Were Times Better in the Past?

[orkie123]

To get the most value out of exerting the least amount of effort and stay alive as long as possible.

If anything being a try-hard/exceptionalism is what has created the giant mess that makes people despise modern life.

Do people really despise modern life more than previous generations despised their life though? I remember seeing some post about people complaining about "modern life" throughout history and there were people writing about how the "new life" is horrible even before Christ.

Also I think it was on GC that I read an article about youth. Basically, people start to hate on modern life more and more as they get older, and it's not that how the world has changed, but the fact that they are old that's making them miss how it was because they were young.

At least in the western world, if you want to make something of yourself, you can. It's not easy, but people want all the glory with none of the risks. I tell everyone that says "X was better than now" that the world is better now than it ever was, despite all the shortcomings. People really take for granted how cheap good entertainment is, and how relatively secure most countries in the west are.

 

[Chase]

@orkie123,

I split your post from the thread it's a response to since there's a lot of potential here to derail that discussion (which is about purpose, not about whether times now are different).

Anyway, in reference to this:

Do people really despise modern life more than previous generations despised their life though? I remember seeing some post about people complaining about "modern life" throughout history and there were people writing about how the "new life" is horrible even before Christ.

It is definitely true. History is littered with people yearning for the simplicity of earlier times. The people in the times people right now yearn to return to were themselves yearning for the simplicity of still-earlier times, generally speaking.

The rationale you hear for this usually is 'rose-colored glasses'. I have an alternate one though: if you understand the growth of social systems, where societal systems grow increasingly complex until they eventually collapse under their own weight, it really IS the case that at any given point in history it is generally going to have been simpler a few decades back. Whatever society you are in, generally speaking there were fewer laws, fewer rules, and fewer institutions with all their red tape a few generations ago.

That being said... you can also find historical examples of people living in post-collapse societies where things have dramatically simplified who yearn for the Byzantine social and legal rules of the old pre-collapse order.

So there's probably an amount of rose-colored glass-looking no matter what.

But some amount of it I think is genuinely due to spiraling complexity in human civilizations: whether you're talking 2020s America or 1950s America or 1870s America, it was invariably simpler a few generations earlier. Societies just get more and more complex over time (until they collapse).

At least in the western world, if you want to make something of yourself, you can. It's not easy, but people want all the glory with none of the risks.

To be fair, if we are using social mobility to argue whether now or then was easier, this study on American social mobility is pertinent:

We find that mobility increased from 1950 to 1980 but has declined sharply since 1980.

Not sure where in the Western world you are. If the US, then yes, it actually was better in the past -- going by the ability of one to make something of oneself and climb the ranks socioeconomically, anyway.

Not to say before is unequivocally better than now (I'm pretty skeptical of value judgments myself, especially comparing to times I haven't live through). Just food for thought.

I tell everyone that says "X was better than now" that the world is better now than it ever was, despite all the shortcomings. People really take for granted how cheap good entertainment is, and how relatively secure most countries in the west are.

You're probably measuring "better-ness" on different metrics than they are.

You:

• Price of good entertainment
• Lack of military invasion

Them:

• ???

Step #1 in debating what's better is figuring out what metrics you're using to determine that.

Usually that's where the REAL disagreement is: you value X and Y, but your opponent values M, N, and O.

Chase

 

[orkie123]

Thanks for the detailed response Chase!

I agree that people who have different values will see things differently, and having not lived in the previous generations, I cannot know for sure when life would be comparatively better or worse. My discussions with people on this is indeed based on different values, but sometimes I truly wonder if people genuinely believe those or are just saying it as an excuse to not take action now.

For example, I have friends who tell me "It was so much easier to find a wife before and have your own farm to provide for your family" and I really doubt that these people, if given a good wife and kids would actually want to live on a farm and do the work required. Not to mention that, go back a few more centuries, and even if you did manage to achieve this, you would always be at the mercy of whatever crazy landlord wanted to do and constant threat of wars.

I stand corrected on socio-economics in the USA, thought I do wonder if the majority of that was temporary based off on the aftereffects of WW2. I don't know how Americans felt during the cold war, but personally I find that was much more stressful and worrying than say the current world issues in Ukraine and Russia. So overall, (I'm not from USA) I would take a guess that If I had the choice, I would still pick being born when I did (or even later) then in those periods.

The one thing I do feel society isn't doing well now is getting people to get out of their heads and take action. We've become like think-zombies with all the spare time many of us have rather than using it to do productive things. But to me, that is a thing people need to take personal responsibility for, as it is only like that because in my view, people born in wealthier countries have most of their basic needs met apart from sex and connection. But was sex and connection ever available to the masses?. I feel like before, if you were born low class, you were doomed to be low class, whereas now you at least have a chance to get higher.