We live in a time where the quality of life has never been better. We have a low unemployment rate. Technological advancements that has made life so much easier. We live in the most peaceful time in human history. but yet people seem miserable. The suicide rate has increased dramatically in the past 10 years.
The baffled billionaires have been holding international conferences pondering this. Legend, you probably won't have a clue about this until you are older and have a family or even a health problem or two.
How can you deny this? We are living a lot longer than before. We are now on the verge of printing human organs plus cures for countless diseases. These are incredible feats in the medical field. We're living in gig economy. Not sure if that is good or bad. The lower class have smartphones. Internet is also free for them. This is undeniably a good thing. It's even more peaceful now then let's say 40 years ago. Segregation and Jim crow laws no longer exist, the cold war is over and other wars that attributed to millions of deaths. Trump is irrelevant to this topic. This trend has been going on for about 10 years now. Ohio's suicide rate jumps 24 percent from 2008 to 2017, study says - News - The Columbus Dispatch - Columbus, OH
Well, not neccessarily sad, but more than half of the country are bothered that people such as yourself made a horrible mistake in electing an incompetent nincompoop as president.
This seems right to me. No data or studies to back it up, but it sure seems like people would be more satisfied with "less" as long as they felt like they were doing as well as others. With the internet and social media, there is a lot more opportunity for people to feel bad about not living the lives that other people are at least portraying they live. (This obviously isn't intended to be an all inclusive answer that deals with those who really need more, or are sick or have loved ones who are sick, etc.)
Rising wealth inequality, lack of insurance coverage for mental health care, lack of insurance coverage for addiction care with an exploding opioid problem plus a dramatic increase in suicides by veterans probably due to the long ass wars we've been fighting. Who are we to thank for these problems? Guess who.
This is true, but it's a good thing. Free markets produce efficiency and abundant goods. But, they also create winners and losers. That effect has been magnified by a lot of things -- popular culture, social media, the dumbing down of America.
It's a good, important, and fascinating topic. I would offer two points: a) we have entered into a ruthlessly free market, not only in the economy but also in our social lives. Free markets produce winners and losers; and that effect has been amplified in recent years. b) even for those that are affluent, money does not guarantee happiness. That has to come from elsewhere, usually from some larger sense of purpose. This too has been lost to a large degree. Explaining that would take a long essay, but growing secularization and family break up (or failure to form in the first place) play a large role.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms...”
My life is pretty good... everyone always wants "more" I suppose... social media is a disease.. everyone putting on these great fronts... look how much I travel - "You should travel more" - look how many friends I have - "You should have more friends" - look how fit I am - "You should be fitter" - look how nice my lifestyle is - "you should earn more money" - look how prestigious my job/school is - "your job/school doesn't compare" etc... etc... like life is some big competition. It's messed up.
Free markets produce efficiency and abundant goods........ This line has been on every textbook and is scientifically true. what's missing is: efficiency and abundant for who? The worse part is that most of the 'losers', the working class, actually contributed the most to the "efficiency and abundance", while the winners, capitalists like Trump, are just fat lucky cheaters, grabbers or even tax evading criminals. When the 'losers' have nothing left but hospital bills after working over 40 years, the textbook lines will not be able to stop sadness.
The video made Os trigonum sad. He identifies with owners of where he works after all there are lower paid workers out there and with is few thousand inhis 401(k) he in the market with Bezos, Gates and the guys.
