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Capitalism in the 21st century has also resulted in the highest ever recorded rate of anxiety, depression and suicide. Despite all the gains seen to capital, th

Capitalism in the 21st century has also resulted in the highest ever recorded rate of anxiety, depression and suicide. Despite all the gains seen to capital, the average person is either completely overworked or struggling to find a job, is finding it increasingly difficult to own their house and feels more and more alienated from their local community to the extent that they prefer to live in online fantasy worlds.

ehnto 9y ago
That could be due to the reporting and diagnosis of those illnesses or lack thereof in earlier times. I don't disagree that capitalism optimizes for the wrong metrics. I simply don't have the knowledge one way or another to say it would or wouldn't be possible to have such progress without capitalism but I wonder if we haven't hit some kind of peak comfort in technology, and we should really start shifting focus to reaching a peak humanity instead. Everyone has a smartphone yet it hasn't made them happy for example. I think we simply missed some refinements and balances on our march to success.
- WalterBright 9y ago
  > Everyone has a smartphone yet it hasn't made them happy Wasn't there a comedy shtick about how incredible it is to fly at 30,000 feet in a padded seat sipping a drink crossing the country, and yet complain about the flight being 5 minutes late? I wonder how you propose society should fix that.
  - sooheon 9y ago
    Louis CK, if we're thinking of the same bit. He makes exactly the point that it's not the magnitude of your material wealth that makes you happy. We think it should, which is why when it does not, comedy can be found. A system which only seems to measure and increase wealth is not going to produce many happy people.
  - ehnto 9y ago
    Well, since you wondered! I don't have a solution. Or even a coherent summary of the problem. I'm not sure the problem is with capitalism specifically but how we've coerced all parts of life to align with it, when perhaps that wasn't necessary. An incredible amount of society is geared for nothing but enabling commerce. Career, status, housing, cars, gadgets, even areas of academia are just part of the pipeline of commerce. I think we encourage people to chase a red herring, and to fail to catch it causes people huge distress, it's all they can focus on. But even if you are successful you can still come to realise it was all just part of the machine of commerce, and that's not really a very human or very compelling story.
    - SamReidHughes 9y ago
      People are coerced into doing useful stuff for other people in all societies.
dnautics 9y ago
>highest ever recorded rate of anxiety, depression and suicide What a problem to have!! You could instead be worried about plague, influenza, capricious wars, kidnapping, enslavement, childbirth, or the chirurgeon's leeches.
- bigmanwalter 9y ago
  Some would argue that a lifetime of depression causes more pain than a quick death by sword or plague. The goal is to eliminate suffering, not create new kinds.
  - WalterBright 9y ago
    I suspect your preference for death by being chopped up or plague would evaporate if you were faced with it. (Perhaps you don't know that death by sword was hardly quick. Death from sword injuries usually came hours or days later of agony. Star Wars has perpetrated a myth that hacking someone with a sword is somehow elegant and civilized.)
    - bigmanwalter 9y ago
      Depression can last many years. I doubt you would brush it away so quickly if you'd ever experienced it. Please note that my preference is to rid the world of both.
      - WalterBright 9y ago
        Such depression is a medical condition, not a result of capitalism.
        bigmanwalter 9y ago
        PTSD is a medical condition, and is the result of capitalism's wars. Medical conditions and the results of capitalism aren't mutually exclusive. For another example, consider cancers and other health problems brought on by unregulated pollution.

ehnto 9y ago

That could be due to the reporting and diagnosis of those illnesses or lack thereof in earlier times. I don't disagree that capitalism optimizes for the wrong metrics. I simply don't have the knowledge one way or another to say it would or wouldn't be possible to have such progress without capitalism but I wonder if we haven't hit some kind of peak comfort in technology, and we should really start shifting focus to reaching a peak humanity instead. Everyone has a smartphone yet it hasn't made them happy for example. I think we simply missed some refinements and balances on our march to success.

WalterBright 9y ago
> Everyone has a smartphone yet it hasn't made them happy Wasn't there a comedy shtick about how incredible it is to fly at 30,000 feet in a padded seat sipping a drink crossing the country, and yet complain about the flight being 5 minutes late? I wonder how you propose society should fix that.
- sooheon 9y ago
  Louis CK, if we're thinking of the same bit. He makes exactly the point that it's not the magnitude of your material wealth that makes you happy. We think it should, which is why when it does not, comedy can be found. A system which only seems to measure and increase wealth is not going to produce many happy people.
- ehnto 9y ago
  Well, since you wondered! I don't have a solution. Or even a coherent summary of the problem. I'm not sure the problem is with capitalism specifically but how we've coerced all parts of life to align with it, when perhaps that wasn't necessary. An incredible amount of society is geared for nothing but enabling commerce. Career, status, housing, cars, gadgets, even areas of academia are just part of the pipeline of commerce. I think we encourage people to chase a red herring, and to fail to catch it causes people huge distress, it's all they can focus on. But even if you are successful you can still come to realise it was all just part of the machine of commerce, and that's not really a very human or very compelling story.
  - SamReidHughes 9y ago
    People are coerced into doing useful stuff for other people in all societies.

dnautics 9y ago

>highest ever recorded rate of anxiety, depression and suicide What a problem to have!! You could instead be worried about plague, influenza, capricious wars, kidnapping, enslavement, childbirth, or the chirurgeon's leeches.

bigmanwalter 9y ago
Some would argue that a lifetime of depression causes more pain than a quick death by sword or plague. The goal is to eliminate suffering, not create new kinds.
- WalterBright 9y ago
  I suspect your preference for death by being chopped up or plague would evaporate if you were faced with it. (Perhaps you don't know that death by sword was hardly quick. Death from sword injuries usually came hours or days later of agony. Star Wars has perpetrated a myth that hacking someone with a sword is somehow elegant and civilized.)
  - bigmanwalter 9y ago
    Depression can last many years. I doubt you would brush it away so quickly if you'd ever experienced it. Please note that my preference is to rid the world of both.
    - WalterBright 9y ago
      Such depression is a medical condition, not a result of capitalism.
      - bigmanwalter 9y ago
        PTSD is a medical condition, and is the result of capitalism's wars. Medical conditions and the results of capitalism aren't mutually exclusive. For another example, consider cancers and other health problems brought on by unregulated pollution.