turtlemir

I don't think you're wrong in your advice to build wealth, but the situation I see the working class in doesn't sit well with me. And building a society were the prime directive of life is buying property and stocks seems doomed.

I see the situation as this: The middle and upper-middle class have become invested in a perpetuating a system that ultimately will strangle them or their descendants.

Wealth begets wealth, power begets power. It might be a law of nature that things like to polarize. Likely we'll see a return of society consisting of two groups: rich and powerful, poor and powerless.

Most older engineers I meet seem to associate with the mindset and politics of billionaires and multi-millionaires, and see themselves almost in the same club sometimes. I guess making a lot of money does that to people. Add to that the truth expressed by Steinbeck about the USA "The poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."

I think we have a problem where housing and stocks must continue to make return on investment. Housing prices must keep raising, hurting the next generation. Young people increasingly don't have the luxury of job stability to buy a home. Companies must keep increasing profit, leading to offshoring, outsourcing, stricter working conditions. And now middle class government jobs must be cut and privatized so that capitalists can make profit on providing a service. All the while the top percent owns and increasing share of the wealth pie.

I felt I needed to reply because while what you are saying is the way things are, I wish it didn't have to be that way.

I feel there are so many health issues plaguing our modern population.

-Bad conditions for eyes leads to growing amounts of glasses wearers, glasses make an active healthy lifestyle harder, early health development seems really important (playing physically as a kid) putting glasses on kids seems a terrible thing, and worse, people act like this is normal.

-The types of food we eat, and our bad breathing habits (maybe from posture or air pollution), maybe even our tongue posture, leave us with poor jawlines, poor facial structure.

-Our disconnect from the natural world leaves us unwhole.

-The extreme of either sedentary lifestyles (office worker) or too repetitively physical (warehouse worker) breaks people down.

Its really sad, most people I see today seem really unhealthy. Fat or flabby, aching body, bad posture, stressed out. I fell into the trap too, had to loose 50 pounds recently. Cleaned up diet, working on posture, flexibility, strength, proper muscle activation, knowing ones body. And that is hard to do, maybe only possible because a WFH job lends towards healthy living. Most are not so fortunate. Also having no family or responsibility beside myself really helps. But neglecting such things are not sustainable for society.

We need a society where being healthy is easier, and better rewarded.

I am sorry if this rant is not acceptable to Hacker News, but I wish as a society our focus was "what makes us healthy". Literally that should be a primary principle in guiding our politics. Compared to the rest of history, we are living in a special time, at least in developed countries. We have the means to be creating healthy, beautiful, smart, well rounded, well adjusted individuals. But I feel the opposite is happening, and it seems like the majority of people don't care