it's really not just that I don't like what I read on the internet. it's not just the shitposters and trolls getting to me. the community I live in is actually worse than it was 5 years ago, 10 years ago in tangible ways and I'm sitting on a pile of privilege. others feel it more
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There are serious problems we all need to talk about sincerely, openly, and with care. But you started with a reduction to "consumerism". This is one, narrow, specific, clumsy framing and only one part (or just symptom) of the problems. You get the responses you leave room for.
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I said "the root of the problem is that we, as a culture, never figured out what we're doing here" If you have something to say about that I'm all ears
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Little to argue with that part. It was followed by "We built consumerism first and let everything else fall apart". You also had references to "privilege", requisite anti-Trump signalling. I'm open too, but it is hard because those things strongly signal some premature closure.
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when I reference privilege I mean my relatively comfortable middle-class lifestyle. Many of my generational peers are struggling a lot more than I am. when I reference Trump it is meant to eliminate the distraction of talking about Trump, since there's nothing to learn there.
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and when I talk about consumerism I'm honestly expressing my view of what has been the central animating project of American life. the thing we've built bigger, better, faster, more impressively scaled then any other people before us is our consumer driven economy.
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when people say "the U.S. is the wealthiest country in the history of the world" what they really mean is that we consume more than any other people ever have.
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there are many other things that America has tried to do. Have we been as successful at them? Whatever the case, we need something new to do now. I'm complaining because we're at each other's throats over petty bullshit and nobody seems to have a good idea about what comes next
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As an aside, I favor the discriminating use of political membership sign words. You used those words in a way that completely makes sense. Also good to throw in some red tribe words like responsibility. Demand ppl think about what we mean, don't abandon semantic territory.
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The people that are able to actually discuss it without culture war will largely decide the future
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There are potentially many more. As culture war fails to get tangible results people will get more fed up. That's how I ended up this way
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I sincerely hope you're right. The other thing that might happen when people wise up to the fact that you can't talk about it anymore is that they stop trying to talk about things and just get their knives out.
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That's gonna be a challenge. I don't want to see a repeat of the 60s-70s USA and I'm not sure how to prevent that. Optimistic take is that material life is a bit better now than it was back then (ie no draft) but we could easily descend again
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Disaster, bedlam, chaos. I've never been more pessimistic. I too sit atop a pile of privilege and have better chances of weathering the storm, but I fret for the public.
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human sacrifice, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria
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Release the Cracken.
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*Kraken ;?
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On th' Twitters and in the culture war trenches more generally, it has been distressing to feel the waves of rage and wonder if they were talking about me. But I'm getting over that. I am more optimistic. Think this is partly my being older, having seen political storms before
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Optimistic in what sense? Accepting that it all just has to play out is a far cry from having a positive outlook about the future...
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Yeah I absolutely agree that no one is in control but it doesn't make me feel much better. I'll say it's honestly nice to hear any sincere optimism nowadays, just knowing thoughtful people have hope assuages some of my cynicism.
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