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You're repeating propaganda. May be there's less violence, but the amount of suffering has skyrocketed over the years. A more than significant amount of people

You're repeating propaganda. May be there's less violence, but the amount of suffering has skyrocketed over the years. A more than significant amount of people are dependent on tranquilizers and anti-depressants to make their life bearable, because for them it has become mundane and meaningless without. Statistiscs may tell a story of less violence, and people getting older and having more material possessions, but these do not reflect the actual well-being of people, and also these numbers don't show how much exploitation and environmental damage our alleged 'prosperity' causes in other parts of the world.

untog 10y ago
What you're saying is "statistics might tell one story, but let me tell you, without citing sources or evidence, those statistics are wrong".
- yawgmoth 10y ago
  You can have a quantifiable increase in quality of life without it being a meaningful increase in quality of life.
  - termain 10y ago
    That seems incompleat. Could you continue?
    - scalio 10y ago
      Most quality of life reports include ratings that are some variation on "average monthly income", meaning this nowadays pretty arbitrary measure of wealth aka money that you have no control over is factored into how happy you're supposed to be. Money is not the primary condition for happiness for many people, and markets are a complex thing, meaning having more money does not automatically entail having a better life. (just my understanding of parent's comment)
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  "Never trust a statistic you haven't faked yourself".
- simonb 10y ago
  For one, suicide rates in the developed world are on the rise: http://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/ http://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/
  - MichaelGG 10y ago
    But this might be caused by all sorts of things. More people rejecting (or being more "moderate" in) religion, for instance. Or more people being able to get a more accurate view of the world. Or social acceptability changing. Doesn't seem fair to look at overall statistics for peace and prosperity, then say "well that doesn't really count".
    - simonb 10y ago
      Of course, but all these are manifestations of the same ideological system (that also brought "peace and prosperity").
    - f1hybrid 10y ago
      If there is a rise in the curve of suicides caused by more people having an accurate view of the world, a realisation that causes them to take their own lives, I'm sure the solution is not to try to get people to believe in something that is false.
- wfo 10y ago
  No, what he's saying is "your metrics are measuring the wrong things and so it does not matter what numbers pop out of them; they are completely meaningless when it comes to answering the question which is actually important".
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - davnn 10y ago
    But nobody can answer the important question except for themselves.
    - onetimePete 10y ago
      You can measure the amount of ability to choose and answer your own questions though. Also, this all very idealistic nonsense- until 300 years ago, we lived basically in tribal community, and people yearn for that, no matter how futuristic they dress up.
- StanislavPetrov 10y ago
  No, what he is saying is that you can make any argument appear valid if you cherry pick statistics. There's less violence according to who? There are more people in prison today then any time in history. I'd argue that imprisoning someone is an act of violence. Violent coercion is also violence. Every time the government violates your rights, at the point of the gun, that's violence. That occurs hundreds of millions of times per day due to the actions of our police state. Delusional people who talk about the rosy benefits of overpopulation always fail to mention that overpopulation is a direct cause of the 6th mass extinction, the saturation of the environment with chemical pollutants, the overfishing of the oceans, the destruction of tillable fields with nitrogen injection (which also leads to massive dead zones in waterways from runoff), and the list goes on. Talking about how wonderful overpopulation is and how great we are getting along is like talking about how warm and comforting the fire on the life boat is while you burn your oars. It seems like a great idea until the oars are gone and not only are you cold, but you can no longer row.
witty_username 10y ago
> May be there's less violence, but the amount of suffering has skyrocketed over the years. A more than significant amount of people are dependent on tranquilizers and anti-depressants to make their life bearable, because for them it has become mundane and meaningless without. Citation? I haven't heard of anyone who is dependent on tranquilizers or anti-depressants (well, apart from the Internet from people with clinical depression), so it can't be that common.
- legulere 10y ago
  The first thing I found on duckduckgo: http://www.webmd.com/depression/news/20111019/use-of-antidepressants-on-the-rise-in-the-us http://www.webmd.com/depression/news/20111019/use-of-antidep... "About 11% of Americans aged 12 or older take antidepressants" (2011) "the rate of antidepressant use in the U.S. has increased nearly 400% since 1988." Many people that are on anti-depressants won't tell you about it. edit: Really? Downvote me just because I provided a source to the claim that more people are on antidepressants today?
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    I'm sure its high. I'm also sure we use more vaccines, bone marrow transplants and leukemia cures than before. Its not always a bad thing that folks aren't suffering as they used to historically.
  - witty_username 10y ago
    Probably due to higher diagnosis and superior antidepressants (so patients are more likely to be prescribed). Rate of antidepressant use isn't a good proxy for mental illnesses.
  - marknutter 10y ago
    That doesn't necessarily people are more depressed now than they were in the past. It could also mean that people who would have been depressed either way are now finally getting treatment for it. Sounds pretty good to me.
  - 10y ago
blue_dinner 10y ago
"May be there's less violence, but the amount of suffering has skyrocketed over the years. A more than significant amount of people are dependent on tranquilizers and anti-depressants to make their life bearable, because for them it has become mundane and meaningless without." I don't think this is very accurate. People get hooked on painkillers usually because they had some sort of accident and need them for pain...and since opiates are extremely addictive, continue to take them after they no longer need them. "also these numbers don't show how much exploitation and environmental damage our alleged 'prosperity' causes in other parts of the world." You can't blame us for countries that decide to have no rules and ruin their environment. When you compare the environment of the US to pretty much anywhere in the world, it's one of the cleanest (if not the cleanest). ..and 'exploitation'? We built the middle class of China. Before we started going overseas to build factories, the majority of people in China were in complete and utter poverty. Hardly what I call exploitation.
- dragontamer 10y ago
  In contrast, Chinese people got hooked on Opium because the British was making so much money off of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War The Treaty of Nanking was basically crafted so that British Merchants can continue to get China hopped up on Opium. Because it was so profitable. And people think today's trade deals are bad...
- tamana 10y ago
  Nice. "You can't blame us for buying things from people who use slave labor and slaughter their slaves by the millions if they don't cooperate."
dragontamer 10y ago
Yeah, because the Opium Wars of 1800s never happened or something. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Opium_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Opium_War Your ignorance of history is outstanding and on display. Whatever the TTIP is, it is most certainly not a secret agreement to allow Opium into the Chinese economy to wreak the common people. We are better and more civilized people today than we were back then. Period. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears Afghanistan was always an awful place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Afghan_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Afghan_War And there are certainly fewer outright rebellions like the Boxer Rebellion going on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion Of course, Imperialism doesn't actually happen anymore. We don't go to war on 100% false pretenses (yeah, WMDs were bad, but "Remember the Maine to Hell with Spain" was significantly worse) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish%E2%80%93American_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish%E2%80%93American_War The reasoning of the 1900s was that "War is good. Social Darwinism at its finest". Survival of the fittest, lets fight. World War 1 was fought not out of necessity, but out of curiosity. We had new weapons, and we wanted to use them on each other. It was finally time for the great Powers of the World to compete in the glory of War. We are a hell of a lot more peaceful today. No country actually has the appetite for the amount of warrant-less killing that Imperialism creates. We actually are connected to every other country in the world and care about the citizens of other countries. In the late 1800s, we didn't even give a damn about the natives of our own country, or Black people, or even Women. (See Jim Crow laws).
- wavefunction 10y ago
  >>No country actually has the appetite for the amount of warrant-less killing that Imperialism creates The US drone war has been killing hundreds and thousands of innocent people so I wonder if perhaps we do have an appetite for that sort of murder.
  - dragontamer 10y ago
    Right. You just keep ignoring the good parts of history. You do realize that America opened up Concentration Camps inside of the Philippine-American War? Americans retaliated against the Philippinos by creating such lovely orders like "Kill everyone over the age of 10". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_H._Smith#Samar_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_H._Smith#Samar_campaign > "I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn the better it will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against the United States," General Jacob H. Smith said. America, F-yeah! And of course, the definition of "capable of bearing arms" is: > "Persons of ten years and older are those designated as being capable of bearing arms" ------ But yeah, continue to pretend that modern war is worse than the past or something. Hundreds or thousands of innocent civilians? F-ing hell, we did 25,000 to 50,000 for s--- and giggles back then. In a single campaign, by a single general who was never punished.
woodpanel 10y ago
Having "more posessions", posessions at all, "getting older" and the least amount of violence (probably) since ever - constitutes what I'd call the most awesome time for humanity thus far. What you call WW3, just shows how much capitalism has tamed even the biggest powers and helped make this world a more resilient civilization.
tamana 10y ago
People weren't less depressed before Prozac, except if they were too busy starving or laboring.
Nimitz14 10y ago
Is this HN or /r/conspiracy lol.

untog 10y ago

What you're saying is "statistics might tell one story, but let me tell you, without citing sources or evidence, those statistics are wrong".

yawgmoth 10y ago
You can have a quantifiable increase in quality of life without it being a meaningful increase in quality of life.
- termain 10y ago
  That seems incompleat. Could you continue?
  - scalio 10y ago
    Most quality of life reports include ratings that are some variation on "average monthly income", meaning this nowadays pretty arbitrary measure of wealth aka money that you have no control over is factored into how happy you're supposed to be. Money is not the primary condition for happiness for many people, and markets are a complex thing, meaning having more money does not automatically entail having a better life. (just my understanding of parent's comment)
cookiecaper 10y ago
"Never trust a statistic you haven't faked yourself".
simonb 10y ago
For one, suicide rates in the developed world are on the rise: http://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/ http://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  But this might be caused by all sorts of things. More people rejecting (or being more "moderate" in) religion, for instance. Or more people being able to get a more accurate view of the world. Or social acceptability changing. Doesn't seem fair to look at overall statistics for peace and prosperity, then say "well that doesn't really count".
  - simonb 10y ago
    Of course, but all these are manifestations of the same ideological system (that also brought "peace and prosperity").
  - f1hybrid 10y ago
    If there is a rise in the curve of suicides caused by more people having an accurate view of the world, a realisation that causes them to take their own lives, I'm sure the solution is not to try to get people to believe in something that is false.
wfo 10y ago
No, what he's saying is "your metrics are measuring the wrong things and so it does not matter what numbers pop out of them; they are completely meaningless when it comes to answering the question which is actually important".
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- davnn 10y ago
  But nobody can answer the important question except for themselves.
  - onetimePete 10y ago
    You can measure the amount of ability to choose and answer your own questions though. Also, this all very idealistic nonsense- until 300 years ago, we lived basically in tribal community, and people yearn for that, no matter how futuristic they dress up.
StanislavPetrov 10y ago
No, what he is saying is that you can make any argument appear valid if you cherry pick statistics. There's less violence according to who? There are more people in prison today then any time in history. I'd argue that imprisoning someone is an act of violence. Violent coercion is also violence. Every time the government violates your rights, at the point of the gun, that's violence. That occurs hundreds of millions of times per day due to the actions of our police state. Delusional people who talk about the rosy benefits of overpopulation always fail to mention that overpopulation is a direct cause of the 6th mass extinction, the saturation of the environment with chemical pollutants, the overfishing of the oceans, the destruction of tillable fields with nitrogen injection (which also leads to massive dead zones in waterways from runoff), and the list goes on. Talking about how wonderful overpopulation is and how great we are getting along is like talking about how warm and comforting the fire on the life boat is while you burn your oars. It seems like a great idea until the oars are gone and not only are you cold, but you can no longer row.

witty_username 10y ago

> May be there's less violence, but the amount of suffering has skyrocketed over the years. A more than significant amount of people are dependent on tranquilizers and anti-depressants to make their life bearable, because for them it has become mundane and meaningless without. Citation? I haven't heard of anyone who is dependent on tranquilizers or anti-depressants (well, apart from the Internet from people with clinical depression), so it can't be that common.

legulere 10y ago
The first thing I found on duckduckgo: http://www.webmd.com/depression/news/20111019/use-of-antidepressants-on-the-rise-in-the-us http://www.webmd.com/depression/news/20111019/use-of-antidep... "About 11% of Americans aged 12 or older take antidepressants" (2011) "the rate of antidepressant use in the U.S. has increased nearly 400% since 1988." Many people that are on anti-depressants won't tell you about it. edit: Really? Downvote me just because I provided a source to the claim that more people are on antidepressants today?
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  I'm sure its high. I'm also sure we use more vaccines, bone marrow transplants and leukemia cures than before. Its not always a bad thing that folks aren't suffering as they used to historically.
- witty_username 10y ago
  Probably due to higher diagnosis and superior antidepressants (so patients are more likely to be prescribed). Rate of antidepressant use isn't a good proxy for mental illnesses.
- marknutter 10y ago
  That doesn't necessarily people are more depressed now than they were in the past. It could also mean that people who would have been depressed either way are now finally getting treatment for it. Sounds pretty good to me.
- 10y ago

blue_dinner 10y ago

"May be there's less violence, but the amount of suffering has skyrocketed over the years. A more than significant amount of people are dependent on tranquilizers and anti-depressants to make their life bearable, because for them it has become mundane and meaningless without." I don't think this is very accurate. People get hooked on painkillers usually because they had some sort of accident and need them for pain...and since opiates are extremely addictive, continue to take them after they no longer need them. "also these numbers don't show how much exploitation and environmental damage our alleged 'prosperity' causes in other parts of the world." You can't blame us for countries that decide to have no rules and ruin their environment. When you compare the environment of the US to pretty much anywhere in the world, it's one of the cleanest (if not the cleanest). ..and 'exploitation'? We built the middle class of China. Before we started going overseas to build factories, the majority of people in China were in complete and utter poverty. Hardly what I call exploitation.

dragontamer 10y ago
In contrast, Chinese people got hooked on Opium because the British was making so much money off of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War The Treaty of Nanking was basically crafted so that British Merchants can continue to get China hopped up on Opium. Because it was so profitable. And people think today's trade deals are bad...
tamana 10y ago
Nice. "You can't blame us for buying things from people who use slave labor and slaughter their slaves by the millions if they don't cooperate."

dragontamer 10y ago

Yeah, because the Opium Wars of 1800s never happened or something. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Opium_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Opium_War Your ignorance of history is outstanding and on display. Whatever the TTIP is, it is most certainly not a secret agreement to allow Opium into the Chinese economy to wreak the common people. We are better and more civilized people today than we were back then. Period. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears Afghanistan was always an awful place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Afghan_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Afghan_War And there are certainly fewer outright rebellions like the Boxer Rebellion going on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion Of course, Imperialism doesn't actually happen anymore. We don't go to war on 100% false pretenses (yeah, WMDs were bad, but "Remember the Maine to Hell with Spain" was significantly worse) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish%E2%80%93American_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish%E2%80%93American_War The reasoning of the 1900s was that "War is good. Social Darwinism at its finest". Survival of the fittest, lets fight. World War 1 was fought not out of necessity, but out of curiosity. We had new weapons, and we wanted to use them on each other. It was finally time for the great Powers of the World to compete in the glory of War. We are a hell of a lot more peaceful today. No country actually has the appetite for the amount of warrant-less killing that Imperialism creates. We actually are connected to every other country in the world and care about the citizens of other countries. In the late 1800s, we didn't even give a damn about the natives of our own country, or Black people, or even Women. (See Jim Crow laws).

wavefunction 10y ago
>>No country actually has the appetite for the amount of warrant-less killing that Imperialism creates The US drone war has been killing hundreds and thousands of innocent people so I wonder if perhaps we do have an appetite for that sort of murder.
- dragontamer 10y ago
  Right. You just keep ignoring the good parts of history. You do realize that America opened up Concentration Camps inside of the Philippine-American War? Americans retaliated against the Philippinos by creating such lovely orders like "Kill everyone over the age of 10". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_H._Smith#Samar_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_H._Smith#Samar_campaign > "I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn the better it will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against the United States," General Jacob H. Smith said. America, F-yeah! And of course, the definition of "capable of bearing arms" is: > "Persons of ten years and older are those designated as being capable of bearing arms" ------ But yeah, continue to pretend that modern war is worse than the past or something. Hundreds or thousands of innocent civilians? F-ing hell, we did 25,000 to 50,000 for s--- and giggles back then. In a single campaign, by a single general who was never punished.

woodpanel 10y ago

Having "more posessions", posessions at all, "getting older" and the least amount of violence (probably) since ever - constitutes what I'd call the most awesome time for humanity thus far. What you call WW3, just shows how much capitalism has tamed even the biggest powers and helped make this world a more resilient civilization.

tamana 10y ago

People weren't less depressed before Prozac, except if they were too busy starving or laboring.

Nimitz14 10y ago

Is this HN or /r/conspiracy lol.