Americans hate the idea of paying money for someone else. Especially if that person is an “other.”
This means we can’t have anything nice because it might benefit someone that someone else hates.
There is a cruel and crude portion of this population that hates anything that might help the public at large. Public transportation, state run healthcare, the post office.
For many wealthy Americans spending $100 for every $1 of avoided taxes is worth it.
Now this would all be irrational and stupid if that $1 in taxes provided an equivalent service. So they have to break those systems or just plain make shit up.
I was educated in public schools in America, it was fine. I went to state university and obtained two degrees. Contrary to popular belief they taught us plenty. I had many bright and dedicated educators explain the world around me and make me fall in love with scholastic pursuits. Caring and driven public servants paid a pittance but still excited to share their time and talents with kids figuring out the world.
Whether it was an English teacher who decided he cared enough to run the academic decathlon team, or my calculus teacher senior year who made me fall in love with the beauty of mathematics.
The person I am is indelibly linked to the public school system. As a poor kid growing up in a poor neighborhood, education was a way up. And the wealthy in this nation can’t stand that. Success is for their kids going to expensive private school.
I left Reddit 2 or 3 years back and have only used Lemmy since.
I joined through Lemm.ee so recently had to move over to Lemmy.zip
I think this was a net positive for me overall. Lemmy has a lot less content which helped me break the “I’m slightly bored let me pull out my phone and scroll Reddit” addiction I didn’t even realize I had. Now I check Lemmy maybe once or twice a day, still see the big important events and the couple communities I care about.
I was never one for twitter, so I don’t bother with trying to find a replacement for that.
Overall the less social media I use the better I feel. I think future generations will look back on our constant use of social media and dopamine mining the same way we look back on how people used to smoke everywhere.
We know it’s bad for us, but we like the dopamine so everyone just does it everywhere, we give toddlers tablets so they can start dopamine mining as early as possible. I hope our descendants look back at this time with a sense of “holy shit they just let people smoke in the nurseries at the hospital?!”