It’s also easy to become complacent looking at small increments of gain while the wealthy consolidate power over international governments. The Trump administrations alone is a drastic ramping up of corruption and infliction of pain for regular people. The “big beautiful bill” is going to hurt a lot of people in a lot of ways. Many western nations like the UK and Australia are following suit on some levels. The rich have gained astronomically more wealth and power than the majority at levels higher than the gilded age. With AI and robots making such advances and that technology being firmly in their control, it’s more important than ever for people to stand in solidarity and push harder for a more equitable society. There’s a reason social media has been so weaponized with propaganda to divide us. Things are at a huge inflection point in history. The next couple decades are going to be very challenging for the majority of people.

It takes a simple google search to show how bad those statistics are being collected today in the US. Both Trump administrations actively attacked funding and reporting of these statistics which hastened their existing decay. The powerful have a lot to gain from stats coming off sunnier than reality. Plus it doesn’t account for cost of living expenses or how income is distributed very well at all. It’s a blunt instrument that does little to show how the bottom half of American wage workers are actually struggling. I’m glad you seem to be doing well enough to defend this system, but most of the people I know are barely getting by and have nothing for retirement. If you look at generational wealth, the majority of younger Americans have far less wealth than our parents or grandparents did at our age. Fewer own houses or have the stability of a large savings account for emergencies. The costs of essentials like food, housing/rent, insurance (health/property,etc), and just about everything has gone up at a much higher clip than wages. The trends are going downward and it is a direct result of billionaires influence through “charitable foundation” spending and dark money. Read the book “Dark Money” by Jane Mayer and “The Network State” and other plans by the ultra rich to take more money and power from the majority and government assistance. Any gains regular people have made have come from collective action and technology inevitably creating some surplus, not trickle down from the rich. With climate change causing further disasters as insurance companies raise rates and deny coverage - it will only exasperate the issues. Not to mention the inevitable climate refugees that will be created. Trends may have improved at a macro level from industrialization over the last half a millennia, but the last 50 years have not been kind to poorer Americans.

The rich are constantly clawing more of that comfort away from the “more fortunate” middle class you speak of as well as the poor just to add to a score card. Every step of improvement is against their lust for all to be their slaves in one way or another. The more complacent and content people are with their gains, the more the powerful will take. The doomers as you call them understand that all gains are tenuous. The rich are parasites.

No one should have this privilege to begin with. Society should work to create a livable experience for everyone instead of constantly making comfort and stability an exclusive club.

Capitalism rewards the worst most selfish hoarders of wealth. How can we build a system like this and expect this type of altruism? Makes no sense. The system was always broken.

It helps with the dialogue, but I also like it because I feel like it keeps my mind more active and involved in the story. It’s more like reading a book and watching a movie.