5 ms·
Yup. It's frustrating to hear people wailing about how shit everything is when in reality they are living lives of comfort and safety unparalleled in human hist
by retube 10y ago
Yup. It's frustrating to hear people wailing about how shit everything is when in reality they are living lives of comfort and safety unparalleled in human history.
- everyone 10y agoSimply physical comforts will not make humans happy. We have very intense cheating detection, perceived inequality, unfairness or injustice will piss us off. Also, our evaluation of how well-off we are is based on comparing to our neighbours.
- snrplfth 10y ago>We have very intense cheating detection, perceived inequality, unfairness or injustice will piss us off. True - although it's often a very mono-directional detector. Anyone higher up on the ladder, or taking advantage of cheats we didn't see, gets the full focus of our attention, while anyone lower down or slow on the take is clearly just a sucker. Pretty bad heuristic, unfortunately.
- rmc 10y ago> Simply physical comforts will not make humans happy. Correct. But take away "physical comforts" and people are much much more likely to be unhappy.
- ska 10y agoWe've been living lives of unparalleled comfort and safety with nearly monotonic increase since after the industrial revolution. Would you have preferred all progress had stopped at some point? Mostly things get better because people are dissatisfied with current state. edit: I find the downvotes on this confusing - I don't see anything controversial in above.
- sdegutis 10y agoLook at that same statement from the opposite direction: despite constant progress, most people are dissatisfied with current state. Awful way to live! Not an attitude to rationalize and look at the upside of!
- ska 10y agoMany (most? that seems strong) people are dissatisfied with some aspects of the current state they feel can and should be done better. Sounds like a perfectly rational attitude, not rationalized. Also doesn't imply any awfulness in the way they live unless you subscribe to Buddhist teaching about attachment.
- VLM 10y ago"nearly monotonic increase" That nearly gets them every time.
- ska 10y agoIt is a rather sticky point. Likewise though, the OPs "people wailing about how shit everything is" are pretty unusual. Mostly what you hear are different people dissatisfied with different things. If you choose to aggregate this in your mind to some abstract "person" you get an odd picture of what is going on.
- nylonstrung 10y agoAlso lives where the majority of us are obligated to be stationless indoors in front of screens 9 hours per day. There's an unequivocal improvement in certain metrics. It doesn't mean there aren't other serious issues often proprietary to the time we live. I'd also argue that those metrics don't always correlate with happiness beyond a certain level.