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I agree that the late 19th to mid 20th century time period sounds amazing. I'd recommend "Connections" by James Burke as a truly well written and produced docum

I agree that the late 19th to mid 20th century time period sounds amazing. I'd recommend "Connections" by James Burke as a truly well written and produced documentary that shows some of the accidental discoveries and connections that led to scientific progress. That said, the majority of my life has been in the 21st century and so far I can't recommend it. You're pretty big on life expectancy, but that's actually down in the US and was trending down even before the pandemic. If you look at Robert Sapolsky's work into primate societies and neuroendocrinology, he'll tell you that inequality is one of the biggest stressors of primate tribes, and the implications for humans are obvious. Yet inequality grows ever greater while many of our elite try ever harder to create a morality in which this is acceptable. I'd look also at children. We just don't have as many of them as we once did. There was a baby bust during the late 30's till the end of WWII that set up for the famous Baby Boom. It seems like we get the bust as though everyone fears the world might end (I'm told it seemed like a real possibility in the 40's), but now for distributed reasons that are economic and ecological. You may say that is just media scare-mongering (I agree their business models reward it dis-proportionately), but real lived experience says otherwise. How many economic disasters do you think a Millenial need live through before they fear the next one? How many years grinding away at a crappy job while education, housing, and healthcare all grow ever more expensive compared to your pay (which by the way might get shipped overseas next quarter)? How many record setting days of heat do I have to endure before I feel like something isn't right? And if you want more data, look up the wealth and health of Millenials, Gen Xers, and Boomers at any given age - you'll see a continual slide downhill. And all of that might even be OK - every generation faces its challenges, but when you experience them your entire adult life, and then you get gaslighted and told that the problems don't even exist (presumably in order to justify the ongoing inequality) then you might start to lose hope. You might start to see them doing some strange things. Look at mental health issues amongst Gen Z - another place where the data isn't going to look so rosy. Look at the rise in crime, or the ultimate expression of nihilistic anger - the mass-murder suicide by the young (male) zealot. Sure you can blame the media, but that just seems like another lazy excuse or attempt to hide the real problems of modern life.

BrianOnHN 4y ago
That's a lot to take in. Thanks for taking the time to share your insights. Is their anything you might say to people that are looking for advice?
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  I don't have much advice beyond the normal stuff - diet and exercise and discipline. You probably can't change the condition of the world, but you can influence your own.
modriano 4y ago
So, what was the median lead concentration in the blood of children when you were born? For me, it was around 5 micrograms per deciliter [0], but children born in my country (the US) today are showing much less exposure to this horrid toxic metal. This may also just seem like another cherry-picked metric, but I don't have enough time to show you all the ways things are better now than they were in the not distant past, and it's because we can solve hard problems. I was a doomer myself not too long ago, but after seeing humanity design an efficacious COVID vaccine in just a couple days [1] and get mass production and distribution set up in under a year, I'm pretty confident that we can continue to solve whatever problems come our way. I graduated from undergrad in 2010 with degrees in physics and M.Eng. The economy was a dumpster fire and after a few months of job hunting, I managed to get a job at McDonald's, working 39.5 hours a week and getting a weekly ~$220 check that felt like a slap in the face. So for your question on "how many more economic crises before we fear the next", it's none more. But at present, the unemployment rate is under 4% and real wages (ie wages after inflation) are increasing for the lowest earners [2], thanks to upward pressure from the hot labor market and to min wage increases by major employers like Amazon and Walmart. I doubt their wages keep pace with inflation over the time it will take to reforge supply chains, but so far, it's the middle and upper class workers who haven't used the hot job market to hop into a more productive (or at least higher paying) position who've taken the hit. The plot of net wealth for millennials [3] shows a very recent downhill trend, but in general, the 2013 to 2019 was a period of net wealth generation for millennials after a decade where annual change in net wealth was consistently negative (save a blip in 2007). Oh, and on the "rise in crime", professionally, I'm a homicide researcher in Chicago, and I am intimately familiar with crime data. You may be shocked to learn that the rate of crime is actually down [4], as rates in property crime have fallen more than enough to offset the increase in rates of violent crime. As a homicide researcher, I don't care much about property crime up until the point that it becomes violent, but if you're talking about crime rates they're lower than they were in very recent pre-pandemic history, and even if you do restrict discussion only to violent crime rates, things are way, way better now than they were in the the 1980's and 1990's [5], at least for the vast majority of the world's population. I agree the vibe right now is terrible. But the data just doesn't really back up the vibe. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lead-blood-usa-children?country=95th+percentile~Median https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lead-blood-usa-children?c... [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/moderna-designed-coronavirus-vaccine-in-2-days-2020-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/moderna-designed-coronavirus... [2] https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2022/04/04/increasing-wages-for-low-income-workers-is-key-for-a-full-economic-recovery/ https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2022/04/04/increasing-wages-f... [3] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUCHGASLILB0403M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUCHGASLILB0403M [4] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/america-having-violence-wave-not-crime-wave/620234/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/america-ha... [5] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rate?tab=chart&country=OWID_WRL~USA~European+Region+%28WHO%29~North+America+%28WB%29~Middle+East+%26+North+Africa+%28WB%29 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rate?tab=chart&c...

BrianOnHN 4y ago

That's a lot to take in. Thanks for taking the time to share your insights. Is their anything you might say to people that are looking for advice?

hotpotamus 4y ago
I don't have much advice beyond the normal stuff - diet and exercise and discipline. You probably can't change the condition of the world, but you can influence your own.

modriano 4y ago

So, what was the median lead concentration in the blood of children when you were born? For me, it was around 5 micrograms per deciliter [0], but children born in my country (the US) today are showing much less exposure to this horrid toxic metal. This may also just seem like another cherry-picked metric, but I don't have enough time to show you all the ways things are better now than they were in the not distant past, and it's because we can solve hard problems. I was a doomer myself not too long ago, but after seeing humanity design an efficacious COVID vaccine in just a couple days [1] and get mass production and distribution set up in under a year, I'm pretty confident that we can continue to solve whatever problems come our way. I graduated from undergrad in 2010 with degrees in physics and M.Eng. The economy was a dumpster fire and after a few months of job hunting, I managed to get a job at McDonald's, working 39.5 hours a week and getting a weekly ~$220 check that felt like a slap in the face. So for your question on "how many more economic crises before we fear the next", it's none more. But at present, the unemployment rate is under 4% and real wages (ie wages after inflation) are increasing for the lowest earners [2], thanks to upward pressure from the hot labor market and to min wage increases by major employers like Amazon and Walmart. I doubt their wages keep pace with inflation over the time it will take to reforge supply chains, but so far, it's the middle and upper class workers who haven't used the hot job market to hop into a more productive (or at least higher paying) position who've taken the hit. The plot of net wealth for millennials [3] shows a very recent downhill trend, but in general, the 2013 to 2019 was a period of net wealth generation for millennials after a decade where annual change in net wealth was consistently negative (save a blip in 2007). Oh, and on the "rise in crime", professionally, I'm a homicide researcher in Chicago, and I am intimately familiar with crime data. You may be shocked to learn that the rate of crime is actually down [4], as rates in property crime have fallen more than enough to offset the increase in rates of violent crime. As a homicide researcher, I don't care much about property crime up until the point that it becomes violent, but if you're talking about crime rates they're lower than they were in very recent pre-pandemic history, and even if you do restrict discussion only to violent crime rates, things are way, way better now than they were in the the 1980's and 1990's [5], at least for the vast majority of the world's population. I agree the vibe right now is terrible. But the data just doesn't really back up the vibe. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lead-blood-usa-children?country=95th+percentile~Median https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lead-blood-usa-children?c... [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/moderna-designed-coronavirus-vaccine-in-2-days-2020-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/moderna-designed-coronavirus... [2] https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2022/04/04/increasing-wages-for-low-income-workers-is-key-for-a-full-economic-recovery/ https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2022/04/04/increasing-wages-f... [3] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUCHGASLILB0403M https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUCHGASLILB0403M [4] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/america-having-violence-wave-not-crime-wave/620234/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/america-ha... [5] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rate?tab=chart&country=OWID_WRL~USA~European+Region+%28WHO%29~North+America+%28WB%29~Middle+East+%26+North+Africa+%28WB%29 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rate?tab=chart&c...