Inefficient, but Smart
With so few data points in the anecdote, there are many narratives you can apply to it that all fit, each with it's own little facet of truth.One that resonates with what I'm going through in my life right now is that it seems that US culture optimizes for preventing unexpected bad experiences with the consequence that unexpected good experiences are lost too. There is very little serendipity to life in the US today. When you get a couch from Ikea, you know exactly how it's going to go. Every meal at McDonald's is like every meal there you've ever had.There are, of course, pockets of delight you can find. But, overall, it seems that our culture has trended towards risk-aversion, safety, familiarity. There's a sort of constant infantilization going on where we're trained to believe we can't handle surprises and thus we should avoid them. Millions of adults read nothing but "Young Adult" fiction. All of our biggest box office movies are comic book adaptations. Millions are on anti-anxiety medication.Because we avoid taking risks, we never learn to handle them. We never witness ourselves being resilient and gain the self-respect that that garners. So the feedback loop keeps us nestled tighter and tighter in our bubbles.