A balance between democracy, free speech and capitalism are worth fighting for, protecting, and are an engine for prosperity. They aren't any less sustainable than life itself or any other framework societies have run on. I am all for continuous improvement, but to throw any of those three pillars out seems like a terrible idea, and only an extremely well laid argument could convince me otherwise. I have never seen such an argument.
In your original comment you made the specific point "societies are going to have to reckon with the fact that democracy, free speech, and unrestricted capitalism simply aren't a sustainable mix". I then pointed out that "unrestricted capitalism" isn't actually being practiced anywhere, which is true. The reason I pointed this out can be reframed as a question: "What society actually thinks that unrestricted capitalism is sustainable?" or alternatively... "No societies are practicing unrestricted capitalism, so why would a reckoning be necessary?".
Your response was to then claim "Neither does democracy nor free speech [exist anywhere in the world]" which is clearly false.
Where I think we stand now: My opinion is that the reason these problems are mounting in the USA is due to when it exists in the money-government-power-system-life-cycle. There are surely lessons to learn here, but "unrestricted capitalism" is a misnomer and not relevant, and therefore a balance between it and other factors is by extension irrelevant. The core problem is corruption and a shift in government from prioritizing the wants of individuals to the wants of corporations. This is manifesting as both too many bad laws and not enough good laws, and a breakdown in how laws are written and maintained. There are several critical regressions, but a big one was citizens united. Overall, this particular instance of the system is at the end of its life, and requires substantial renewal. It's a messy and complex problem, and in many ways probably inevitable. It has nothing to do with unrestricted capitalism.
I admit that my original comment was insufficiently clear in representing my point and it would have been better if I had elaborated.
I am also disappointed by your continued Ad Hominem. It's exchanges like this that turn me off HN for a while.
Let me be as straightforward as I can be. You are debating a straw man that arose out of you inserting your own adverb into my first comment. You saw "unrestricted" as "completely unrestricted" rather than the "relatively unrestricted" I intended. That intention should have been clear because I was talking in a thread about Meta so my comments can be assumed to be about the systems in which Meta operates. Everyone else here seems to have understood my intention. Your refusal or inability to recognize that original misreading is causing you to misread my other comments.