Media as A Signal Two: Reflections on America in the 2020s
It’s always interesting watching films, I think a movie or movies reflect the sentiment of a country. Reflect and sometimes lead too. I wrote before about the aggressive and more bellicose nature of Chinese movies in the last decade. The depressing and grim nature of Japanese movies during the early 2000s.
There was a recent insight raised by the brilliant crypto entrepreneur and investor Balaji Srinavasan about popular blockbuster American movies in recent years, Oppenheimer, Barbie, Top Gun 2. They reflect nostalgia. A time when America was great, powerful and when the future was bright. When America was the bright shining city on the hill, prosperity was wide and we had immense economic and military power.
The disillusionment that started in 2000s with the Iraq War 2, the GFC aka Global Financial Crisis of 2008, the quagmire of Iraq & Afghanistan, the hollowing out of our industrial base and middle class, the 2020 pandemic and brutal lockdowns, the chaotic retreat from Afghanistan, inflation and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine showed how ineffective our elites have turned out to be. Disgusting, corrupt, grifting, incompetent elites who have led us to this. No wonder most Americans pine for a perceived better time.
But I think we are on the cusp of a big turnaround. Manufacturing is slowly but steadily coming back to America, thanks to the CHIPs Act and IRA under Biden. I expect this to accelerate under Trump.. We still have the US Dollar as the reservoir currency, we have tremendous amounts of natural resources, energy and food. America continues to suck in young smart talent from around the world.
More importantly, morale among many of the top young people is back. The AI boom is real and this will transform the economy. People are Inspired by Elon Musk and SpaceX’s recent accomplishments of reusable rockets. Anduril’s success in challenging the defense primes and beating them. We see an outgrowth of young smart entrepreneurs turning their back on SaaS and focusing on deeptech and hardtech all over America. But particularly in Southern California mainly El Segundo, Costa Mesa, Torrance, San Diego, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Hawthorne, among other places.
I love watching this new breed of founder. Mission driven workaholics. Patriotic, athletic, many religious, representing a more muscular Christian, outspoken and Based. Working on startups ranging from Nuclear power, space satellites, robots, weather control, drones, hydrogen airships.
And with a new Worlds Fair coming on America’s 250th anniversary I expect many of these breakthrough technologies will be shown here. It’s hard not to be optimistic about the future. What was science fiction is now becoming science fact as Lux Capital founder Josh Wolfe often says.
What an amazing time to be alive. America is back!!