Interesting and weird: pessimism/cynicism seem to take over the "can do" attitude. Lack of ambition is just a manifestation.<p>I'm not sure about the root cause, but I have noticed something else much more frightening: there seem to be a lot of people who seem to hate society and civilization (ex: count how frequently the Unabomber manifesto is resposted here of all places!).<p>They come in various names ("accelerationism" etc) and seem to only want destruction, maybe because deep inside, they hate themselves?<p>I can't help but notice how the types map so perfectly to De Beauvoir types: <a href="https://fs.blog/simone-de-beauvoir-ethics-freedom/" rel="nofollow">https://fs.blog/simone-de-beauvoir-ethics-freedom/</a><p>> The sub-man is the one who, to avoid disappointment, avoids in engaging. If he doesn’t try, he doesn’t fail.<p>> The strange character of a universe with which he has created no bond also arouses fear in him. Weighted down by present events, he is bewildered before the darkness of the future which is haunted by frightful spectres, war, sickness, revolution, fascism, bolshevism. The more indistinct these dangers are, the more fearful they become. The sub-man is not very clear about what he has to lose, since he has nothing, but this very uncertainty re-enforces his terror. Indeed, what he fears is that the shock of the unforeseen may remind him of the agonizing consciousness of himself.<p>This type is frequently present in Rand books: they don't even want to try anything.<p>Now, they seem to have come back in greater numbers in the modern world!<p>In case you are curious, the typology is nice to read: next is the serious man:<p>> And the result is that he never gets this validation because there is always someone with more. The serious man cannot ever admit to the subjectivity of his goals, that he himself identified them as such because to do so would be to acknowledge the subjectivity of his own existence<p>That defines perfectly well the "techbro" but also the control freaks: "since, despite all precautions, he will never be the master of this exterior world to which he has consented to submit, he will be constantly upset by the uncontrollable course of events."<p>There's also the adventurer (who doesn't care about others), and the passionate, the closest to freedom, but who fails to "accept the eternal distance he has from the thing which he wants to possess. Love, happiness – freedom comes in recognizing there will always be a distance between us and these things yet aspiring to them anyway"