[martopix]

> There’s an entire generation of mostly childless adults who are shocked to find they enjoy contributing to others’ happiness.

This is very well put.

I think the culture today is what pushes us towards that: we have a very individualistic culture, which I think comes from the US. I'm from southern Europe, where family used to be very important, whereas now we've adopted a much more individual-centered view.

We have "freedom" as a value, but it's hard to tell what to do with it. You are privileged, therefore you can do whatever you want. But what is it that I want? What do I do with my freedom, privilege, options? We also need an objective, and "to be happy" is not a good objective, because we humans are very bad at predicting what will make us happy. Seeing stereotyped photos of happy people on tropical beaches on Instagram makes it even harder to remember what happiness is.

For happiness you need objectives, things you believe in, a sense of purpose.

[stuxnet79]

> We have "freedom" as a value, but it's hard to tell what to do with it. You are privileged, therefore you can do whatever you want. But what is it that I want?

Well, that's the key question isn't it? What do we actually want?

In America it is dead simple. Having successfully cut all of our important social ties & creating all this existential anxiety via propaganda, "free enterprise" has swooped in promising to solve all our ills with the simple tap of a credit card.

Lonely? Here pay for a therapist. Need childcare? Get a nanny. Need exercise? Buy a gym membership. All in service to inflating the vanity metric that is the US GDP.