Language like this is dangerous. You don’t know everyone. You don’t know their hopes and ambitions. Sweeping language like this fools us into believing that our anecdotal experiences contain universal messages. People have been saying for millennia that their contemporaries were “taught, commanded, and then culturally licensed” to be their “shallowest, narrowest, most grasping selves” (see the poetry of Hanshan for a poignant example in premodern China). In fact, that’s the message of most religions. And yet, despite the fact that people have ALWAYS criticized others for following trivial, inconsequential desires, individuals have continued to follow grand passions and ambitions. The world is unimaginably diverse. Reducing it to what is visible in your experience of the internet and public dialogue is dangerous because it creates inaccurate perceptions.