Thirty years ago I spent a year working in central Illinois. I liked the people there but the company I was working for was quite badly managed and treated the employees poorly, in my opinion. Perhaps as an Australian I expected a slightly more egalitarian environment. After a year I left. I would probably have enjoyed working on either coast more but water under the bridge. At least I learned to fly as a distraction from the intensely irritating job!

Sorry, but this post reeks of ignorance. America a neoliberal state slowly descending into fascism. With this post you have reduced your being to one thing: money - and that is sad. It's sad that humanity's worth has been reduced to wealth and material possessions. Not community building, not world building, but chasing an infinite ceiling. It's truly disheartening to see opinion pieces like this. Stripped off of humanity and reduced to numbers.

You even acknowledge some pitfalls like healthcare sucking. But you fail to connect it to the mass wealth gap and how many millions of people suffer because of this. They are not part of your thoughts, because it's the numbers that matter. And the timing of this post couldn't be any worse either.

I suggest you do some reflecting and soul searching my friend. We don't need more of this kind of thinking.

The American dream in 2026, bundled up and served on an LLM-generated plate. Writing your own posts for real is low-value $5 an hour work. We all know the real meaning of life is “asymmetric upside.” Don’t do it because you love it or because it matters – do it for the upside. Zero introspection mindset.