Whoever you vote for will be ~~bribed~~ lobbied until they don't represent you anymore, assuming they weren't already compromised before even entering office.

This sounds great!

However, I also had a job like this and hated it. The things I hated about it were:

1. Circumstances beyond my control made taking this job my best option, when I had really wanted to do something else.
2. The ultimate product of my work wasn't emotionally resonant with me. I felt like I was doing nothing but working to maintain a system I didn't believe in.
3. I felt like if I was going to have a job like this, I should be getting paid better and should be working on something more interesting. I thought the job was beneath me.
4. Seriously, aesthetics matter. Commuting through heavy traffic to reach a suburban office park, where I walk through the door and smell filtered air, looking at grey cubicals under florescent lighting... is pretty miserable. Much better if the office was in a walkable, nice-to-look-at neighborhood where I would want to spend my time outside of work, and if the office had hired an interior designer who could make it.... just better in any way.

damn that image bangs

Yeah, honestly knowing what I know now, this is the way to do it. Do whatever you want for most of your life and screw the consequences. Die at 35 without health insurance.

I'm glad 1 hour of porn and telescope each day keeps you going. For most of us, it's not enough.

It would be nice to not be alienated at work. It would also be nice to have some kind of say in what we do 80% of the time we're awake. A more democratized workplace would do a lot.

So funny enough, as an American, I have the majority of that while being in the military. We even currently have three months of maternity and paternity leave, which can be used as the member sees fit through the first year after birth.

All except the privacy laws and employee protection laws, though it can often be exceptionally difficult to fire people for reasons that don't involve the politics of the people in charge. And even then, lawsuits usually get those people backpay.

I'd be advocating for the US Coast Guard with this right now, but the current administration is shifting our focus from being a life-saving/preserving service to another border control agency, so... not a great time to be joining if it's for moral reasons. sigh

I think most reasonable people would agree that there are many objectively good things about the modern world, but progress isn't a strict good/bad binary. Often, progress results in both good and bad circumstances.

For instance, I think most reasonable people would agree that modern medicine is a very good thing. Vaccines and antibiotics have saved countless lives. Also, more advanced agricultural technology has allowed us to grow more food and feed more people. However, progress has also resulted in significant ecological damage, depletion of natural, nonrenewable resources and a significant loss of biodiversity. I think most reasonable people would agree that these are very bad things.

I don't think the point is to ignore the very real, important positives about the modern world, but to point out that there are still things that need to improve, and unintended negative effects of progress that need to be dealt with.

I appreciate that for you the modern world is overall good, but that's not necessarily everyone's experience. Some people do feel purposeless, depressed and worn down, despite being relatively wealthy and comfortable, especially compared to humans of past eras.

We probably have it pretty great compared to most of the rest of the world currently.

i dunno. I mean, the same could be said about the medieval ages. Everything had been figured out. How to grow wheat, how to feed chickens, the people knew everything. It was all just daily routine.

Yet i don't see these people living dull lives. I smell the air and it smells good.

I've heard this described as a velvet rut.

where your children are gonna grow up depends a lot on your choices on whether you support Mars settlement or not. if you do, and you go there, i think your children will have a high chance of having to do a lot of work. construction, farming, construction again, taking care of new immigrants and children, construction again, expanding the city ... seems like a lot of work to me.

Personally, I sometimes ponder if this is a part of The Great Filter. We have evolved to survive under constant threats in harsh environments, so when those dangers and threats are removed we don't know how to handle it. We start to perceive minor things as bigger problems. I wonder if this is part of what we need to learn to deal with before we can live peacefully with our neighbours and nature.