[mvanvoorden]

You're repeating propaganda.

May be there's less violence, but the amount of suffering has skyrocketed over the years. A more than significant amount of people are dependent on tranquilizers and anti-depressants to make their life bearable, because for them it has become mundane and meaningless without.

Statistiscs may tell a story of less violence, and people getting older and having more material possessions, but these do not reflect the actual well-being of people, and also these numbers don't show how much exploitation and environmental damage our alleged 'prosperity' causes in other parts of the world.

[untog]

What you're saying is "statistics might tell one story, but let me tell you, without citing sources or evidence, those statistics are wrong".

[wfo]

No, what he's saying is "your metrics are measuring the wrong things and so it does not matter what numbers pop out of them; they are completely meaningless when it comes to answering the question which is actually important".

[davnn]

But nobody can answer the important question except for themselves.

[onetimePete]

You can measure the amount of ability to choose and answer your own questions though. Also, this all very idealistic nonsense- until 300 years ago, we lived basically in tribal community, and people yearn for that, no matter how futuristic they dress up.

[simonb]

For one, suicide rates in the developed world are on the rise: http://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/

[MichaelGG]

But this might be caused by all sorts of things. More people rejecting (or being more "moderate" in) religion, for instance. Or more people being able to get a more accurate view of the world. Or social acceptability changing.

Doesn't seem fair to look at overall statistics for peace and prosperity, then say "well that doesn't really count".

[f1hybrid]

If there is a rise in the curve of suicides caused by more people having an accurate view of the world, a realisation that causes them to take their own lives, I'm sure the solution is not to try to get people to believe in something that is false.

[simonb]

Of course, but all these are manifestations of the same ideological system (that also brought "peace and prosperity").

[yawgmoth]

You can have a quantifiable increase in quality of life without it being a meaningful increase in quality of life.

[termain]

That seems incompleat. Could you continue?

[scalio]

Most quality of life reports include ratings that are some variation on "average monthly income", meaning this nowadays pretty arbitrary measure of wealth aka money that you have no control over is factored into how happy you're supposed to be. Money is not the primary condition for happiness for many people, and markets are a complex thing, meaning having more money does not automatically entail having a better life.

(just my understanding of parent's comment)

[StanislavPetrov]

No, what he is saying is that you can make any argument appear valid if you cherry pick statistics.

There's less violence according to who? There are more people in prison today then any time in history. I'd argue that imprisoning someone is an act of violence. Violent coercion is also violence. Every time the government violates your rights, at the point of the gun, that's violence. That occurs hundreds of millions of times per day due to the actions of our police state.

Delusional people who talk about the rosy benefits of overpopulation always fail to mention that overpopulation is a direct cause of the 6th mass extinction, the saturation of the environment with chemical pollutants, the overfishing of the oceans, the destruction of tillable fields with nitrogen injection (which also leads to massive dead zones in waterways from runoff), and the list goes on.

Talking about how wonderful overpopulation is and how great we are getting along is like talking about how warm and comforting the fire on the life boat is while you burn your oars. It seems like a great idea until the oars are gone and not only are you cold, but you can no longer row.

[cookiecaper]

"Never trust a statistic you haven't faked yourself".

[dragontamer]

Yeah, because the Opium Wars of 1800s never happened or something.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Opium_War

Your ignorance of history is outstanding and on display. Whatever the TTIP is, it is most certainly not a secret agreement to allow Opium into the Chinese economy to wreak the common people.

We are better and more civilized people today than we were back then. Period.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears

Afghanistan was always an awful place:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Afghan_War

And there are certainly fewer outright rebellions like the Boxer Rebellion going on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion

Of course, Imperialism doesn't actually happen anymore. We don't go to war on 100% false pretenses (yeah, WMDs were bad, but "Remember the Maine to Hell with Spain" was significantly worse)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish%E2%80%93American_War

The reasoning of the 1900s was that "War is good. Social Darwinism at its finest". Survival of the fittest, lets fight. World War 1 was fought not out of necessity, but out of curiosity. We had new weapons, and we wanted to use them on each other. It was finally time for the great Powers of the World to compete in the glory of War.

We are a hell of a lot more peaceful today. No country actually has the appetite for the amount of warrant-less killing that Imperialism creates. We actually are connected to every other country in the world and care about the citizens of other countries.

In the late 1800s, we didn't even give a damn about the natives of our own country, or Black people, or even Women. (See Jim Crow laws).

[wavefunction]

>>No country actually has the appetite for the amount of warrant-less killing that Imperialism creates

The US drone war has been killing hundreds and thousands of innocent people so I wonder if perhaps we do have an appetite for that sort of murder.

[dragontamer]

Right. You just keep ignoring the good parts of history.

You do realize that America opened up Concentration Camps inside of the Philippine-American War?

Americans retaliated against the Philippinos by creating such lovely orders like "Kill everyone over the age of 10".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_H._Smith#Samar_campaign

> "I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn the better it will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against the United States," General Jacob H. Smith said.

America, F-yeah! And of course, the definition of "capable of bearing arms" is:

> "Persons of ten years and older are those designated as being capable of bearing arms"

------

But yeah, continue to pretend that modern war is worse than the past or something. Hundreds or thousands of innocent civilians? F-ing hell, we did 25,000 to 50,000 for s--- and giggles back then. In a single campaign, by a single general who was never punished.

[wavefunction]

I am responding to a post that claims that countries no longer engage in the sorts of atrocities found in history to claim that things are not that different. I think we actually spend more effort these days "justifying" the carnage whereas in the past it passed with less comment.

You seem to be tilting at windmills that you erected yourself.

[dragontamer]

Scorched Earth was a STRATEGY of war in the late 1800s / early 1900s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_earth

Back then, the US was blowing up hospitals as an EXPLICIT strategy to gain an edge over our foes. (Much like how Russia / Assad seem to be doing in Syria right now).

In contrast, when the US accidentally blows up a hospital today, a massive investigation goes through and everyone basically apologizes for it.

You seriously can't compare the 1800s / early 1900s mentality with the mentality of war we have today.

This S--- doesn't happen anymore, not by American commanders anyway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Walk_of_the_Navajo

-------------

Strictly by the numbers, the Drone Strikes that the US uses are far more precise at targeting than previous "Scorched Earth" campaigns that the Imperialist US used to take.

Comparing the lol Drone Strikes to Imperialist US is... utterly ridiculous from a historical perspective. The heartlessness and cruelty from that era still haunts us today.

No. We have no appetite for the warmongering that Imperialism used to call for. For every example you bring up today, I'll show you a historical example that is strictly worse.

[PavlovsCat]

The baseline isn't even worse stuff, the baseline is decency.

[dragontamer]

I tend to be a bit more pragmatic.

The human race is composed of neither angels nor devils: but humans. Beings with flawed and incomplete morality. Its best if we judge ourselves by comparing against the actions of our fathers, otherwise we may lose ourselves in idealism.

The claim after all, is that the current time is the most prosperous and peaceful time of all of human existence. And as far as I can tell, actual history agrees with this fact.

Don't believe me? Go back to the root comment if you've forgotten the claim: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11610816

You may be worried about a few thousand innocent deaths here and there, but again, that number is much much MUCH much smaller than the historical norm. But in any case, your idealism is a good thing. It is only further proof that we as a race are beginning to forget the horrors of war, because peace has existed for so long.

(Of course, some humans still exist in war-torn areas. Syrian and Iraqi refugees. And I am peace-loving and idealistic enough that I believe we should open up our country to these people, despite the risks. )

[PavlovsCat]

> Its best if we judge ourselves by comparing against the actions of our fathers, otherwise we may lose ourselves in idealism.

Honesty and decency existed thousands of years ago, too, "our fathers" aren't a monolith, just like the present isn't. But more importantly, I say including 10 different versions of jQuery on one page to color 10 letters makes it load needlessly slow, and you say that's still faster than usenet in the 80s -- if you know what I mean? It is both technically true and completely besides the point.

> The claim after all, is that the current time is the most prosperous and peaceful time of all of human existence.

Nope. The claim was that this is because of countries wanting to dominate each other. I say it's despite of that.

> You may be worried about a few thousand innocent deaths here and there, but again, that number is much much MUCH much smaller than the historical norm.

It's also a rather simplicistic metric. We consider murder bad because it doesn't allow the murdered people to live their lives, right? To develop freely as a person, and whatnot? Well, there's a problem:

> "it's not possible to be fully human if you are being surveilled 24/7"

[ http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20130818120421175 ]

The same goes for other things. People are getting fucked in so many ways with it's not really the opposite of murder, but its sibling. And open murder evokes criticism and resistance, while "pumping every home full of sleeping gas" (to paraphrase the lyrics to Bullet In The Head by RATM) works much better.

> I am peace-loving and idealistic enough that I believe we should open up our country to these people, despite the risks.

Call me when you're willing to get war criminals arrested and tried, and I mean American/Western ones. And let's talk about how peaceful the world has become after the wars/genocides over oil and water are over. You know, the ones we do nothing serious to avoid steering into, because we're too busy dominating each other, building little fortresses and kicking away the ladder? The gap between rich and poor is growing, not shrinking. You can't say by the standards of 1900, people today are better off. Well you can, but I can't take it seriously. By the standards of 2016 -- the ones that matter -- many people are worse off. As Stephen Hawking wrote:

> If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.

( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/3nyn5i/science_ama... )

[witty_username]

> May be there's less violence, but the amount of suffering has skyrocketed over the years. A more than significant amount of people are dependent on tranquilizers and anti-depressants to make their life bearable, because for them it has become mundane and meaningless without.

Citation? I haven't heard of anyone who is dependent on tranquilizers or anti-depressants (well, apart from the Internet from people with clinical depression), so it can't be that common.

[legulere]

The first thing I found on duckduckgo: http://www.webmd.com/depression/news/20111019/use-of-antidep...

"About 11% of Americans aged 12 or older take antidepressants" (2011)

"the rate of antidepressant use in the U.S. has increased nearly 400% since 1988."

Many people that are on anti-depressants won't tell you about it.

edit: Really? Downvote me just because I provided a source to the claim that more people are on antidepressants today?

[JoeAltmaier]

I'm sure its high. I'm also sure we use more vaccines, bone marrow transplants and leukemia cures than before. Its not always a bad thing that folks aren't suffering as they used to historically.

[witty_username]

Probably due to higher diagnosis and superior antidepressants (so patients are more likely to be prescribed).

Rate of antidepressant use isn't a good proxy for mental illnesses.

[mjevans]

While the criticisms in parallel may be founded, I think a better comparison would be the relative trajectory over time and the comparable rates of prescription in other nations.

It could be that the US is still under diagnosed compared to nations that have national healthcare systems as part of their tax structure.

It could also be that even with the above the US receives more diagnosis for anti-depressants due to quality of life and interactions between the individual and the culture of a given area.

It is my hypothesis (but I've no idea what terms to use for the search) that the culture in the US is less supportive and less about inclusion and empowerment than it has been in the past or possibly than other cultures. However researching that is much more something that those in social sciences should be performing as part of their education and society's investment in to scientific experiments for the public good.

[marknutter]

That doesn't necessarily people are more depressed now than they were in the past. It could also mean that people who would have been depressed either way are now finally getting treatment for it. Sounds pretty good to me.

[cookiecaper]

It's very common in the US. Present to a medical professional with a bit of lethargy and doubt or confusion over the general direction of your life and these medications seem to be prescribed almost immediately. It's almost like they don't want people to analyze their lives and address their issues such that their life is bearable without the aid of pharmaceuticals.

[Grishnakh]

Or maybe they'd prefer to make this option readily available to you so that you'll use these pharmaceuticals which have relatively minor side-effects, rather than you "self medicating" with alcohol or illegal narcotics as people generally did in the past (and still do today).

You tell me, which is better for someone under a lot of stress in life: should they take a Xanax one or two times a day, or should they drink themselves into a stupor every evening? Because the latter is the standard way of treating anxiety and depression, and has been for centuries.

[kps]

The US has a very strong puritan streak that says suffering is generally the result of personal moral failure, good for people, and it's wrong to make it ‘too easy’ to alleviate.

[cookiecaper]

What about neither? There are people who value sobriety.

[maccard]

That option is available too.

[woodpanel]

Having "more posessions", posessions at all, "getting older" and the least amount of violence (probably) since ever - constitutes what I'd call the most awesome time for humanity thus far.

What you call WW3, just shows how much capitalism has tamed even the biggest powers and helped make this world a more resilient civilization.

[blue_dinner]

"May be there's less violence, but the amount of suffering has skyrocketed over the years. A more than significant amount of people are dependent on tranquilizers and anti-depressants to make their life bearable, because for them it has become mundane and meaningless without."

I don't think this is very accurate. People get hooked on painkillers usually because they had some sort of accident and need them for pain...and since opiates are extremely addictive, continue to take them after they no longer need them.

"also these numbers don't show how much exploitation and environmental damage our alleged 'prosperity' causes in other parts of the world."

You can't blame us for countries that decide to have no rules and ruin their environment. When you compare the environment of the US to pretty much anywhere in the world, it's one of the cleanest (if not the cleanest).

..and 'exploitation'? We built the middle class of China. Before we started going overseas to build factories, the majority of people in China were in complete and utter poverty.

Hardly what I call exploitation.

[dragontamer]

In contrast, Chinese people got hooked on Opium because the British was making so much money off of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War

The Treaty of Nanking was basically crafted so that British Merchants can continue to get China hopped up on Opium. Because it was so profitable.

And people think today's trade deals are bad...

[tamana]

Nice. "You can't blame us for buying things from people who use slave labor and slaughter their slaves by the millions if they don't cooperate."

[tamana]

People weren't less depressed before Prozac, except if they were too busy starving or laboring.

[Nimitz14]

Is this HN or /r/conspiracy lol.