This reinforces my belief that today is the best time in human history to live. Yes there is still pain and suffering but overall more humans live lives our ancestors could not begin to imagine.
>Although I wonder if loneliness, stress and lack of direction are much bigger problems today.
I'm pretty sure that abysmal health options, food insecurity to the point of famine always being just a stone's throw or single bad season away, and grinding poverty all created plenty of stress. The vast majority of people at the time just had no IG Reels with which to vent about their crisis mode for posterity. I just can't imagine any random modern person's level of stress being somehow worse.
As for lack of direction. Life in those times for a vast majority had a simple direction: labor and toil intensely until you die of old age/disease in the same place you were born, rarely straying more than a few miles from those horizons. I'd call today's self-created "lack of direction" pretty preferable to that.
And we know this. We can measure it and reason about it. But good times breeds weak people and we’re well into the phase of people no-longer grokking why vaccines, civil government, democracy, floodplain management, etc. need to exist.
This social plague is proliferating and I’m not sure we really know how to fight it as it takes colleagues, friends, family, celebrities we once admired.
Yea I know a couple of people who watched their families and friends get chopped to bits with machetes and lemme tell you, they are not stronger for it. I would maybe rethink this idea. I suspect ignorance has always thrived.
Same goes for preventative maintenance, handling technical debt or any action that keeps negative consequences at bay. It's a failure mode that's almost an inverse of loss-aversion; some people will start asking "Why are we investing in $ACTION, it seems unnecessary as nothing bad ever happens"
spooky_deep|7 months ago
Although I wonder if loneliness, stress and lack of direction are much bigger problems today.
southernplaces7|7 months ago
I'm pretty sure that abysmal health options, food insecurity to the point of famine always being just a stone's throw or single bad season away, and grinding poverty all created plenty of stress. The vast majority of people at the time just had no IG Reels with which to vent about their crisis mode for posterity. I just can't imagine any random modern person's level of stress being somehow worse.
As for lack of direction. Life in those times for a vast majority had a simple direction: labor and toil intensely until you die of old age/disease in the same place you were born, rarely straying more than a few miles from those horizons. I'd call today's self-created "lack of direction" pretty preferable to that.
theoreticalmal|7 months ago
suzzer99|7 months ago
davidw|7 months ago
Most of the men involved in this were pretty well off, for instance. Big trucks, nice houses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretchen_Whitmer_kidnapping_pl...
Hardly oppressed people.
tim333|7 months ago
lazide|7 months ago
n3storm|7 months ago
Waterluvian|7 months ago
This social plague is proliferating and I’m not sure we really know how to fight it as it takes colleagues, friends, family, celebrities we once admired.
tyre|7 months ago
This is a silly and regularly disproven trope.
For an extensive and approachable start: https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-...
MangoToupe|7 months ago
Yea I know a couple of people who watched their families and friends get chopped to bits with machetes and lemme tell you, they are not stronger for it. I would maybe rethink this idea. I suspect ignorance has always thrived.
overfeed|7 months ago
deadbabe|7 months ago