Quote: (09-01-2013 10:47 AM)frenchie Wrote:
While it sounds like you're in the last stretch of your life, the ones of us who have a few laps left are the ones who can't bury our heads in the sand any longer. The wealth we had as children is no longer existent and the future is not anywhere near as bright.
Our environment may be pretty different, leading us to different opinions. The rich are getting richer, as I understand it this seems to have been happening all through history. It eventually ends up with some horrible upset I don't particularly want to see because revolutions often make things worse and I'm nowhere near starving. I don't have the wealth my parents had when I was young, but that's not what's important to me. There's far more than enough to really enjoy life here.
Where I am in Northern California the malls are full-- you can barely get a parking space--the food is fresh and exquisite, with organic everything available even in the large supermarkets, there are tons of smoking chicks, very slim with long legs and just the right touch of muscle for athleticism indicating a vibrant sexuality.
There are virtually no ignorant boors wandering around bullying citizens, they're in jail where they belong, the environment--the air, the water-- is adequately protected by geniuses that have made cars that hardly pollute at all as California is a world leader at this.
Smokers are marginalized as they should be so many fewer people smoke and get tragic lung cancer diagnoses in their 40's and early 50's--many posters here whine about because of their addiction--, even the cops are polite and helpful and I've never been contacted by any of them regarding the "surveillance state" which the Republican House just voted to re-authorize funding for. I haven't been hassled by a cop, or even spoken to by one in decades unless I did something wrong like speeding, in the University nearby they are decoding the genomes and are going to be able to cure all of the horrible diseases that have tragically ruined lives for millennia-- diabetes, other genetic tragedies.
Tons of very, very smart people making things better for people all over the world and a very clean environment-- there are barely even cracks in the sidewalks before cheerful and polite civil servants patch them up-- drivers are patient and allocate a lot of room as you bicycle around--they almost refuse to take the right of way.
I guess it depends where you are and to some extent what you choose to see.
We're all going to die so to some extent the sky is always falling.
It's an important question how you choose to view it all until that happens for you.
It's all relative. What other countries have you lived in? Ukraine? Somalia? Anywhere? Interested in your experiences and opinions of how they compare.
What would make your future bright in objective terms? A 500k income? Seeing the NSA disbanded?
I mean objectively, something that can be physically precisely measured in agreed upon real terms-- not catch-phrases like "a bright future". Those things are just in our minds.