I think there’s both truth and distortion, like all the best narratives. Old enough to remember a lot of those years you describe. Technology brings a lot of amazing things but affordability right now _is_ bad, especially for ‘American Dream’ staples like house/car/family/education. That being said we’re not destitute and a lot of things are possible - like getting a burrito to your door in 5min and learning about quantum physics from your computer instead of a PhD course.
Discussion
Yeah. My point is not to sweep real problems under the rug. But it is to push back against some of the narratives I see from people arguing that things are literally the worst they've ever been, and bound to get catastrophically worse, barring a complete upending of our entire society. This is just negativity bias and motivated reasoning writ large.
Yeah. The people that say this are just angry, hoping they’ll get a better roll of the dice next time. As if odds were the only thing predicting success. There’s a ton of opportunity out there. The average American won’t know how to take advantage of it unfortunately.