Comment by wilg
2 days ago
Look, don’t know what to tell you, there is lots of extremely reliable well vetted and well understood information about the welfare of people on this planet and in what directions it is moving. Pretending information is imaginary or offensively abstract because you’re upset about income inequality (which is even more of an abstraction) is not good or helpful.
Then why are we not happier than ever?
And are you saying you would not in fact not mind being treated worse than other people today, as long as you're getting treated better than someone in the stone age? You completely sidestepped that part of my comment, only to frame me as somehow upset and irrational, such as
> "Pretending information is imaginary or offensively abstract because you’re upset about income inequality (which is even more of an abstraction)"
Fairness and justice matter. Sure they're abstract, so is happiness, so is hate. Come to think of it, none of the important stuff, none of the in-between stuff that makes any of the measurable stuff real and meaningful, can be easily measured. And how people feel about their lives and where society is going matters because they feel it, not because it filters down to some numbers you happen to accept.
And even IF everything was getting better all the time, it would still matter that people don't feel it. They're not "tempted" by being unhappy, nobody wants to be. Pretending that's the case for the majority of people, just because you're upset human reality is messy and wet is not good or helpful.
You're not going to believe this, but happiness is well studied too: https://ourworldindata.org/happiness-and-life-satisfaction
> Share of people who say they are happy, 1993 to 2022
... okay, fine, whatever. It's extremely well studied and so well understood, and people are happier than ever, across the board. So what do "People are mad because being mad is fun" and "as seductive as "everything is terrible" even refer to? What's the problem?
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