3 ms·

People were working harder for even less a hundred years ago and society didn't collapse.

notwokeno 4y ago
Tradition, nationalism, religion etc. were much stronger a hundred years ago. IE there was a society worth working to participate in.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- themitigating 4y ago
  Finland is in the top position in the world happiness report in 2022. Followed by Denmark and Iceland in second and third place. Switzerland, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Israel and New Zealand, were among the top 10 'happiest' countries in the world [1]. Except for Israel wouldn't you say though counties have some of the lowest religious participation? What about nationalism? I'm not trying to prove the opposite of you view as this doesn't show causation but I think it sufficiently counters your view
scruple 4y ago
So what are people missing today?
yunwal 4y ago
I’m not sure this is true anymore. The median American will never be able to afford their own home at current housing prices. Sure, we have a higher gdp per capita, but it doesn’t buy us the things we actually need like housing, health care, etc. Perhaps what’s needed is to bring back family homesteads, but that doesn’t feel like much progress.
- dashundchen 4y ago
  Do you know what life was like 100 years ago in the US? 35% of households had access to electricity. About 20% had some sort of indoor plumbing, running hot water would be even rarer. Most people heated their houses by shoveling coal or feeding wood fires. Society was even more racially segregated and legally codified and brutally enforced by the government. In warmer rural areas it wasn't uncommon for hookworm to be endemic due to shallow dug latrines. 1/12 children 10 to 15 were working instead of school. Most adults did not graduate high school and illiteracy was not uncommon. This whole subthread is quite strange. I'm still not sure what societal collapse GP is seeing.
  - trevyn 4y ago
    We have electricity, plumbing, literacy, low hookworm rates, and rapidly declining human fellowship, companionship and participation. Strange times indeed.
    - dashundchen 4y ago
      > rapidly declining human fellowship, companionship and participation What is the evidence for this? This just reads like the eternal conservative lament that society is going down the tubes.
      - trevyn 4y ago
        The evidence is that I can't even be bothered to look up evidence for you. :-)
  - Mezzie 4y ago
    I'd say the difference between those times is the feeling of agency/possibility of a good life (defining good life by what that meant at the time). Objectively, material conditions were worse, but due to a variety of factors, the average person felt that society was getting better. We'll put up with a lot of shit if we think it's temporary or something that we could change. And some people honestly liked living like that. My great-great grandparents lived until the 1980s (born in the 1870s) and refused to get indoor plumbing. People are weird and sentiment matters.
    - themitigating 4y ago
      Well that notion of honesty is subjective and meaningless.
      - Mezzie 4y ago
        Subjective, absolutely. Meaningless, no, because we're hairless chaos apes living in hives of other hairless chaos apes and plenty of our fellow apes live their lives based on this subjective measure which means it needs to be considered in governing and managerial decisions.

Tradition, nationalism, religion etc. were much stronger a hundred years ago. IE there was a society worth working to participate in.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
themitigating 4y ago
Finland is in the top position in the world happiness report in 2022. Followed by Denmark and Iceland in second and third place. Switzerland, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Israel and New Zealand, were among the top 10 'happiest' countries in the world [1]. Except for Israel wouldn't you say though counties have some of the lowest religious participation? What about nationalism? I'm not trying to prove the opposite of you view as this doesn't show causation but I think it sufficiently counters your view

scruple 4y ago

So what are people missing today?

yunwal 4y ago

I’m not sure this is true anymore. The median American will never be able to afford their own home at current housing prices. Sure, we have a higher gdp per capita, but it doesn’t buy us the things we actually need like housing, health care, etc. Perhaps what’s needed is to bring back family homesteads, but that doesn’t feel like much progress.

dashundchen 4y ago
Do you know what life was like 100 years ago in the US? 35% of households had access to electricity. About 20% had some sort of indoor plumbing, running hot water would be even rarer. Most people heated their houses by shoveling coal or feeding wood fires. Society was even more racially segregated and legally codified and brutally enforced by the government. In warmer rural areas it wasn't uncommon for hookworm to be endemic due to shallow dug latrines. 1/12 children 10 to 15 were working instead of school. Most adults did not graduate high school and illiteracy was not uncommon. This whole subthread is quite strange. I'm still not sure what societal collapse GP is seeing.
- trevyn 4y ago
  We have electricity, plumbing, literacy, low hookworm rates, and rapidly declining human fellowship, companionship and participation. Strange times indeed.
  - dashundchen 4y ago
    > rapidly declining human fellowship, companionship and participation What is the evidence for this? This just reads like the eternal conservative lament that society is going down the tubes.
    - trevyn 4y ago
      The evidence is that I can't even be bothered to look up evidence for you. :-)
- Mezzie 4y ago
  I'd say the difference between those times is the feeling of agency/possibility of a good life (defining good life by what that meant at the time). Objectively, material conditions were worse, but due to a variety of factors, the average person felt that society was getting better. We'll put up with a lot of shit if we think it's temporary or something that we could change. And some people honestly liked living like that. My great-great grandparents lived until the 1980s (born in the 1870s) and refused to get indoor plumbing. People are weird and sentiment matters.
  - themitigating 4y ago
    Well that notion of honesty is subjective and meaningless.
    - Mezzie 4y ago
      Subjective, absolutely. Meaningless, no, because we're hairless chaos apes living in hives of other hairless chaos apes and plenty of our fellow apes live their lives based on this subjective measure which means it needs to be considered in governing and managerial decisions.