Labor transitions, capital investment, and the societal meaning we all crave

[WiseOne]

For whatever reason, it seems to me that we have evolved to a world where default option for most people results in misery.

Yeah. Just think about how many institutions and social conventions screw you over if you just follow them when you're even mildly disadvantaged:

• Widespread perception that a fancy college education is necessary to get anywhere => Many college degrees are undervalued; people are paying off student loan debt for decades
• Automobile-dependence virtually everywhere => People need to own and maintain automobiles, which is expensive and socially isolating; houses are so far apart from one another that actually interacting with your neighbors and people passing by can be hard
• No more "social default" that everyone is a mild, stoic protestant => No guaranteed community you belong to; spiritual fulfillment becomes an individual responsibility; rise of religious fundamentalism/extremism
• Culture of productivity and overwork => People work 9+ hour days and multiple jobs, paradoxically increasing the supply of labor, driving down its value, and suppressing wages
• Culture of low price and low quality => Most basic goods made abroad or by illegal immigrants, destroying domestic manufacturing jobs
• Economy dominated by large firms => Mad crush for everyone to move to geographically small but economically prosperous regions of only a small number of cities, leading to ever-rising housing prices in these regions
• Most jobs and economic opportunities are "somewhere else" => No incentive to stay where you are and serve your community; people move around a ton, damaging their social relationships and isolating them from friends and family

And on and on and on…

The last point may be the most important.  It used to be that people mostly stayed put, and had Memorial Day barbecues, Thanksgiving dinners, baptisms and holiday Masses with huge extended families.  Now, people move to the place that best suits them - a big win for personal realization but the cost is that the extended family and tight-knit neighborhood that I grew up with has vanished.  My parents' lives were far, far different from mine.  My father did an incredible amount of community service despite 12 hour work days and frequent business trips.  It's what he thought was important, but no iPhone, no websites, and no pressure to keep checking email all evening from home surely helped.