alt Hacker NewsAs an extension to your last point, here in the US people love complaining about politics (on both sides) but very few people (including me!) take the time to come up with solutions and go to town halls, or write to senators apart from the automated message that makes you feel like you did a thing, or even run for office.
Of course, all of those are hard! And I think that speaks to the modern tarpits. No one set out to make a tarpit, it just happened and it's hard to make it perfect.
A big hidden in plain site facet of this, is few are willing to put forth the work within the existing system.
That is, going to town halls, writing senators, and running for office are all standard parts of the system people are complaining about. And they are offering the complaints, largely, as stand in complaints for whole hosts of problems that they actually think are there.
So, agreed, few are willing to ignore their general nebulous complaints and get into the system to work with it. They dream that there will be some magic shift of everything away from their complaints.
My only twist is I think this is ok, as long as people stay grounded in the rest of their life. It is perfectly fine to dream. Is mostly fine to complain. No need to dirty the water where people are getting things done, though.