[TheOtherHobbes]

It's nice that you can get things. But there's a cost - increasingly large numbers of people can't.

I'm sure as the game continues you won't become one of them.

IMO the real problem is that maybe 5% of the population are amoral sociopaths, and being absolutely heartless and uncaring - often with a liking for outright abuse and violence - gives them a competitive edge in almost any political and social system you can imagine.

Normal people just can't imagine that another human might operate like this.

But worse - many people seem to have some kind of bizarre deferential herd instinct to follow these crazies off the suicide cliff.

It may not be a fixable problem. We're a flawed species. Perhaps it won't be long before evolution - the ultimate owner of the casino - shrugs and moves on.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

Do you think it's worse to be median in the US now than it was 50 years ago or 200 years ago? Or 600 years ago?

Do you think it's worse to be in the bottom 10%?

It's definitely not worse to be in the top 10%.

So where are we failing? Because I don't think we're failing anywhere on any medium-term horizon.

If you think we're failing from a short time ago, there's always ups and downs - but not a big reason to think the trend is reversing.

[bloak]

Those are difficult questions. Are we talking about how "happy" people are? That's the goal for some people, and an official goal for Bhutan according to its constitution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_National_Happiness). But I don't think we know very well how to measure it accurately.

It has been claimed that the move from hunter-gathering to agriculture brought a lot of misery while improving efficiency according to economic measures.

[itsoktocry]

>IMO the real problem is that maybe 5% of the population are amoral sociopaths, and being absolutely heartless and uncaring - often with a liking for outright abuse and violence - gives them a competitive edge in almost any political and social system you can imagine.

Absolutely. Bob Menendez's indictment is the definition of: this is a powerful, already wealthy individual selling out the US people to a foreign government for, frankly, not a lot of money. Why? He may spend the rest of his life in prison.

How can anyone but a sociopath think that's a good trade?

[boeingUH60]

It's more of foolishness...he would have more from a legal book deal if he wanted money.

[JackFr]

> But there's a cost - increasingly large numbers of people can't.

That’s simply not true.

[MerelyMortal]

> increasingly large numbers of people can't.

Do you have numbers to back that up?

[fuzzfactor]

>Normal people just can't imagine that another human might operate like this.

They don't need to imagine, they see it clearly first-hand every day and continue to be disgusted century after century.

That's one of the things that guides normal humanity to be the opposite of amoral sociopathic inhumanity.