Just thinking about how this mess arose organically. Everything now got started on my generation, but we were suddenly in a world with no Cold War and too few people to make a particularly solid lasting stink. The inevitable cost of living increases came with eagerly up scaling for a larger number of younger people and I feel like the return of Cold War values camouflaged how exploitative this was getting when it was easier to stop.
@Leucrotta Like "We Didn't Start the Fire" is kinda silly as Boomer apologia but at the same time it feels very much what happened to us too. We even kind of have our own version of that song with "Walking on the Sun" lol
@Leucrotta I think additionally the rise of the public internet before it got bought up really did also provide a great deal of optimism that we very directly got to watch be destroyed.
@chimerror I was thinking of the economic thing (cost of living increased WAY faster than wages or opportunities, college and health care went from being pricey to an obvious racket) rather than political, but the two definitely are tied together.
I lived in shared housing in NorCal for the longest time (and the place I lived longest there was rent controlled until the last 2 years, when the rent zoomed up) it sort of camouflaged just how ridiculous costs were getting, before 2016.
@Leucrotta yep, if anything, I think that rather than thinking of the economy as separate from government (as free market folks like to pretend), instead they it's worth remembering that government choices regarding financial regulation very directly influences actions taken by businesses, which affects everyday costs
it's like when cartoon bullies do that thing where one of them pushes you from the front and the other couches behind your back so you fall
@Leucrotta if anything, I find myself thinking about how much war spending _hides_ this sort of greedy inflationary gain
but I'm pretty sure I don't understand it enough
@Leucrotta I agree. I feel like the "end of history"/"new millenium" optimism of the 90s did very much depoliticize at least myself a lot, though I think 9/11 and the War on Terror especially increased some degree of acceptance of a larger police and military state.