> The US was created by its citizens. Any country can do that.
Every country is, in aggregate, created by some portion of its citizens, but I don't think that necessarily implies every country has an equally plausible path to the positive social conditions of the US (in fact, it's an open question if the US has a plausible path to keeping its positive social conditions). There was a very narrow window of conditions that applied where enough enlightenment thinking, reflection on classical thinking, local colonial strength, and enough self-interest for a broad number of colonial Americans met a concept of the public good, and we still got a union that needs a hell of a lot of perfecting. If you take the culture of the early 19th century US and backport it to the late 18th, I'm not even sure you'd get anything half as enlightened.
The point isn't that people shouldn't try, of course. The point is that even the state of a given functioning industrialized democracy is partly a matter of lots of factors that no one has control over, which makes it reasonable to describe them in terms of luck.
> I had many opportunities to become a billionaire. I didn't not because I was unlucky, but because I was stupid and unwilling to take the risk necessary.
It is wise to realize when one has lost a roll of the dice because of a passed opportunity to cast them. It's also wise to realize that luck would have played a role if you'd taken the opportunity.
Why is it wise to have a negative view of opportunities that present themselves?
> that needs a hell of a lot of perfecting
It still works better than any other system. It wasn't that many years ago where what to write on bathroom doors bubbled up to get the attention of the US President. Or the fake crisis that there are many very rich people in the US. Or the drama over who is bending the knee and who isn't. The fact is that many of our headline problems are trivial when put in historical context.
> Why is it wise to have a negative view of opportunities that present themselves?
Recognizing that luck plays a role in the outcome of opportunity isn't a negative view, only an acknowledgment of what can't be controlled alongside what can, much like the one that you made tacitly when you used the term "risk."
> It still works better than any other system.
If we're speaking in general terms about market democracies, I sure know I like living in one, and yes, people living in most of those (including the US) could stand to appreciate how some things are actually working relatively especially by historical standards.
On the other hand if we're speaking in specific terms about countries, there are others which get notably better metrics than the US on things like the economic freedom index, high net worth individuals per capita, life expectancy per health care dollar spent, or bankruptcies per capita, which indicates some pause about how strictly to regard "better than any other system" and further room for optimization that clearly has substantial positive impacts on quality & length of life elsewhere.
Every country is, in aggregate, created by some portion of its citizens, but I don't think that necessarily implies every country has an equally plausible path to the positive social conditions of the US (in fact, it's an open question if the US has a plausible path to keeping its positive social conditions). There was a very narrow window of conditions that applied where enough enlightenment thinking, reflection on classical thinking, local colonial strength, and enough self-interest for a broad number of colonial Americans met a concept of the public good, and we still got a union that needs a hell of a lot of perfecting. If you take the culture of the early 19th century US and backport it to the late 18th, I'm not even sure you'd get anything half as enlightened.
The point isn't that people shouldn't try, of course. The point is that even the state of a given functioning industrialized democracy is partly a matter of lots of factors that no one has control over, which makes it reasonable to describe them in terms of luck.
> I had many opportunities to become a billionaire. I didn't not because I was unlucky, but because I was stupid and unwilling to take the risk necessary.
It is wise to realize when one has lost a roll of the dice because of a passed opportunity to cast them. It's also wise to realize that luck would have played a role if you'd taken the opportunity.