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Comment by hutzlibu | Hacker News Reader

"If you smooth out the bumps there is a very significant increase in every metric you could think was positive"

The problem here is solid data, but I believe we are at an all time high with the need and use of antidepressants and co.

"has been for a long time on a significant upward trend in peace and prosperity"

Prosperity paid for with a coming climate collaps and deforestation and constant fear of nuclear holocaust.

I am really not an back-to-the-trees kind of guy, but knowing rough and wild nature life and knowing and seeing the systematic suffering in our modern meatfactories (whether for humans or pigs) I remain very sceptical that everything is so much better now, than how it used to be.

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>I am really not an back-to-the-trees kind of guy, but knowing rough and wild nature life and knowing and seeing the systematic suffering in our modern meatfactories (whether for humans or pigs) I remain very sceptical that everything is so much better now, than how it used to be.

Yes, unequivocally, and by every real measure life is better now than it has ever been for more people than ever before. You claim to "know rough and wild nature life" but how do you propose forcing it upon 8 billion human beings with your self indulgent logic? Nothing stops you from living this supposed rough life consistently, yet here you are regularly commenting on HN, participating in tech industries and contributing to the use of a wast, worldwide high technology infrastructure that extracts resources from the Earth to sustain itself. It's not just meat farms that contribute to massive natural resource use.

The aside about antidepressant use as an argument against the previous claim about improved living standards is just bizarre, because for one thing it does the opposite of negate a claim of improved conditions for people and secondly, it's such a minor thing relative to billions of people living longer, better, more calorically and medically stable lives than has ever been the case in any previous century.

"Yes, unequivocally, and by every real measure life is better now than it has ever been for more people than ever before"

No doubt the number of humans is at an all time high, but whether the amount of happiness on this planet is at an all time high, is quite dubious. Or is "happiness" not a real meassure?

"it's such a minor thing relative to billions of people living longer, better, more calorically and medically stable lives than has ever been the case in any previous century"

Modern people might be well fed, but overall they live a stressful, anxious and lonely life. They might still be better off, than a medival starving and exploited peasant, but human history is more diverse than that.

My main point was btw. that we have no real data, of how happy the average human was 10000 years ago, 1000 years ago, .. till now. Since we do not have that data, all the nice self reasuring meassurements are mainly a placebo.

> I believe we are at an all time high with the need and use of antidepressants and co.

And I am glad people are getting help they need. I wish more were.

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