How often do you find yourself wondering how you'll be able to pay rent and your car payment during the month? What happens if you need to get dental work? Does that shift your calculus for expenses day to day? Not it in 2021 or whatever, but like this past week?

I’ve been there. I have friends who have been there in the last month. None of them reacted by projecting onto space exploration or science. It’s absolutely a choice as to what one channels one’s frustrations onto.

I've had a long career in tech and so for me and I assume people like me these are not concerns. I'm not doubting what you describe is the experience for many people.

I'm not American but I work with many Americans who are doing really well (also long careers in tech).

I'm old and I own my house but when I was younger I never leased a car, I always bought used cars that I could afford. So the question of making a car payment wasn't there. I always saved and compared prices in good times and bad times. I rented a cheap enough place to have enough safety margin.

Anyways, being a software engineer through the golden era of software engineering is not your typical person experience.

I still think we need to be more data driven in how we evaluate the state of the economy. The parent was suggesting it's the economic difficulties faced by people on this forum (presumably many in tech) that lead to shallow and political discussion and it's hard for me to gauge that.