When just being "good" and "right" isn't enough

I’ve been slowly piecing together a Unified Theory of General Shittiness that… at least makes sense to me. It also gives me hope because I think understanding how we got here and what we could do differently is like maybe 1/7th of the battle. If you’d like to play a prototype of my Hidden Cat Game, check out my Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/c/HGModernism Citations: -- World Bank national accounts data, and OECD National Accounts data files. “GDP per capita (current US$)” https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?end=2023&most_recent_value_desc=true&start=2023&type=shaded&view=map -- Associated Press “Raw: Calif. Wildfire Burns 10-mile Path to Pacific” -- Zach Mack “Alternate Realities” NPR https://www.npr.org/2026/01/01/1256998295/embedded-alternate-realities-bonus -- Alicja Hagopian “How shifts among key demographic voting groups sealed Trump’s 2024 election victory” The Independent https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/election-trump-harris-demographic-breakdown-b2643412.html -- Hidden Cat Game inspired by the paper: Geoffrey Irving and Paul Christiano and Dario Amodei, “AI safety via debate” 2018 https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.00899 -- Martin Luther King Jr quote from Nobel Peace Price Acceptance Speech. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1964/king/acceptance-speech/ -- Charles de Gaulle quote. https://www.britannica.com/quotes/Charles-de-Gaulle-president-of-France -- Jessica Goedhoop, Tara Arbab and Ingo Willuhn, Anticipation of Appetitive Operant Action Induces Sustained Dopamine Release in the Nucleus Accumbens. Journal of Neuroscience 24 May 2023, 43 (21) 3922-3932; https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1527-22.2023 -- Lupien SJ, Juster RP, Raymond C, Marin MF. The effects of chronic stress on the human brain: From neurotoxicity, to vulnerability, to opportunity. Front Neuroendocrinol. 2018 Apr;49:91-105. doi: 10.1016/j.yfrne.2018.02.001. Epub 2018 Feb 5. PMID: 29421159. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29421159/ -- McManus E, Haroon H, Duncan NW, Elliott R, Muhlert N. The effects of stress across the lifespan on the brain, cognition and mental health: A UK biobank study. Neurobiol Stress. 2022 Apr 14;18:100447. doi: 10.1016/j.ynstr.2022.100447. PMID: 35685679; PMCID: PMC9170771. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35685679/ 0:00 Intro 3:44 The Good, the Bad, and the Treadmill 7:09 The Bad 9:21 Who experiences oppression? 13:10 What happened to the American Dream? 15:37 Runaway Infernos 21:20 Two Forces of Oppression 23:44 The Curse of Oppressed Privilege 29:35 Tools in the toolkit 39:29 What now? 43:19 Bonus