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I feel like in discussions about nostalgia, there can be this default presentish reaction which talks about all of the things that are better But in the hedoni

I feel like in discussions about nostalgia, there can be this default presentish reaction which talks about all of the things that are better But in the hedonic adaptation sense like - and comparisons are complicated - people aren’t by and large happier now (because of the hedonism this is sidestepping the argument of how well distributed it is, and I’m talking the past 50-100 years not compared to subsistence farming and the like early Industrial Revolution etc et al) I do think a lot of the senses that things are better now are based on this adaptation, not thinking about would you be less happy if you didn’t know about some of the small things you were missing.

throwaway_7274 2mo ago
Maybe happiness is a different kind of thing from the pleasure/pain axis. Maybe it’s a different thing that’s tragically easy to mistake for the same thing. I notice a lot of resistance and discomfort whenever someone says anything like this (“are you suggesting my pain doesn’t matter? How about the starving kids in xyz?”), and I get that. But it feels like there might be something to it.
- EMIRELADERO 2mo ago
  Everyone should read this about "happiness": https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/can-socialists-be-happy/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel... > "It would seem that human beings are not able to describe, nor perhaps to imagine, happiness except in terms of contrast."
nradov 2mo ago
Happiness doesn't matter. It's not a useful metric for anything important.
- circlefavshape 2mo ago
  What? 100% disagree! Do you actually mean this? What do you think is important?
watwut 2mo ago
> people aren’t by and large happier now (because of the hedonism this is sidestepping the argument of how well distributed it is, and I’m talking the past 50-100 years not compared to subsistence farming and the like early Industrial Revolution etc et al Funnily, this range contains WWII, great depression, run up to them and falldown from them. It all involved a lot of royally unhappy desperate people. It is also shortly after WWI and ex soldiers were in fact unhappy, traumatized and causing further traumatization to others around. Also, at least in rural areas I know more history about, it involved society with high alcoholism rates, high domestic violence rates, prostitution by young teenagers (14-17) as a genuine social problem. A lot of us are happier then them. Trully. Not a wife of violent gambler and alcoholic today, but we have less wife's of violent gamblers and alcoholics today.
- techblueberry 2mo ago
  I mean it also includes 2008, COVID and the Ukrainian war. I’m talking about material hedonic adaptation, not have things ever sucked in the past 100 years. Suicide rates are also up and s/alcoholism/fentanyl addiction/. Funny you bring up gambling because gambling is also up. Rural areas famously peaked in the like mid 20th century and haven’t recovered. My argument isn’t the typical “gosh the good old days”. It’s more just like the iPhone didn’t make us happier. I might also predict many of the trends you identified are more correlated with economic success than technological evolution. If we keep on the trend we’re on and America has lost its post war economic domination, those numbers are going to keep looking worse, cute cat videos be damned.
  - watwut 2mo ago
    Gadgets are not making us happier, but technological evolution is not just gadgets. It allows us to be less in pain, because we can cure diseases and injuries the way we could not before. Ability to avoid domestic abuse is also related to technological evolution - because it allows you to control the number of kids and it allows women to live independently. My point is that hedonistic treadmill is a theory that holds only for the less important things. Yes, I get used to new better headphones and they do not fundamentally change my situation. But, when the evolution allows me to live with less pain or without disability, gives me more agency, then yes, I will be more happier and it will be durable result. > Suicide rates are also up and s/alcoholism/fentanyl addiction/ I did not said it goes up all the time, I said it goes up and down. Despite growth of alcoholism it was much worst in some past periods. > If we keep on the trend we’re on and America has lost its post war economic domination, those numbers are going to keep looking worse, cute cat videos be damned. America does not need economic domination over the whole world to be happy. The unhappy people have nothing to do with overall world economic dominance. America could have happier people, if that was its political goal. > I mean it also includes 2008, COVID and the Ukrainian war. 2008 does not compare to great depression, COVID and the Ukrainian war do not compare to WWII and Holocaust. Not even when we judge by what is going on in the Ukraine itself (as bad as it is, WWII was worst there). And specifically Americans did fought in WWII, bud did not in Ukraine.
omnivore 2mo ago
Agree with your first point.

throwaway_7274 2mo ago

Maybe happiness is a different kind of thing from the pleasure/pain axis. Maybe it’s a different thing that’s tragically easy to mistake for the same thing. I notice a lot of resistance and discomfort whenever someone says anything like this (“are you suggesting my pain doesn’t matter? How about the starving kids in xyz?”), and I get that. But it feels like there might be something to it.

EMIRELADERO 2mo ago
Everyone should read this about "happiness": https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/can-socialists-be-happy/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel... > "It would seem that human beings are not able to describe, nor perhaps to imagine, happiness except in terms of contrast."

nradov 2mo ago

Happiness doesn't matter. It's not a useful metric for anything important.

circlefavshape 2mo ago
What? 100% disagree! Do you actually mean this? What do you think is important?

watwut 2mo ago

> people aren’t by and large happier now (because of the hedonism this is sidestepping the argument of how well distributed it is, and I’m talking the past 50-100 years not compared to subsistence farming and the like early Industrial Revolution etc et al Funnily, this range contains WWII, great depression, run up to them and falldown from them. It all involved a lot of royally unhappy desperate people. It is also shortly after WWI and ex soldiers were in fact unhappy, traumatized and causing further traumatization to others around. Also, at least in rural areas I know more history about, it involved society with high alcoholism rates, high domestic violence rates, prostitution by young teenagers (14-17) as a genuine social problem. A lot of us are happier then them. Trully. Not a wife of violent gambler and alcoholic today, but we have less wife's of violent gamblers and alcoholics today.

techblueberry 2mo ago
I mean it also includes 2008, COVID and the Ukrainian war. I’m talking about material hedonic adaptation, not have things ever sucked in the past 100 years. Suicide rates are also up and s/alcoholism/fentanyl addiction/. Funny you bring up gambling because gambling is also up. Rural areas famously peaked in the like mid 20th century and haven’t recovered. My argument isn’t the typical “gosh the good old days”. It’s more just like the iPhone didn’t make us happier. I might also predict many of the trends you identified are more correlated with economic success than technological evolution. If we keep on the trend we’re on and America has lost its post war economic domination, those numbers are going to keep looking worse, cute cat videos be damned.
- watwut 2mo ago
  Gadgets are not making us happier, but technological evolution is not just gadgets. It allows us to be less in pain, because we can cure diseases and injuries the way we could not before. Ability to avoid domestic abuse is also related to technological evolution - because it allows you to control the number of kids and it allows women to live independently. My point is that hedonistic treadmill is a theory that holds only for the less important things. Yes, I get used to new better headphones and they do not fundamentally change my situation. But, when the evolution allows me to live with less pain or without disability, gives me more agency, then yes, I will be more happier and it will be durable result. > Suicide rates are also up and s/alcoholism/fentanyl addiction/ I did not said it goes up all the time, I said it goes up and down. Despite growth of alcoholism it was much worst in some past periods. > If we keep on the trend we’re on and America has lost its post war economic domination, those numbers are going to keep looking worse, cute cat videos be damned. America does not need economic domination over the whole world to be happy. The unhappy people have nothing to do with overall world economic dominance. America could have happier people, if that was its political goal. > I mean it also includes 2008, COVID and the Ukrainian war. 2008 does not compare to great depression, COVID and the Ukrainian war do not compare to WWII and Holocaust. Not even when we judge by what is going on in the Ukraine itself (as bad as it is, WWII was worst there). And specifically Americans did fought in WWII, bud did not in Ukraine.

omnivore 2mo ago

Agree with your first point.