Even on an individual scale, I suspect it is only a short term amelioration that exacerbates the underlying problem in the long term.

The grand scale ratcheting-up effect is a result of processes that, while not narrowly focussed, most acutely apply to those associated with shootings.

> Very fitting parallel for the greater whole: zero sum

Its not zero-sum (if it were, the grand-scale effect would be neutral.)

Yes. It seems like there's a baseline tension in the U.S. from socioeconomic circumstances that doesn't allow for a long-term approach. It's like constantly being in survival mode, one happenstance from ruin (real or imagined).

As if the lower one's income, the closer one is to the heaping mass of natural inevitability: decay and death -- its gravity crushing.

> Its not zero-sum (if it were, the grand-scale effect would be neutral.)

I think I was referring to emotionally. There are so few great sources of positive emotion to tap into, that the zeitgeist is simply "take as much as you can for yourself, before it runs dry."

That in order to escape from "loss," you must create negative externalities and emotions -- no matter how small.

It feels cultural. There is no great basin of tradition and culture here; the positive emotions built off the backs of forefathers that sacrificed and endured negative emotion for the hope of a better tomorrow: missing.