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Comment by Top19 | Hacker News Reader

This is a terrific article that puts all of the benefits of living today in perspective.

The frustrating thing about many economic statistics, and this is talked about at length in "The Second Machine Age", is that they include very little of things we would deem very important. So things get "mathematically worse" but in reality are quite a bit better.

I don't want to go at length on this and beyond what my memory can recall, but an example they used in the book is Wikipedia. It's incredible obviously. But it does not factor in any quality of life or GDP statistic.

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I can't lay my hands on the source just now, but I've read the polar opposite to what you say - measures such as GDP show ongoing progress, whereas measures of happiness looking back hundreds of years (as I say, I cannot lay my hands on the source so cannot attest to the methodology) show that if anything we were happier a few hundred years ago, pre-industrial revolution: less complexity, greater sense of community, stronger familial bonds etc. etc.

Measures of happiness are nonsense. They are largely determined by by expectations.

Also happiness isn't necessarily the outcome that everyone in society wants. Some may want to maximize happiness -- others may want to maximize something else.

What else would be more important to maximize than happiness?

Means of getting happiness are a different discussion, and what happiness is might differ from person to person. But why would you e.g. accumulate more money or power if it didn't bring you any happiness?

There are technological benefits to being alive today but we must also acknowledge that that technology has made modern life much more complex, stress-inducing, isolating, and noisy. Modern life is not all roses...

Those aren't economic achievements, they are science progress.

Meanwhile inequality is only rising. But we shouldn't care because look at all the cool things we now have?!

If by cool things you mean "improved cancer treatment" and "inexpensive access to entertainment" then yes, inequality IS less important because people have these "cool things". The idea that there is a gap is much less important than ensuring that those at the bottom have enough. Unfortunately they don't always, and that's a problem. Wealth disparity isn't always the right metric, though sometimes it is.

People had entertainment way back when - and made their own if they had to. Also most diseases these days seem to be caused or exacerbated by unhealthy modern lifestyles. I don't think people are objectively happier than they used to be. Netflix cannot replace a sense of community.

It's easy to create equality: make all people poor. 10000 years ago we where a lot more equal than today. Was it better?

Almost any USA citizen is in the top 5% if compared with the rest of the world. How many of them are willing to share their excess of wealth?

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