The bottom 99.9% in America enjoy healthcare, communications, caloric intake, political freedom, public services, education and safety from violence unprecedented in human history. By almost every metric society is better off now than it was in the 1950's, 1800's, etc. The over-focus on the negative propels us toward greater collective good - up to a point. We would do better as a society to revert to a mean that expresses some recognition and gratitude for the progress made. We're sowing the seeds of our own destruction via economic, racial, ethnic and class tribalism.
Strongly disagree. The existence of smartphones has accelerated the development of social media, which negatively impacts people's mental health and children's attention spans. Their popular adoption has also driven the growth of disgusting surveillance ad-tech. Blegh. I'd gladly go back to using a Garmin GPS and carrying a Nokia if it meant that we didn't have all the accompanying garbage.
You might be interested to know that that phone also gives you access to all the worlds knowledge, all music and art, all literature and films, you can buy anything with it and have it delivered directly to you and you can instantly communicate with anyone in the world multiple ways at almost no cost. And you can play Flappy Birds.
There are millions of people who are eligible for Medicaid but can't receive it because their states never expanded Medicaid under the ACA, and there are even more people who cannot afford health insurance, but aren't eligible for Medicaid.
