I can't wrap my head around "society failing people" - society is people. Average person has no influence, not even a little bit, on any of those things. Meanwhile, a small subset of the people have all the influence and they mostly operate in their own self-interest.
I don’t mean to discharge responsibility. We are society, and the onus is on us to push for a better way of doing things.
> I can't wrap my head around "society failing people" - society is people.
Effectively, societies are Boomers and older generations. These form the majority of the population that is of voting age and they hold most of the financial (in stocks and real estate ownership) and executive power.
So yes, it can be said that society fails the younger generation.
I disagree, everyone operates in their own short term self-interest, leading to a massive scale prisoners dilemma and crab bucket mentality.
The vast majority on this planet believe in a perverse expected value calculation:
probability of becoming a billionaire * billion dollars > assets in fair society
where "assets in fair society" is higher than it currently is, maybe 2x or 3x, but it pales in comparison to the chance at 10000x and the optimism that distorts the "probability of becoming a billionaire" to be higher than it really is.
There is a perceived equilibrium between the remote possibility of undoing all the bad things that happened during the course of your life instantly and a more just society that merely gives you a little bit more money, but otherwise keeps most things the same, but with less stress and conflict.