Readit NewsIt is that they create problems, they pitch suboptimal solutions that will create the next crisis, and then they frame the crisis in a way that appeals to your emotions.
So no, it is not a tiresome both sides argument. It is that you are being led by people that don't care about you, that don't have your best interests in mind; they have their own agenda and you're just being swayed left and right as the zeitgeist allows.
And you're left cheering for your team because you think your team is better. But hey, the other team really bothched something up recently, so yay your team. And then we will get your team in power, they'll do some things you like while creating other problems and then pendulum will swing the other way, some will cheer for the other team and then swing back. And then before you know it, oops you're 64 years old now.
You are definitely right that the parties/political system does not make decisions in my favor (or really make decisions at all). Beyond just the crises, it's pretty clear that the "vested interests" in our economy have substantial sway in the outcomes regardless of how much of the discourse they try to avoid.
to be clear, I'm not in favor of the expansion of the executive power through executive orders under Obama, nor am I in favor of Trump using it. I think the democrats were short sighted in allowing the precedent and not expecting it to backfire. IMO, democracy is strongest when the motivation is to close loopholes as an exercise in disarmament, rather than the pyrrhic victories of escalation.
All that said, the recent escalations are alarming, and I hope that when I'm 64, the pendulum is still attached to swing. I understand the realpolitik of the situation, but I don't agree that I need to adopt such a fatalistic view of the whole situation that I won't care that people are making mistakes at all.
Do you think it will finally click after 2 more cycles, that's 8 years or so?
You will be your current age + 8, maybe you can then start saying "yeah man both sides suck, it is as if there is something above it that controls them both and we are made to support them as if we're supporting our favorite soccer team"?
In regards to my ability to "realize" I suppose I'll keep myself to the facts. At present, I don't see a set of functional equivalency in each party's extravagances.
Based on the wikipedia aurora article it sounds like the lower atmosphere has a more mixed bag of gasses, so it glows white, while in the upper atmosphere atomic oxygen(note that oxygen lower down is all diatomic and glows green) is able to showcase it's characteristic red glow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora#Colours_and_wavelengths...
But now I am wondering about the green(oxygen?) and yellow(sodium?) atmospheric bands visable. The green one is interesting because it may tear apart my atomic oxygen theory. why would a green diatomic band be above the red atomic sprite flare?
For every depressed westerner posting doom and gloom online like this, there are a million people who have been lifted out of poverty and into the middle class and have experience upward mobility like nothing else in history.
My friends in China show me entire cities that didn't exist 20 years ago but now have millions of people whizzing around in high speed trains, driving electic cars and making 20-30x what their parents used to make.
My home town in India went from having a one-lane road when I was growing up to being connected to a national highway, an international airport and a subway.
The town I lived in the Middle East in the 90s now peppered with skyscrapers and factories and one of the largest ports in the world.
Meanwhile, my neighborhood in the Bay Area complains about building a new apartment complex and looks pretty much like what it did in the 1970s. And then people write blog posts about how nothing is improving.
Maybe it's time to look outside your narrow viewpoints and realize there's world outside that has changed dramatically and you're left behind.
IMO, the biggest challenge is that we don't use metrics that accurately convey the change in the physical environment and the physical capital that we have and must maintain. In illustration, in today's dollars, 15 years of paint budget for the Golden Gate Bridge is about the same cost as building the Golden Gate Bridge. In nominal dollars, we spent $35m to build the bridge (in 1937), and last year we spend $97m to paint it.
its hard for people to see the progress in maintenance, and so the incredible progress of our forebears becomes our burden, and the consumptive effects of maintenance weigh on the west while the east experiences the novelty of real, direct progress.