> The research on this is clear

Yeah, sure, people can write papers to justify anything.

Like I said, let's cancel everyone's auto loans and mortgages. I'll be we could write a compelling paper in support of that.

> are you okay?

Very funny. Insult shrouded behind fake sincerity.

I am fine, than you. Are you? You don't seem to understand reality at all. Please go talk to someone.

> You sound angry

Everyone who isn't a under heavy sedation should be angry at the stupid nonsense our society today seems to insist on passing for virtues. It is destroying our society to the bone. Splitting us up into more and more subsets brought into resonance by expert manipulators.

Don't believe me? Give it ten years, come back and compare notes. If we remain on this path nothing good will come from it. Sadly, we might have already passed a point of no return years ago.

The issue here is that it is far easier for political actors to work on the basis of creating resonance in subsets of the population than to actually do the difficult work of governing and solving real problems --which isn't easy at all.

Far easier to portray daily life as an ideological civil war with many "us vs. them" slices of society than to actually solve real problems over time.

One approach leads to easy votes and easy paths to stay in power. The other requires hard work and the risk of not delivering results, which could end political careers. The internet and social media gave politicians the tools necessary to focus on nothing except divide-resonate-and-conquer.

It's a game. The masses play. Politicians win. Society gets screwed.

For the unthinking among us, if they can reduce life to a set of mono-variable issues and clear good-vs-evil players, maybe feed them a few great looking graphs, PDF's and websites in the process, maybe even an idiot well-known actor who is stupid enough (most of them are) to get behind the cause, well, politicians and the money brokers that surround them do just fine.

Of course, the population doesn't do fine. They do worse and worse with the passage of time. Pick a time line, say, 50 years:

- The healthcare system is a horrible train-wreck
- Our system of education K-12 is worse than in some third world countries
- Our university system sells, for hundreds of thousands of dollars,
a product that, at most, should cost tens of thousands, or
be free (as it is in countless nations)
- Our systems of mass transportation are a mess
The California high speed train project is an example of just
how incompetent we have become
- Our actions on business, nationally and internationally, have
driven entire industries out of the country --forever
- Air travel lately? OMG!
- We can't build anything at scale any more
Remember "shovel ready projects"? Yeah, good luck
Just one drive up and down Interstate 5 in CA summarizes where
we are well: We can't build anything, and, when we do,
it's third world
- We have degrades so far that we can't even manufacture masks
and medical equipment during a pandemic
- And, yes, we have layers of society who would rather whine
and be taken care of by government than engage in the difficult
work that elevates societies and people at all levels

These are things everyone should be angered by. And this list isn't even exhaustive. Take travelling around the nation. It's a disaster. I have been to airports and have travelled through immigration systems in very small nations that put major US airports to absolute shame. One that comes to mind is Singapore. Comparing just that experience to entering the US through LAX, Dallas, JFK or any other airport is nothing less than shameful. It should embarrass and, yes, anger everyone.

One way or another, we have managed to allow our politicians (note I have not pointed at a single unique party) to devolve our nation and society into something that is simply not headed in the right direction at all. The things these people have done and are doing continue to guarantee the irrelevance of the US (and Europe) on the world stage and 100 to 200 years (if not more) of Chinese domination at nearly all levels.

I guess the unthinking among us need to find themselves in that reality before they understand just how stupid they have been to not laugh these politicians off the stage and replace them with people who will deliver results and not focus on dividing the population into subsets that are easy to manipulate for votes.

I have worked in manufacturing, technology, electronics, software, commercial, industrial and aerospace domains for four decades. We have been moving backwards, for decades. We have eroded our ability to sustain and grow our economy to a point that likely has no return.

Just try to manufacture any non-trivial product in the US and Europe and the realization of how bad things are will feel like a bucket of ice water. In fact, try to manufacture most trivial products (masks, gowns, syringes, disinfectant wipes) in the US and Europe and the results will likely be the same.

This is the result of decades of incompetence and politicians focusing on their political objectives rather than going to work for us doing the difficult job of managing the affairs of a nation.

Yes, everyone should be angry, because, without a massive unifying force and a clear vision of common goals --without everyone pushing in the same direction-- this is going in a direction most are not going to like. It's like the proverbial crab being slow-boiled. Ignorance, as it turns out, isn't, in the end, bliss.