You wrote that in response my my, "The arc of history has been very encouraging that progress may continue as it has for an indefinite period." How bleak.
Most are.
You're talking about all of those children that would have died in childbirth or infancy not too long ago, or died of some infectious disease or congenital cardiac malformation that is no longer a death sentence. Now some have to contend with allergy and autism. Would you prefer that we go back to the past? I don't think you see a difference between the past and present unless it's that the present is worse.
I'll take it.
When I started in the practice of medicine, we had much less control over blood sugar, cholesterol levels, and blood pressure. Today, we have much better therapies, resulting in a lot less morbidity and mortality in those receiving competent care, which includes me. As a result, I have already outlived my grandfather, who died in his fifties from a heart attack. I have a reasonable expectation of making it to my eighties or nineties, and probably from some other type of illness - perhaps pneumonia. Your assessment would likely be that all I did was trade one disease for another.
This would be insulting if I didn't understand why you think and write such things. Your only fault was allowing yourself to be indoctrinated. After that, the fault lies with your teachers. The evidence contradicts you. I can say with assurance that nobody else reading your words and mine is thinking about me what you are. You've missed by a mile with me, but it's not a problem.
You want my political opinions? The government shut down because of a foolish, unjustified, theatrical stunt by the American president. You probably already know about the showdown over funding for a wall demanded by the president, and refused by the House Democrats.
No argument here.
No. We're relatively immune to what goes on in the States. We weren't affected by shutdown, nor by the tax extravaganza given to the rich on the backs of the middle class, nor the placing of a Supreme Court justice with theocratic tendencies, nor election fraud, nor the Environmental Protection Agency's rollbacks on environmental protections, nor the massive layoffs. It was much of the point of leaving there.
It was pretty clear to us early last decade that America was in a state of unstoppable decline, and that we and it were parting ways philosophically. America doesn't represent our values any more. Plus, it's overpriced, it's a terrorist target, it's economy seems vulnerable, its people are divided, and the extreme weather there (but not here) just keeps getting more extreme.
