Americans, Too comfortable? Options

[*steve330*]

The other day I was talking to a Retired Captain from the navy and we were just discussing things in general when we came up to the topic of America. He brought up some very good points, and while I'll try to say them the best I can, the way he said it was really good.

Basically he was saying that perhaps one of the biggest problems with Americans nowadays is that we're too comfortable. We've gotten so used to not having to worry about things on a daily basis that we're not nearly as ambitious as Americans used to be.

Another thing he criticized was fund allocation. Surprisingly, he didn't say that money needed to go towards science/technology like so many do. In his words, "What has science done for us as a people?" I mean sure, technology has made us more comfortable on a day to day basis and made it easier for us to kill each other, but when it comes down to it, Americans got to their current status because of it's people, not it's technology.

[HakunaMatata]

I think that those who are comfortable aren't ambitious, but I wouldn't say that about America as a whole. I live in an area that's full of people who aren't comfortable at all and live out total completions of that whole work-just-to-have-food-on-the-table stereotype. They are extremely ambitious, that's why they're families are here, to make sure that they get out of their current situations and move up, up, up.But I just don't think that that's the American Americans think of.

And although I understand why he said that it's a big "problem" that Americans are comfortable, how much can be done about that? Certainly not make lives uncomfortable, that'd be considered crime (well, not literally, but you know).