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This argument is the equivalent of a climate change denier stating "the climate is always changing". Anecdotally the percentage of my friends who I would descr

This argument is the equivalent of a climate change denier stating "the climate is always changing". Anecdotally the percentage of my friends who I would describe as unhappy has been increasing over time. In my early 20's at most 10% of my friends would be unhappy at any given moment, now in my 30's I feel like a solid 25% of my friends are noticeably unhappy and god knows how many are good at putting on a brave face. I don't know how much of this is just due to getting older or something specific to how our society is operating at this current point in history. When I talk to people from my parents generation I get the feeling that on average every year of their life was better than the last up until about 40, whereas it feels like the opposite is true for people today. I too am worried about the increasing scope of what determines a mental illness, but at the same time if your environment can cause you to get Pneumonia, it makes sense that your environment can cause you to experience clinical depression.

cs02rm0 8y ago
Being more stressed in your 30s than your early 20s is probably normal too. You've got less time on the planet, I've got a wife and three kids to support now, career options are vastly more limited, incurred massive debt to buy a house. But hey, things are going comparatively well for me relative to many of my peers. It seems really hard to compare between generations. Things are so different, but if mental health is towards the top of the pile of concerns now we should probably address it regardless of whether it's really a bigger issue than today than it was previously.
- iovrthoughtthis 8y ago
  But is normal ok?
- skohan 8y ago
  Normal in the context of how our society is structured, but far from ideal or unavoidable. For instance, I can compare the experience of my cousin raising two young kids on the east coast of the US with my girlfriend's sister in the same situation in Italy. In my cousin's case, she had to go back to work almost immediately in order to pay the high rents where she lives, and money's a constant stress because of the price of a decent daycare/preschool. Family's far away, so essentially all the childcare responsibilities fall on her and her husband. In contrast, my girlfriend's sister had 9 months of paid maternity leave with which she could stay home with the baby without undue financial stress. When she returned to work part time, she didn't have to rely on commercial childcare because her large extended family is close by to share the burden. In general that makes her and her husband's life more relaxed, because if they want to go away for the odd weekend they can leave the kids with grandma. If you ask me, the work culture is deeply pathological in places like the US and UK. With the rise in technology and automation there's no reason we couldn't live in societies which prioritize our human needs more highly.
  - user3359 8y ago
    I'll say I broadly agree that we should be moving towards a more evenly distributed system, and I'm a huge fan of the idea of basic income for the reason you outlined: giving people options. The caveat IMO is that having children is an incredibly selfish decision, and that decision shouldn't be publicly subsidized. It should come out of your discretionary spending. If we each get $2000/month and a kid costs you $1000/month, then you have to live off $1000/month, which means not living in overpriced areas. You can have anything you want in life, but you can't have everything.
    - cableshaft 8y ago
      Except if no one has kids, then our society collapses. So if society wants to keep its little engine moving, it's GDP going up up up every year, houses being bought, Social Security paid for, etc, it needs to at the very least not discourage the decision to have children so much that hardly anyone does it. It also seems that government that invest in children tend to have future generations of better educated, better adjusted, and better contributing members of society, which I feel is worth at least some investment.
      - dvdhnt 8y ago
        > Except if no one has kids, then our society collapses. Ah, ha! The top 1% are already on it.. they're pumping fortunes into defeating mortality as we speak. For those of us who can't afford it, I'm sure they'll be happy to extend our lives in return for some kind of "temporary" employment unto them, at least until we've repaid our debt... /s
      - user3359 8y ago
        Truthfully, I think we should be discouraging having children. There's too many people working too late in life that my peer group struggles to find meaningful work. A generation ago, people retired in their 50s and opened up jobs to the next generation, then died 10 years later and left family money to the next generation that could be used for housing. I don't have a single friend in my peer group who can afford housing, let alone has the income to raise children, if they don't have family money. Upward mobility into the well paying jobs is non existent, with 20 years of people in between them and executive level careers. People aren't going to stop having kids. It's too engrained in our society and genes. But with automation and an increasingly elderly workforce, job prospects are bad now and will continue to get worse for kids born in the last 10 years.

cs02rm0 8y ago

Being more stressed in your 30s than your early 20s is probably normal too. You've got less time on the planet, I've got a wife and three kids to support now, career options are vastly more limited, incurred massive debt to buy a house. But hey, things are going comparatively well for me relative to many of my peers. It seems really hard to compare between generations. Things are so different, but if mental health is towards the top of the pile of concerns now we should probably address it regardless of whether it's really a bigger issue than today than it was previously.

iovrthoughtthis 8y ago
But is normal ok?
skohan 8y ago
Normal in the context of how our society is structured, but far from ideal or unavoidable. For instance, I can compare the experience of my cousin raising two young kids on the east coast of the US with my girlfriend's sister in the same situation in Italy. In my cousin's case, she had to go back to work almost immediately in order to pay the high rents where she lives, and money's a constant stress because of the price of a decent daycare/preschool. Family's far away, so essentially all the childcare responsibilities fall on her and her husband. In contrast, my girlfriend's sister had 9 months of paid maternity leave with which she could stay home with the baby without undue financial stress. When she returned to work part time, she didn't have to rely on commercial childcare because her large extended family is close by to share the burden. In general that makes her and her husband's life more relaxed, because if they want to go away for the odd weekend they can leave the kids with grandma. If you ask me, the work culture is deeply pathological in places like the US and UK. With the rise in technology and automation there's no reason we couldn't live in societies which prioritize our human needs more highly.
- user3359 8y ago
  I'll say I broadly agree that we should be moving towards a more evenly distributed system, and I'm a huge fan of the idea of basic income for the reason you outlined: giving people options. The caveat IMO is that having children is an incredibly selfish decision, and that decision shouldn't be publicly subsidized. It should come out of your discretionary spending. If we each get $2000/month and a kid costs you $1000/month, then you have to live off $1000/month, which means not living in overpriced areas. You can have anything you want in life, but you can't have everything.
  - cableshaft 8y ago
    Except if no one has kids, then our society collapses. So if society wants to keep its little engine moving, it's GDP going up up up every year, houses being bought, Social Security paid for, etc, it needs to at the very least not discourage the decision to have children so much that hardly anyone does it. It also seems that government that invest in children tend to have future generations of better educated, better adjusted, and better contributing members of society, which I feel is worth at least some investment.
    - dvdhnt 8y ago
      > Except if no one has kids, then our society collapses. Ah, ha! The top 1% are already on it.. they're pumping fortunes into defeating mortality as we speak. For those of us who can't afford it, I'm sure they'll be happy to extend our lives in return for some kind of "temporary" employment unto them, at least until we've repaid our debt... /s
    - user3359 8y ago
      Truthfully, I think we should be discouraging having children. There's too many people working too late in life that my peer group struggles to find meaningful work. A generation ago, people retired in their 50s and opened up jobs to the next generation, then died 10 years later and left family money to the next generation that could be used for housing. I don't have a single friend in my peer group who can afford housing, let alone has the income to raise children, if they don't have family money. Upward mobility into the well paying jobs is non existent, with 20 years of people in between them and executive level careers. People aren't going to stop having kids. It's too engrained in our society and genes. But with automation and an increasingly elderly workforce, job prospects are bad now and will continue to get worse for kids born in the last 10 years.