Interesting how people who have been through acute hardship, meaning random and senseless death of their immediate community, are less apathetic. Ie your parents', my grandparents', generation. Something about the human animal does poorly with existential precarity but no actual hardship.
If you are any good at mechanical engineering or math, you can find a job in those fields. If you're not very good, learn Javascript. It works itself out.
I think you are on to something in your second sentence. To what extent do you perceive these social effects being a result of the cultural character of those places that your classmates or their parents have emigrated from? It seems that affluent (or at least professional class) immigrants of the past three decades are very attuned to status/conformity, and so your experience may well be outside the 'norm' of the US. Keep your mind open as you grow up and meet people from across this country, there is an exciting amount of thought/values diversity if one looks for it in good faith. Focus on the upsides in the hyper-competitive nature of your current peers, they will hopefully mellow with age and wisdom (and will be extremely capable!).
Maybe he thinks that this would be many separate conflicts because of the different powers that partook and over different decades? Does seem to be a big deal.
I think the ties that bind in the Anglosphere are pretty much done for. These countries are basically malls that people move-to to get stuff, I think we need a little more collectivism - at least on the state/provincial level to be better balanced (US perspective).
