A Wake-Up Call for US Liberals

[Chathamization]

71. Thanks. I didn't find your other post rude, by the way, I thought of it as a respectful "I have a

different outlook" post. It's also an outlook I respect and don't necessarily disagree with. I've also been frustrated with the degree of apathy and disengagement. You see it a lot on the ground level, with the majority of people paying no attention to local politics (and I have to say, I was this way as well for a long time), and many of those who do doing so for bad reasons (they want to be close to local power players, or want their taxes cut).

It's also frustrating to see the apathy I see amongst people who are theoretically politically engaged. The "netroots" seems to be disinterested in any action other than giving a donation online, for the most part. I've met a ton of people who consider themselves political junkies, yet who can't be bothered to show up for primaries or do a quick web search of the candidates (most people seem to be only interested in the political gossip).

Like I said, I see the potential for a wider national movement, but it's not here yet (how come we aren't all members of the DFA?).

And you're right that there are some major challenges facing us. Though I'm not too worried about automation unemployment (looking at the numbers, it seems to be a misdiagnosis of our problems), secular stagnation and collapsing infrastructure seem to be a pretty big problem. Looking a bit further ahead, the damage to the environment seems to be a major threat (climate change, as well as more general environmental devastation that we don't know the full effects of), as well as things like nuclear war, which doesn't get much attention these days but is still probably one of the greatest threats we face.

So, I definitely share the frustration and concern. But I'm also hopeful - because of some successes I've seen, because even many of the apathetic people I've talked to become interested once I start talking to them, and also because of more general trends I've seen (towards equality, health, mental understanding, crowd funding and open source development) suggest positive societal movements. Or even having a conversation like this, where you see that these are things people are thinking about and trying to find a solution for.