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Consider the big picture. Life is suffering with sparse sprinkles of happiness here and there. If you feel bad take a page from Budism, it's the best religion

Consider the big picture. Life is suffering with sparse sprinkles of happiness here and there. If you feel bad take a page from Budism, it's the best religion for your mind, and I am an avid agnostic. It's the "No bullshit" religion, basically it's your problem, fix it or learn to live with it. It teaches you to embrace suffering as part of living, everything is for you to endure, consider how to solve (or not) and grow. By solve I mean reflect on the outcomes and choose to do something, just accept it or just ignore it. The best thing you can do is learn to be your own support, by analysing the issues that throuble you and choose a path. Besides that We live in the best era human kind has ever had by a long mile. * There is food to survive for almost everyone, no famines in the last 100 years. * Big world changing wars have not happened in almost 100 years. * So much extra wealth in the world almost anyone can enjoy life a bit, have a hobbie, travel, eat out, go out, movies, theather, sports. * No cold war, no dooms day clock * Democracy, information is basically free. * Freedom to do whatever you want ( and face the consequences too) * Poverty is getting smaller by the day (yeah rich are getting richer but check 1500, 1600, 1700, 1800 or 1900 out for a good perspective on what being poor was) Basically we are the luckies people that ever lived, COVID or no COVID. Randomly pick to someone from any other year that ever lived, your life is better even if you get a king it's probably still better.

minikites 5y ago
>Democracy is booming It absolutely is not, there are many threats to democracy right here in the USA. Many Republican states are passing massive voter suppression bills.
- cfontes 5y ago
  I am not an american. I mean in the world, yours might be worst but check the other countries, in the last 50 years a lot of military governments and dictatorships ended.
airhead969 5y ago
You're either a bloody liar, delusional, naïve, or don't have functioning eyes. - Famine in Yemen. Ongoing. - Famine in South Sudan. Ongoing. - Two years of drought in certain countries would push the world into global famine. Climate change weather patterns like Oregon/Canada and the ongoing mega drought in the US west and SW are just previews. - Millions and millions of homeless in America. I can see the camps and tents in every major city. - Standard of living decreasing. Real wages declining. - Mass shootings every day. - More prisoners per capita than any other country. - Doing absolutely nothing effective about climate change... which is going to kill us, most species, and the planet. - The threat of global nuclear war over Taiwan is very, very real. - Healthcare costs soaring, life expectancies plummeting. - There is no democracy, it's a plutocracy. The very rich own the majority of Western countries outright.
- jcims 5y ago
  Two comments stood out to me in browsing as needlessly rude and angsty, and it turns out they were both yours. Are you commenting for effect or just to vent?
  - airhead969 5y ago
    What do you have to add of value? You take and make things too personally. Look in the mirror.
- samatman 5y ago
  Your first sentence contains the kind of abusive language which has no place on this platform. Don't do that here.
  - airhead969 5y ago
    I did not mean to offend your delicate pearl-clutchings, white knight defending idiots, that was just a bonus.
    - samatman 5y ago
      Point is that your account won't last around here if you keep breaking the rules. Simple as.
    - dang 5y ago
      We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines and ignoring our requests to stop. Please don't create accounts to do that with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- fpoling 5y ago
  The famine in Yemen and Sudan is a result of logistic breakdown when the war etc. makes it very expensive to transport food. US produces enough food to feed like 2-3 billions people. It is just the vast majority of it goes to feed animals to get cheap meat. So even with agricultural output drop like 50% the will be no famine in US. The meat will be much more expensive, but no calories shortage.
ludocode 5y ago
To play devil's advocate here: things are of course better today than they have been for most of human history. But for those of us in prosperous Western countries, they aren't necessarily better than they were, say, 50 years ago. In fact I would argue that we're in much worse shape. Part of the problem is that things have gotten worse on a rather short timescale. Millenials know very well the feeling of being judged by the older generations for not owning a house and two cars, not having a wife and children, not having a high-paying job to go with our university degrees. Some of your points are true, but I would argue about these in particular: > * There is food to survive for almost everyone, no famines in the last 100 years. > * So much extra wealth in the world almost anyone can enjoy life a bit, have a hobbie, travel, eat out, go out, movies, theather, sports. > * Poverty is getting smaller by the day (yeah rich are getting richer but check 1500, 1600, 1700, 1800 or 1900 out for a good perspective on what being poor was) Many more Americans are food insecure than they were 50 years ago. The USDA estimates that 11 million children are food insecure in the US. Poverty in the US has in fact been increasing for decades, but government statistics don't reflect it because they measure poverty based on a 1950s spending model. The West has endured decades of trickle down economics when the reality is that wealth trickles up. Of course total wealth is increasing, but the lower and middle classes have captured none of it. The vast majority of humans on Earth cannot afford to travel or even take vacations, and those in prosperous Western countries have had continually decreasing disposable income for decades. > * No cold war, no dooms day clock > * Democracy, information is basically free. You have this so backwards that it's baffling. The doomsday clock is the closest to midnight it has ever been since its inception in 1947. It currently sits at 100 seconds to midnight. World leaders have become increasingly reckless, unstable and authoritarian. The last US president said, "We have all these nukes, why aren't we using them?" Whether we lack a cold war is debatable. There has not been a significant drop in proxy wars or in militarization of world powers since the fall of the Soviet Union. The US still spends an ever increasing share of its budget on military, and it actually uses it to kill. The US has been in a continuous state of war for the longest period in its entire history. There are people voting today that were not yet born when the war with Afghanistan started. > Basically we are the luckies people that ever lived, COVID or no COVID. Randomly pick to someone from any other year that ever lived, your life is better even if you get a king it's probably still better This is not as true as you think, and I don't believe it will be true for long. For most of human history there were very few humans. There were probably about 100 billion humans that have ever lived, and about 8 billion are alive today. So if you were to pick a random human from history, there's a non-negligible chance that your pick would be alive today. I've argued above that we in the West are experiencing decreasing quality of life. I worry it will start to fall much more rapidly over the coming decades due to climate change, wealth inequality and potential nuclear war. Considering the big picture is probably not a good idea; we may be better off living in ignorant bliss.

minikites 5y ago

>Democracy is booming It absolutely is not, there are many threats to democracy right here in the USA. Many Republican states are passing massive voter suppression bills.

cfontes 5y ago
I am not an american. I mean in the world, yours might be worst but check the other countries, in the last 50 years a lot of military governments and dictatorships ended.

airhead969 5y ago

You're either a bloody liar, delusional, naïve, or don't have functioning eyes. - Famine in Yemen. Ongoing. - Famine in South Sudan. Ongoing. - Two years of drought in certain countries would push the world into global famine. Climate change weather patterns like Oregon/Canada and the ongoing mega drought in the US west and SW are just previews. - Millions and millions of homeless in America. I can see the camps and tents in every major city. - Standard of living decreasing. Real wages declining. - Mass shootings every day. - More prisoners per capita than any other country. - Doing absolutely nothing effective about climate change... which is going to kill us, most species, and the planet. - The threat of global nuclear war over Taiwan is very, very real. - Healthcare costs soaring, life expectancies plummeting. - There is no democracy, it's a plutocracy. The very rich own the majority of Western countries outright.

jcims 5y ago
Two comments stood out to me in browsing as needlessly rude and angsty, and it turns out they were both yours. Are you commenting for effect or just to vent?
- airhead969 5y ago
  What do you have to add of value? You take and make things too personally. Look in the mirror.
samatman 5y ago
Your first sentence contains the kind of abusive language which has no place on this platform. Don't do that here.
- airhead969 5y ago
  I did not mean to offend your delicate pearl-clutchings, white knight defending idiots, that was just a bonus.
  - samatman 5y ago
    Point is that your account won't last around here if you keep breaking the rules. Simple as.
  - dang 5y ago
    We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines and ignoring our requests to stop. Please don't create accounts to do that with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
fpoling 5y ago
The famine in Yemen and Sudan is a result of logistic breakdown when the war etc. makes it very expensive to transport food. US produces enough food to feed like 2-3 billions people. It is just the vast majority of it goes to feed animals to get cheap meat. So even with agricultural output drop like 50% the will be no famine in US. The meat will be much more expensive, but no calories shortage.

ludocode 5y ago

To play devil's advocate here: things are of course better today than they have been for most of human history. But for those of us in prosperous Western countries, they aren't necessarily better than they were, say, 50 years ago. In fact I would argue that we're in much worse shape. Part of the problem is that things have gotten worse on a rather short timescale. Millenials know very well the feeling of being judged by the older generations for not owning a house and two cars, not having a wife and children, not having a high-paying job to go with our university degrees. Some of your points are true, but I would argue about these in particular: > * There is food to survive for almost everyone, no famines in the last 100 years. > * So much extra wealth in the world almost anyone can enjoy life a bit, have a hobbie, travel, eat out, go out, movies, theather, sports. > * Poverty is getting smaller by the day (yeah rich are getting richer but check 1500, 1600, 1700, 1800 or 1900 out for a good perspective on what being poor was) Many more Americans are food insecure than they were 50 years ago. The USDA estimates that 11 million children are food insecure in the US. Poverty in the US has in fact been increasing for decades, but government statistics don't reflect it because they measure poverty based on a 1950s spending model. The West has endured decades of trickle down economics when the reality is that wealth trickles up. Of course total wealth is increasing, but the lower and middle classes have captured none of it. The vast majority of humans on Earth cannot afford to travel or even take vacations, and those in prosperous Western countries have had continually decreasing disposable income for decades. > * No cold war, no dooms day clock > * Democracy, information is basically free. You have this so backwards that it's baffling. The doomsday clock is the closest to midnight it has ever been since its inception in 1947. It currently sits at 100 seconds to midnight. World leaders have become increasingly reckless, unstable and authoritarian. The last US president said, "We have all these nukes, why aren't we using them?" Whether we lack a cold war is debatable. There has not been a significant drop in proxy wars or in militarization of world powers since the fall of the Soviet Union. The US still spends an ever increasing share of its budget on military, and it actually uses it to kill. The US has been in a continuous state of war for the longest period in its entire history. There are people voting today that were not yet born when the war with Afghanistan started. > Basically we are the luckies people that ever lived, COVID or no COVID. Randomly pick to someone from any other year that ever lived, your life is better even if you get a king it's probably still better This is not as true as you think, and I don't believe it will be true for long. For most of human history there were very few humans. There were probably about 100 billion humans that have ever lived, and about 8 billion are alive today. So if you were to pick a random human from history, there's a non-negligible chance that your pick would be alive today. I've argued above that we in the West are experiencing decreasing quality of life. I worry it will start to fall much more rapidly over the coming decades due to climate change, wealth inequality and potential nuclear war. Considering the big picture is probably not a good idea; we may be better off living in ignorant bliss.