Most agree that health is better than sickness, abundance is better than poverty, and peace is better than war. But many now point to a fundamental problem. Despite better access to healthcare, education, and more disposable income, cases of depression have increased by over 50% worldwide since 1997. Research shows that richer countries have higher rates of anxiety than poorer ones, whilst happiness has been declining across the board in the most developed countries for more than a decade. And recent studies from Stanford University demonstrate that too much comfort in the short term could lead to pain in the longer term.Should we give up the view that life is simply about aiming for positive experience and comfort and instead see struggle and well-being as two sides of the same coin? Should we abandon the central claim of government policy that better living standards lead to greater well-being? Or would this be a dangerous move that would threaten the progress made in the past few centuries and irrevocably change the character of our culture?
I already disagree with the very premise of rich countries becoming richer during the referenced time frame. A quick google shows that the average income is basically the same as it was in 1965 (adjusted for inflation). We are talking about a jump from 20.27 to 22.65 dollars per hour, that’s an 11% increase. It’s basically nothing. And according to OPs summary the decline in happiness only happened from 1997 and according to the video it was somewhere in the 2000s where a noticable change happened. But for some reason they don’t mention the financial crisis that happend in 2008.
There is not much that became more abundant between 1997 or 2000s compared to today. There might have been huge technological advancements but that doesn’t affect most of us in our daily lifes. The only thing that comes to mind is storage space on electronic devices. Which would bring us to social media being the sole cause of the unhappiness. And while social media almost certainly plays a role I don’t think it’s the only or even the main cause.
I would even argue that a lot of important things became less available between 1997 and today. Affordable housing is a big one. And this plays into something they mentioned as well. People seeking short term pleasure rather than long term planning. But long term planning is basically pointless in todays world, especailly for people under 30. There is no sense of stability. There is no “I work hard and I can have a decent future anymore”. I am 34 and I was already told by everyone growing up that by the time I have to retire there won’t be no retirement funds available anymore. Things have only gone worse since then. Climate crisis is worse than ever, polticial stability going down, groups with radical ideas gaining more and more popularity. When all your long term planning seems pointless you might as well just engage in short term pleasure.
Access to affordable healthy food has gone down as well. Some staple foods are still as affordable as they used to but I don’t think anything became more affordable or more abundant in the past 20 years. But something like healthy bread is not affordable anymore. 20 years ago it was. Good bread from the bakery was around $1-2 in the early 2000s, adjusted for inflation it should be just shy of $4 today. But a lot of healthy bread that isn’t full of sugar is priced around $10. I am not from the US but that’s the converted prices, maybe the situation is differenct in the USA.
And for rich people in rich countries things certainly didn’t become more abundant. They had as much access to drugs, hookers, or other short term pleasures back then as today.
While the GDP and other measurements of “wealth” might have gone up for the past few years a lot of that wealth is tied up in corporations. It doesn’t affect the average person living in said countries.
And when they started talking about how video games are bad I lost almost all interest in the video.
To keep it short. My main argument why people in rich countries are less happy is due them losing something people once had. Most people suffer more from losing than they gain from winning. Losing $100 will bother most people more than winning $100 will make them happy.
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From a US perspective, much of this seems like a false premise. Money isn’t everything, but I think it takes ignoring or misrepresenting a lot of factors to say that most people are better off economically. On the other side, having $0 means a lot less when you live somewhere where money is a lot less important/required.
Do we haVe tOo mUcH CoMfORt?
Depressed people? No. Even things that might look like comfort (more likely ineffective escapism) are often a result of conditions rather than a cause of them. Lack of purpose/belonging/community, also lacking money and transportation (rural/car-centric esp.) and lack of third-places. Really just lacking prosperity and viable autonomy in general.
Also healthcare access in the US is not great (even worse adding in other factors) and mental healthcare is even a problem outside of the US. Unless I’m in a different timeline?
That said, I would say that a lot of factors here are how societies are structured rather than purely personal failings. Or: some modern things have been a disaster even if they generate a lot of money.
EDIT: Some of these points are actually raised in the video, especially by Anna Lembke after the half-way point. So the framing of the video seems a bit odd/clickbait-y. Well… I just noticed it says Yaron is “at the helm of the Ayn Rand institute”, so it makes more sense now.
