye to eye. Student loans definitely get my noggin' joggin'. I mean, if you're end goal is to go to a state school, why not go to community college and then transfer there? Even then, some people go to shitty schools like William Patterson or NJCU, and take out massive loans. I know people from high school to took out $18K+ in loans to go to NJCU (for context, these are garbage F-tier schools in NJ). Then there's the whole major debacle. I mean, if you got the cash to study Creative Writing, by all means go for it. But, if you're a first-generation kid who's broke as fuck with no scholarships, you really don't have a lot of options if you're still set on going to college. Regardless, I do not apologize for being an asshole. Goodbye internet points :'(
cwperkins 6y ago
I can't say I share the same feelings as you, but it certainly would be great to see young Americans be more excited about the future and I think some big investment in infrastructure could be a way to make that happen. There are many people worse off in other Countries that are happy because they are seeing vast improvements year over year and their own value goes up proportionately to how much effort gets put in. We have low interest rates so I'd love to see shovel ready projects like the Gateway tunnels in NYC get off the ground. I'd love to see emerging industries in America get bigger like Robotics, new Energy Ventures, anything related to Space and Advanced Manufacturing. Anecdotally, the largest problem I think we have is that there are vast amounts of people who feel like victims and just about everyone feels like they are under attack or have been violated. I want to create value with my life and hope that I can provide opportunity for others in the process. There are many culture wars things that are debated on social media that I see disingenuous actors from many angles that I need to drown out so I can focus on other things.
- derg 6y ago
  What future? What is there to be excited about? Can't actually spend money at the federal and state level aside from tax cuts and the military without being met with resistance and a subset of politicians and economists screaming bloody murder about super dooper hyper inflation that's totally going to happen any day now we promise (but don't worry about the last 40 years of us saying it, this time we're sure we're correct). We have low interest rates now. We had low interest rates in 08 through the early 10's too but the ~i n f l a t i o n~ boogyman and super serious debt hawks said we couldn't do it, all while passing tax cuts and giving the military essentially unlimited money, while continuing to erode our rights. American infrastructure is beyond saving and will require new deal levels of spending to even get it to a shape resembling the amount of wealth this country has, and we are never going to do it because we live in an oligarchic state and the billionaires are fine, so why do we need to do anything more?
  - foob4r 6y ago
    False optimism about the future from older generations is nothing new - been happening for years now
idoby 6y ago
As a non-American, why do you care about who is in the white house so much? How does it affect your life concretely? Try watching less talking heads/browsing Twitter less, maybe, and you'll feel better?
- mjayhn 6y ago
  A lot of people didn't think the guy in the white house could matter that much until Trump. As a non-American a lot of Americans would likely be envious of your lifestyle right now. The 30 million currently unemployed for sure, the people who also can't get to a hospital if they need surgery or healthcare because they're closed because of our botched (guy in wh) response care as well. The essential workers with no healthcare who are making an extra $2/hour to possibly die. This isn't a vaccuum in America. A lot of us have friends, family and coworkers affected by this. Even if I ignore the president or the news I'm still trapped inside my house for the most part. If I leave my house it's an experience figuring out whether something is open or not, what their rules are, etc. I mean I can go sit in my backyard and ignore the world but I still need to function day to day and right now I can't do half of my chores, errands, etc. So it's something definitely affecting my day to day. And I'm on the lucky end, I can wfh and sit here and respond to you. I can't imagine having to go to work at some gas station to pay rent right now. The guy in the white house isn't doing anything to calm anyones nerves or concerns. He's exacerbating them greatly. He has the largest microphone in the country, it's hard to ignore him or his affect on peoples mental health. Everywhere we look is a reminder of our failure of a government. It's on everyones mouths. Now imagine going to work and fixing bobscars.com database while this stuff is in your face everyday.
  - idoby 6y ago
    I'm sorry you feel this way, but it kind of feels to me like you're linking everything back to a political landscape that you don't like, but which doesn't have a lot to do with the current state of things. I'm not too happy with the govt in my country either, but I realize 90% of my situation would have been the same under most possible govts.
    - 6y ago
tjs8rj 6y ago
All of these are extreme and very myopic takes. 6 figures of student loan debt? That's < 5% of all borrowers (and many of those are post-grad education), 92% of Americans have healthcare and a fraction of the already small number of bankruptcies are related to medical debt, poverty rate has been relatively steady since the 60s. Sure a lot of people hate Trump (I think if the media stopped talking about him, and he stopped tweeting that'd help a lot of anxiety - it's more media spin than his actual policy that seems to anger people), the US ranks better than most countries in Western Europe in terms of death rate per 1000, lack of community I'd agree with. My point is: if you shut off some of the news and social media, your perspective would likely drastically improve. Things aren't actually that terrible if you tune out all the alarmists.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
UncleOxidant 6y ago
> lack of community To a large extent we already had that in most of America. Suburbia is a very lonely place. See the book Bowling Alone.
- ikeyany 6y ago
  Our cities and rural areas aren't exactly in a great state either. I would imagine the average resident of a dense city does not know the names of all of their next door neighbors.
AtlasBarfed 6y ago
You forgot the scourge of anxiety and inferiority spawning social networks.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

3pt14159 6y ago

Don't forget the internet and the constant FOMO and comparisons to people at their best points in life, or the fact that the social dynamics of dating have gotten crazy. Attractive, fit, intelligent men get a completely outsized proportion of the interest on apps like Bumble and Tinder, while even median men are mostly ignored. America is in the worst shape in the West, but these trends are getting worse here in Canada and elsewhere too.

rwc 6y ago
uh “Attractive, fit, intelligent” seems like a winning combination regardless of the era.
- huonpine 6y ago
  Yes, but Attractive, fit and intelligent are different in every era.
sdwa 6y ago
I agree about the toxicity of social media, it's why I don't have an Instagram and, well, Facebook is dead among my generation anyway so it's not an issue. >Attractive, fit, intelligent men get a completely outsized proportion of the interest on apps like Bumble and Tinder, while even median men are mostly ignored. Is this a real problem though? I've heard about how women rate most men as below average, yada yada, but monogamy is still dominant, it's not like these hot men are building harems---on aggregate the vast majority will end up with a life partner, just as always. Am I missing something?
- sometw 6y ago
  You're missing a few pieces that contribute to the decay of society: - No they don't build harems, but they are more likely to wait before settling down with a long term partner. Also, perhaps it's the circles I've run in, but monogomy is far less dominant than it was in the past, and serial dating is far more common, especially when you start looking at some folks interpretations of 'empowerment'. I'm using airquotes here because I'm thinking of someone who would literally always be 'getting over' her last relationship with her current one, but would be checking OKCupid and POF because they were starting to have doubts about the current one. There's a question of how much psychological damage online dating scene does to how one deals with interpersonal relationships. Most of the 'serial' daters I know get more and more bitter with every failed date, and post more and more vitrol on social media about the opposite gender. There's also the issue that Dating profiles really often remove so much of the important part of a relationship; getting to know someone, which is a good test of communication.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - jiggunjer 6y ago
    Serial dating? Parallel dating is in nowadays!
  - tjs8rj 6y ago
    Definitely agree with this. I have a roommate that serial dates and she's gradually gone from "im getting over my breakup" after dating a man for 3 years to "ug can we just get rid of men" and telling my girlfriend to dump me when I'm standing in the room. She's gotten very bitter, and self-destructive to her original intention (finding a soulmate) breaking things off with new guys when they don't pick her up random things or run odd errands. While this is just one example of the few I've seen, and of course this is just my experience, but I would hypothesize that serial dating combined with a culture of "empowerment" + unlimited options is detrimental.
all2 6y ago
> Attractive, fit, intelligent men By and large these are results of choices people make, not accidents. A guy with visible abs didn't just wake up one day and have abs. He put in the work. Same goes for attractive or intelligent. Taking time to find clothes that fit, discovering a flattering hair style, and generally not being a slob can put an average man into the "attractive" group. By intelligent, I mean "witty" or a good conversationalist. Wit/conversation are learned skills. Yeah, some people are better at it than others, but you can still learn. Don't feel trapped on the outside. You can be excellent if you so choose.
- seph-reed 6y ago
  Read these books: 1. How to win friends and influence people 2. The Art of Seduction 3. She Comes First: The Thinking Man's Guide to Pleasuring a Woman They all seem like terrible/manipulative books, but read them anyways. Glean what fits your ethics. In terms of online dating: work out, buy nice clothes, get 2-3 good photos. Or don't do online dating and go out to the same (mixed gender) place over and over for a while. It's all work. It sucks. Good luck. If the above is too much, beat Dark Souls, then try again.
  - all2 6y ago
    Two books that have been useful to me are "No More Mr. Nice Guy" and "When I Say No I Feel Guilty".
- 3pt14159 6y ago
  I didn't feel right about putting it in my original comment, since it didn't seem relevant and honestly it feels weird to type this out on HN, but I'm attractive. Before Tinder and Bumble I didn't have trouble dating but now it's crazy. It's effortless to get dates with attractive, successful women. Things didn't used to be this imbalanced and I don't think it is completely fair to say to someone with a less attractive face or to someone that isn't over six feet that they should learn how to dress properly and that will sort things out for them. Yes exercise and proper nutrition go a long way, and I tell multiple people a month about the basics of nutrition[0] or about how to exercise[1] but I don't pretend that this will fix everything. I think it is important that lucky people are honest about the current situation. [0] Way more fibre, no refined sugar, more protein, no transfats. [1] Bike to get around and http://reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness http://reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness
Ididntdothis 6y ago
“Attractive, fit, intelligent men get a completely outsized proportion of the interest on apps like Bumble and Tinder, while even median men are mostly ignored.“ Is that even true? I am not very pretty (but fit and some level of intelligence ) . When I did online dating I had no problems connecting to women around my age and with similar attributes. Most guys who were complaining wanted a supermodel half their age. And they were surprised that they only attracted crazy people that way.
- troughway 6y ago
  Yes, OkCupid did a study awhile back which they unfortunately took down. You can still find archived versions of it.
  - gxon 6y ago
    Is this the one? https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/yourlooksandyourinbox.html https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/yourlooksandyo...
    - troughway 6y ago
      That's the one.
aianus 6y ago
> Attractive, fit, intelligent men get a completely outsized proportion of the interest on apps like Bumble and Tinder, while even median men are mostly ignored. I exported my data from Tinder and I've had to swipe 25,000 times per successful long-term relationship. That's a pretty terrible ratio but it only works out to ~10 hours of swiping and another ~10 hours of dating per successful relationship that lasts months or years (or maybe forever!) As a result I've only been single for a small minority of my adult life.
ping_pong 6y ago
This sounds like the philosophy that drives the incel groups. If you were to ask women they would say the exact same thing as well. And internet dating is very heavily driven towards superficial things, whereas if you meet someone IRL you might be able to find things to connect on.
- troughway 6y ago
  >And internet dating is very heavily driven towards superficial things No, internet dating is no different than real life, it just mirrors the nature of things and is very harsh. Some people might find things that certain people want superficial, but that's ascribing morality to a very biological and carnal need.
  - naasking 6y ago
    > No, internet dating is no different than real life, it just mirrors the nature of things and is very harsh. It's a little different. People are typically more polite in person. Their behaviour online reflects what they would do if there were no consequences.
    - prawn 6y ago
      Also, I think if presented with a list of interests online, you'd be more inclined to rule people in or out of contention. Whereas, if you met in person, you might notice chemistry before you realised you liked different movies and music, for example.
- umanwizard 6y ago
  It’s a logical fallacy to imply that someone’s argument sounding similar to the ideology of people you don’t like has any bearing on whether it’s valid or not.
triceratops 6y ago
Don't date online? It's not surprising that an image-based communication medium will favor physically attractive people. You don't have to play that game if you would actually make a good partner.
hackerNoose 6y ago
This effect is called hypergamy and it's always been around. Tinder and the likes just exaggerate it. It's sort of like increasing wealth inequality but for men's dating. There's been genetic studies which show that most women that have lived procreated, while during some periods most men did not. Upside is that if you belong to the top 5% of attractive men this is the best time to be alive :)

brighton36 6y ago

this guy has it figured out: https://youtu.be/FM5HkpyXxsQ https://youtu.be/FM5HkpyXxsQ . We need to throw a party. It's time to celebrate. Emancipation is in sight.

fred_is_fred 6y ago

I would take sprawl over being trapped in an apartment for 2 months.

JSavageOne 6y ago
True but it's not either/or. In Korea everyone lives in apartments, and they never had a lockdown. Live has practically been carrying on as usual throughout the whole pandemic, minus the closing of schools, libraries (checkout only), and churches for a brief period of time.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ryanwaggoner 6y ago
What a perfect encapsulation of the individualism that drives the special American breed of blame-the-victim mentality. It allows society to erode the well-being of huge swaths of the population while simultaneously making them feel ashamed of their inability to triumph over the ruthless machine grinding them into the dirt. Yes, we need personal responsibility, but maybe we could also stop making it harder for people to eke out a decent living. Maybe then we could rightfully claim the title of "the land of opportunity". As of now, we rank lower than dozens of other industrialized countries in terms of social mobility and economic equality.
- thelean12 6y ago
  While the person you're responding to has a horrible tone, I've sort of grown to agree with the general sentiment. Most of the problems I've seen people face can be solved on their own, or could have been prevented on their own. Pandemic made you lose your job? Absolutely not your fault. Massive injury or illness wipe out your savings and leave you in debt? Absolutely not your fault. These are things we can and should be improving. But it's really hard for me to feel bad about people who end up with a massive amount of school loans. There are plenty of state school options available. Work moderately hard in high school and you'll get a massive discount on college, too. Would it be great if it were free? Absolutely. But it isn't. And that shouldn't be an excuse for ending up with a massive loan afterwards. Job sucks? So many people I meet aren't even trying to apply to new jobs. It was like pulling teeth trying to get my sister to apply to just a few jobs a week (when I applied to a dozen a day when I was starting out).
  - guevara 6y ago
    Glad we can see eye to eye. Student loans definitely get my noggin' joggin'. I mean, if you're end goal is to go to a state school, why not go to community college and then transfer there? Even then, some people go to shitty schools like William Patterson or NJCU, and take out massive loans. I know people from high school to took out $18K+ in loans to go to NJCU (for context, these are garbage F-tier schools in NJ). Then there's the whole major debacle. I mean, if you got the cash to study Creative Writing, by all means go for it. But, if you're a first-generation kid who's broke as fuck with no scholarships, you really don't have a lot of options if you're still set on going to college. Regardless, I do not apologize for being an asshole. Goodbye internet points :'(

cwperkins 6y ago

I can't say I share the same feelings as you, but it certainly would be great to see young Americans be more excited about the future and I think some big investment in infrastructure could be a way to make that happen. There are many people worse off in other Countries that are happy because they are seeing vast improvements year over year and their own value goes up proportionately to how much effort gets put in. We have low interest rates so I'd love to see shovel ready projects like the Gateway tunnels in NYC get off the ground. I'd love to see emerging industries in America get bigger like Robotics, new Energy Ventures, anything related to Space and Advanced Manufacturing. Anecdotally, the largest problem I think we have is that there are vast amounts of people who feel like victims and just about everyone feels like they are under attack or have been violated. I want to create value with my life and hope that I can provide opportunity for others in the process. There are many culture wars things that are debated on social media that I see disingenuous actors from many angles that I need to drown out so I can focus on other things.

derg 6y ago
What future? What is there to be excited about? Can't actually spend money at the federal and state level aside from tax cuts and the military without being met with resistance and a subset of politicians and economists screaming bloody murder about super dooper hyper inflation that's totally going to happen any day now we promise (but don't worry about the last 40 years of us saying it, this time we're sure we're correct). We have low interest rates now. We had low interest rates in 08 through the early 10's too but the ~i n f l a t i o n~ boogyman and super serious debt hawks said we couldn't do it, all while passing tax cuts and giving the military essentially unlimited money, while continuing to erode our rights. American infrastructure is beyond saving and will require new deal levels of spending to even get it to a shape resembling the amount of wealth this country has, and we are never going to do it because we live in an oligarchic state and the billionaires are fine, so why do we need to do anything more?
- foob4r 6y ago
  False optimism about the future from older generations is nothing new - been happening for years now

idoby 6y ago

As a non-American, why do you care about who is in the white house so much? How does it affect your life concretely? Try watching less talking heads/browsing Twitter less, maybe, and you'll feel better?

mjayhn 6y ago
A lot of people didn't think the guy in the white house could matter that much until Trump. As a non-American a lot of Americans would likely be envious of your lifestyle right now. The 30 million currently unemployed for sure, the people who also can't get to a hospital if they need surgery or healthcare because they're closed because of our botched (guy in wh) response care as well. The essential workers with no healthcare who are making an extra $2/hour to possibly die. This isn't a vaccuum in America. A lot of us have friends, family and coworkers affected by this. Even if I ignore the president or the news I'm still trapped inside my house for the most part. If I leave my house it's an experience figuring out whether something is open or not, what their rules are, etc. I mean I can go sit in my backyard and ignore the world but I still need to function day to day and right now I can't do half of my chores, errands, etc. So it's something definitely affecting my day to day. And I'm on the lucky end, I can wfh and sit here and respond to you. I can't imagine having to go to work at some gas station to pay rent right now. The guy in the white house isn't doing anything to calm anyones nerves or concerns. He's exacerbating them greatly. He has the largest microphone in the country, it's hard to ignore him or his affect on peoples mental health. Everywhere we look is a reminder of our failure of a government. It's on everyones mouths. Now imagine going to work and fixing bobscars.com database while this stuff is in your face everyday.
- idoby 6y ago
  I'm sorry you feel this way, but it kind of feels to me like you're linking everything back to a political landscape that you don't like, but which doesn't have a lot to do with the current state of things. I'm not too happy with the govt in my country either, but I realize 90% of my situation would have been the same under most possible govts.
  - 6y ago

tjs8rj 6y ago

All of these are extreme and very myopic takes. 6 figures of student loan debt? That's < 5% of all borrowers (and many of those are post-grad education), 92% of Americans have healthcare and a fraction of the already small number of bankruptcies are related to medical debt, poverty rate has been relatively steady since the 60s. Sure a lot of people hate Trump (I think if the media stopped talking about him, and he stopped tweeting that'd help a lot of anxiety - it's more media spin than his actual policy that seems to anger people), the US ranks better than most countries in Western Europe in terms of death rate per 1000, lack of community I'd agree with. My point is: if you shut off some of the news and social media, your perspective would likely drastically improve. Things aren't actually that terrible if you tune out all the alarmists.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

UncleOxidant 6y ago

> lack of community To a large extent we already had that in most of America. Suburbia is a very lonely place. See the book Bowling Alone.

ikeyany 6y ago
Our cities and rural areas aren't exactly in a great state either. I would imagine the average resident of a dense city does not know the names of all of their next door neighbors.

AtlasBarfed 6y ago

You forgot the scourge of anxiety and inferiority spawning social networks.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]