It's definitely good to diversify, but these really only pay off if you expect to be in a higher tax bracket during retirement (you make $60k/yr at your job now but expect to withdraw $150k/yr during retirement). With a 401k it's the reverse, where you expect to be making less per year during retirement, which is probably more applicable for most people.

Employer sponsored 401k plans usually don’t give that much choice in how you allocate the money.

401k plans aren't usually the place to do exotic investing. Most offer at least one fund matching the S&P 500 or total stock market, another covering the total bond market, then usually a mix of small cap, mid cap, growth, and income funds.

Realistically you only need some funds moderately solid in your 401k while you're employed there. As soon as you change jobs, you can roll it over to your own IRA where you have much more control.

That being said our whole economy is tied to the stock market, in my opinion to the point it’s “too big to fail” (at least catastrophically).

It isn't that those companies are publicly traded in the stock market that makes them "too big too fail" all at the same time, its that the stock market also overlaps with the huge majority of GDP generating commerce in the USA. If the stock market is failing (the whole thing at the same time) then the US economy is failing.

Oh, ok, I was assuming that as a starting point. Our elected leaders may only focus on short term and hot button issues, but social security should be a given. Fixing it ahead of time is the best/easiest, but you know they won’t until they have to

While it’s true that industry saw the transition to 401k as a chance to save money and leave us worse off, there are advantages. Compared to pensions:

• Owning our own money is a good thing. We control it almost from the beginning, instead of trusting a pension provider
• We take it with us, even from relatively short jobs, instead of being locked into one employer for life
• and yes, we can choose our investments. Over the decades we should be accumulating retirement money, stocks have always outperformed (obviously not true as you get shorter term).

People don’t understand finances here judging by the vote tallies.

Yes the stock market is bullshit but you’re still earning more money there than you would anywhere else. You’re not going to be retiring off of cash under your mattress or with it earning 0.05% in your Bank of America savings account.

I'm keeping an open mind. Perhaps the poster holding that view of "no stock market" can indeed live on mattress or 5% HYSA interest. Maybe they are planning on retiring in another country with far lower cost of living, and the risk of exposure to equities isn't worth it to them. For retiring in the USA however, I don't know of other ways to grow your saving enough to beat inflation to retire on at a lifestyle resembling that of the working years earning the principcal.