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> eat out way more than I ever remember and have subscriptions for every entertainment service imaginable and who take multiple international trips per year >

> eat out way more than I ever remember and have subscriptions for every entertainment service imaginable and who take multiple international trips per year > By all measures, material standard of living has improved. Ah! You've fallen for it. Those are not the same thing. Consumer luxuries do not a standard of living make. Material standard of living is a secure home, ready and sufficient access to nutritious food, ready access to remedies and ease for illness, welcoming opportunities for fulfilling work, etc Access to all of those things is eroding, and for essentially everyone (not just young people). You can have 5 ways to watch a video now, and your choice of 500 varieties of sugar water, and can hop on a plane instead of taking a road trip, but none of those have made the life of yourself or your family meaningfully improved. The conflation of idle luxuries for secure living is a trap that lets people not notice as real standards continue to decline.

anon291 2y ago
And you've fallen for the idea that simply since I'm a believer in using real economic data, I must also believe in all the various consumeristic nonsense that Americans engage in, which is their real source of unhappiness. > The conflation of idle luxuries for secure living is a trap that lets people not notice as real standards continue to decline. I agree, which is why you should have read my comment: > In reality people are more stressed out today not because of money but because they choose to live complicated, stressful lives mainly driven by unhealthy social media addictions. That's why they feel materially poorer than their parents despite all evidence to the contrary. That's the end point. People work too much to make money so they can afford junk and material improvements in their life, instead of working to make their life nice. My family had less growing up and was much better off. As adults, my wife and I have chosen to replicate my parents and her parents way of life (one working parent, heavy time spent with family and friends, no divorce, no broken families, no spending all day at work, prioritizing life over money, etc). That works. Always has. Doesn't matter how many yachts you own. If you don't have a loving wife / husband and a good family or you never see them, and you have no friends (not the fake superficial friendships many Americans have, but actual friends), then you're always going to be sad.
gottorf 2y ago
Wasn't GP's point that were people to engage in fewer consumer luxuries, they would be able to invest in their "real" standard of living instead?
- swatcoder 2y ago
  Oh, I read them as saying that the experience of hardship was materially inaccurate and just a psychological fiction fed by social media and perpetually measuring against others. I still read it that way on a second look, but maybe I'm reading it wrong.

anon291 2y ago

And you've fallen for the idea that simply since I'm a believer in using real economic data, I must also believe in all the various consumeristic nonsense that Americans engage in, which is their real source of unhappiness. > The conflation of idle luxuries for secure living is a trap that lets people not notice as real standards continue to decline. I agree, which is why you should have read my comment: > In reality people are more stressed out today not because of money but because they choose to live complicated, stressful lives mainly driven by unhealthy social media addictions. That's why they feel materially poorer than their parents despite all evidence to the contrary. That's the end point. People work too much to make money so they can afford junk and material improvements in their life, instead of working to make their life nice. My family had less growing up and was much better off. As adults, my wife and I have chosen to replicate my parents and her parents way of life (one working parent, heavy time spent with family and friends, no divorce, no broken families, no spending all day at work, prioritizing life over money, etc). That works. Always has. Doesn't matter how many yachts you own. If you don't have a loving wife / husband and a good family or you never see them, and you have no friends (not the fake superficial friendships many Americans have, but actual friends), then you're always going to be sad.

gottorf 2y ago

Wasn't GP's point that were people to engage in fewer consumer luxuries, they would be able to invest in their "real" standard of living instead?

swatcoder 2y ago
Oh, I read them as saying that the experience of hardship was materially inaccurate and just a psychological fiction fed by social media and perpetually measuring against others. I still read it that way on a second look, but maybe I'm reading it wrong.