ywrht

> That's the rub. I think they'd prefer to work. There are few places left in the modern world to find meaning.

Yes. That's why I'm critical of Universal Income. I believe that UI would only push those people further down, making them completely unnecessary, without purpose at all, their tasks in society being relegated to merely being a consumer.

I'm totally in favor of having free education, welfare and healthcare, though. I do think we need a balance here.

I completely agree with your assessment that the media selling "agendas" is the problem. Not just traditional media, but social media too. Dialogue and democracy aren't attractive anymore, we've been basically coerced into fear and put into boxes.

From my point of view, the lefts biggest problem is that the "left" of today is pretty much the center. I find it extremely hard to take any left-of-center (think Bernie Sanders) position today. Anyone not in the center or in the right and you'll have both the liberal (as in economically liberal) and the conservative media against you. I don't live in the US/UK, but I live in an increasingly anti-leftist country. I can't even complain that Uber eroding worker's rights without being called a commie here. I honestly feared for my life one time when I was wearing a red t-shirt and accidentally bumped into a right-wing rally when I was visiting another town.

But the thing is, it doesn't take a lot of empathy to see that a lot of conservatives are feeling the same way: they complain that the media has a liberal-bias, they complain about not having the right to speak (because of political correctness), they complain about persecution because of their religion, they had their jobs taken away and the establishment (which they perceive as being completely on the left) failed them... they have liberal media against them. I can completely sympathize with all that.

Funny thing is that from reading comments of Trump voters, I feel as if the more radical left and Trump voters have a lot of fears in common: automation taking jobs, globalism taking jobs, elites raking it, the center-left liberals being too worried about what they call "political correctness" but saying fuck-off to workers, religious and rural people... Not to mention I can totally sympathize with how they crave for more radicalism in politics, just like I, as a leftist, do.

As I wrote that last paragraph, I wondered if what we're actually witnessing is the end of that brand of centrist/moderate liberalism. I'm biased but I think that the demise of liberalism will be that cause "dark times ahead", unless we find a viable left to strike a balance with the current right.