Two points to your many excellent onessjcarpediemMay 18 2009, 08:51:55 UTC
Certainly the quality of life for the majority of Americans has been better than it was 200 years ago.
This is arguably untrue if you look at life-satisfaction, happiness, depression (and social anxiety disorders), job-satisfaction, involvement with hobbies, the overall perceived richness of culture (art, literature, theatre and other recreational/enriching involvements), rates of financial insecurity and criminality, etc. I'm not saying everyone should be farmers, but I am saying this "progress" thing may be headed in a less-than-desirable direction. I think we've been going down this road long enough to be able to seriously question it [whether it's really getting society at large to a desired goal or not] and even consider shifting priorities.
But while there will be new jobs that we don't know of yet, they will be for fewer people even as our population grows. Example: If a town of 20,000 needs one librarian, does a town of 100,000 need 5? No.
I dare posit that perhaps the answer to this question should be a resounding, "Yes." Rather than a proportional decrease or maintenance of a certain ratio of such professionals to the general population, these kinds of educating and organizing jobs should actually proportionally increase relative to the general population : e.g. rather than 5 librarians, a city of 100,000 should have 6 or even 7. Organization and coordination takes energy and I think societies have generally neglected this leading to an overall decrease in efficiency (cost-benefit ratios).
Re: Two points to your many excellent onesloreeleyMay 19 2009, 06:39:34 UTC
Do you honestly think that people now are unhappier than 200 years ago when most of us would have worked from dawn to dusk on the family farm, without hope of every being able to do something else and where even children had to take part in the work. Or 100 years ago when people worked long shifts in factories, often in exhausting conditions.
Society changed for a reason, because people were not happy with the way things were.
100-200, even 20 years ago, there was no real concept of job satisfaction or depression or hobbies being so important. These ideas developed because now we have the luxury to even be able to think about these things; there is the possibility of having a good job, having a good family life and having a good social life on top of it all. These are now concepts and now ways to judge our lives, which came to be because of a shift in thinking and a change if our lives. To be able to question our lives in this way is a great luxury. That is true progress.
You cannot compare having to make choices and yes, the possibility to make wrong ones, and satisfaction with the things you have because there is no real possibility to have much else.
Re: Two points to your many excellent onessjcarpediemMay 21 2009, 15:30:05 UTC
I think you lack a clear definition of 'happiness' (and what goes into it) yourself so it would be pointless to argue with you about it. Just because something hasn't always had recorded measurements kept doesn't mean people weren't aware of it.
I said 'arguably'. I didn't say 'definitively' or even 'certainly' or 'surely'.
I can compare what I like.
I think you have an over-dramatized version of history as a mass of impossibility, which makes me wonder if you have much of a grasp on the present.
If you're being defensive because you think you're as happy as you could be, for whatever reasons, that's silly and I feel sorry for you but it's ridiculously childish to attack me about it--and your reply looks to me in a decidedly offensive stance.
Relax, and if you decide you want to discuss this like reasonable adults, I'm game.
To answer your initial questions, though, yes, I do think some people are decidedly unhappier now than they 'would have been' 2- or even 100 years ago. I don't know what kind of situation you're in, but I work pretty long hours. I don't know what your experience with growing food or living on a farm is, but there are a lot of ways the reality then was very different from what it is imagined as today.
You're absolutely right that society changed for a reason (many, actually), but you're deluded if you think it was towards happiness for the greater number, or for that cause.
This is arguably untrue if you look at life-satisfaction, happiness, depression (and social anxiety disorders), job-satisfaction, involvement with hobbies, the overall perceived richness of culture (art, literature, theatre and other recreational/enriching involvements), rates of financial insecurity and criminality, etc. I'm not saying everyone should be farmers, but I am saying this "progress" thing may be headed in a less-than-desirable direction. I think we've been going down this road long enough to be able to seriously question it [whether it's really getting society at large to a desired goal or not] and even consider shifting priorities.
But while there will be new jobs that we don't know of yet, they will be for fewer people even as our population grows. Example: If a town of 20,000 needs one librarian, does a town of 100,000 need 5? No.
I dare posit that perhaps the answer to this question should be a resounding, "Yes." Rather than a proportional decrease or maintenance of a certain ratio of such professionals to the general population, these kinds of educating and organizing jobs should actually proportionally increase relative to the general population : e.g. rather than 5 librarians, a city of 100,000 should have 6 or even 7. Organization and coordination takes energy and I think societies have generally neglected this leading to an overall decrease in efficiency (cost-benefit ratios).
Reply
Society changed for a reason, because people were not happy with the way things were.
100-200, even 20 years ago, there was no real concept of job satisfaction or depression or hobbies being so important. These ideas developed because now we have the luxury to even be able to think about these things; there is the possibility of having a good job, having a good family life and having a good social life on top of it all. These are now concepts and now ways to judge our lives, which came to be because of a shift in thinking and a change if our lives. To be able to question our lives in this way is a great luxury. That is true progress.
You cannot compare having to make choices and yes, the possibility to make wrong ones, and satisfaction with the things you have because there is no real possibility to have much else.
Reply
I said 'arguably'. I didn't say 'definitively' or even 'certainly' or 'surely'.
I can compare what I like.
I think you have an over-dramatized version of history as a mass of impossibility, which makes me wonder if you have much of a grasp on the present.
If you're being defensive because you think you're as happy as you could be, for whatever reasons, that's silly and I feel sorry for you but it's ridiculously childish to attack me about it--and your reply looks to me in a decidedly offensive stance.
Relax, and if you decide you want to discuss this like reasonable adults, I'm game.
To answer your initial questions, though, yes, I do think some people are decidedly unhappier now than they 'would have been' 2- or even 100 years ago. I don't know what kind of situation you're in, but I work pretty long hours. I don't know what your experience with growing food or living on a farm is, but there are a lot of ways the reality then was very different from what it is imagined as today.
You're absolutely right that society changed for a reason (many, actually), but you're deluded if you think it was towards happiness for the greater number, or for that cause.
Reply
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