Comment by sudosteph | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sudosteph | Hacker News Reader

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You're spot on. Anyone who thinks our society is broken now compared to the past is being ignorant of how downright terrible life was for most of humanity throughout history.

This society has given me, a female individual, full autonomy over my body, my education, and my career prospects (for most anything short of being a catholic priest!) and protects my right to that autonomy via law. My grandmother didn't even have that. This society has produced and distributed vaccines that protect my entire generation from devastating illness. This society has seen the harm that inhumane treatment towards people of color and homosexual people has and legislated protections for both (cultural norms are still behind in some places, but vastly improved over previous generations).

You may think that too many facebook notifications is stressful, but how stressed do you think Alan Turing felt when he was tried for indecency and medically castrated for being gay? Heck, compared to many generations before that (and some deeply conservative societies that still exist in theocracies today), he was lucky to not be murdered by the government.

I freaking love modern western society and refuse to shrug off all the progress we've made and cast it aside as "broken".

I agree with you, except that mostly everything you say seems to be applicable to individuals and not the society they live it.

You are far more better off than in the past, but maybe because of that you (and everyone else) sometimes (unknowingly) are performing actions that are degrading their society as a whole.

Maybe you're having children later, having them raised by a nanny because you're wealthy and/or are working more, maybe you're not allowing them outside to play/grow. Maybe because you're using Facebook you're connecting far more superficially with your friend circle. Your grandmother had the support of all her family, community and neighbors, whereas in the modern world we're going to be going through a lot of things by ourselves.

I think ultimately we can't really know if society is broken, we can only compare it what we had before and what we imagine it can be like. That maybe casts a very negative light on it, when in reality we're doing relatively decently.

Megan McArdle neatly summarizes the tension between liberalism and society you're talking about:

https://twitter.com/asymmetricinfo/status/992463509534453760...

I wrote another post with my own negative perspective on the current state of affairs in North America, but I agree with you as well that we shouldn't forget all the progress we have made in other domains. Good post.

Its fairly easy to go to a less developed country today and see that people often appear much happier here than in the West. But as other people have pointed out its very subjective.

If you think nothing is wrong with society and everything is great, that's interesting to me. It makes me wonder how much luck you've experienced in your life. I have certainly experienced a ton.

For most Americans, their reality is massive income inequality, insane healthcare expenses, working shitty jobs for 40+ hours a week, suffering from some kind chronic or preventable illness, and numbing the pain with 5 hours of TV per day. It's total shit.

Granted, it's less shit than it was 50 years ago in terms of social progress, medical advances, etc. But fundamentally, I believe it's still broken for the vast majority of people, if you were to somehow measure the NPS of being a human. ("Would you recommend being a human to a friend or colleague?")

Very good points. The frequency of mental illness has been growing in rich countries (beyond any reasonable doubt around under/overdiagnosis).

An interesting video on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO0v_JqxFmQ

I never said nothing is wrong. I said that compared to every point in time before now it is fundamentally much better, especially for people who were invisible or oppressed due to sex, race or disability. Because it is so improved calling it broken is meaningless, because it has always been broken.

Working your life away for a substandard living is not a new thing. Not by a mile. It's the norm for history. Someone is always getting exploited. The 40 hour work week was a right that we fought for. The fact that we even have treatments and preventions for illnesses (and get new ones every day, that hep C cure for example) means we are improving, and ensuring people have access is a problem many people are invested in fixing (millenials are big supporters of universal healthcare, it will be a thing one day).

I do think I'm lucky though. I was the first person in my family to grow up middle class. I never had to rely on food banks or welfare, I didn't have to spend all my free time caring for my siblings while my parents worked. My mom had to do those things growing up, but she escaped it because she earned a scholarship to a state university and could get by with that and a part time job. Society is the one who built that college and gave her that chance, even when her family would not or could not. I am thankful for that, because at least I now have the knowledge and opportunity to fix things that do need fixing. And there are plenty. But I don't think for a second that I would have had more opportunity to do that if I had been born at any point in time before.

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. You're completely right about life being fundamentally better for the invisible/oppressed. I take your point -- it was always broken for them.

> I freaking love modern western society and refuse to shrug off all the progress we've made and cast it aside as "broken".

You are confusing identifying, debating and solving serious social problems with "shrugging off all the progress".

> how stressed do you think Alan Turing felt

Cherry picking.

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