[Taikonerd]

The article is smarter than the title makes it sound. He's not seriously proposing that being rich makes you happy. And he notes that there's a big drop around 2020 specifically, which long-term trends don't explain.

Just to state the obvious: 2020 was the year of COVID, which played hell with peoples' social lives.

And I think it's been pretty well-proven that happiness is largely driven by the strength and quality of our social relationships. Anything that cuts us off from our friends, or prevents us from forming new friendships, is going to be visible in the happiness data.

Judging by the stats, we haven't dug ourselves out of the post-COVID hole yet.

[kenjackson]

I agree the article is smarter than the title makes it seem. And honestly, much better than comments on HN. The articles keeps diving deeper and asking questions. The comments here take hold of a single theory, without even thinking about the counters that article mentions. This is probably the best example of read the article, and not the comments.

[pepperoni_pizza]

The HN comments are sadly mostly just people pushing their favorite thing, whether COVID denialism, "everything is going bad because people are atheists" or whatever, without engaging with the article at all.

[decimalenough]

> COVID denialism

> "everything is going bad because people are atheists"

I don't think I have ever seen anybody express either of these opinions on HN, and if they tried, they would immediately get downvoted to oblivion.

[FeteCommuniste]

Here's one example of the second, in this very thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47877926

[phtrivier]

Substack tends to select for this kind of author. Not daily posts about their life and their latest hot take, but a few deep articles every few weeks, that make you think "hey, that's interesting". Although there is not necessarily an easy way to know where the author is talking from, whether they're entirely relevant, etc...

Even the "superstars" (Krugman, etc..) are posting this is that could have been posted on twitter, with the same level of outrage and polarization, but at least the content is well structure, and they are allowed to use sentences in paragraph, with quotes, and figures, and links, etc...

Yes, I know, it's called blogging. I'm saying that the new hot thing, in 2026, is blogging.

[j-bos]

Thank you kindly.

[lamasery]

I can say that post-Covid inflation took us from feeling like we were on the edge of escaping the middle class, to feeling like we aren't even close and realistically won't ever be again. Even as our incomes went up quite a bit at the same time.

And we're a lot better off than median. I can't imagine how crushing it's been lower "down the ladder".

[jimbokun]

Everyone expecting to escape the “middle class“ reminds me of Lake Wobegon where all the children are above average.

[sebastiennight]

To be statistically accurate, it is possible for all the children except one to be above average.

I remember a certain Dave Chappelle show a couple of years back where every single one of the ~10,000 attendees was about 20 million dollars poorer than the average net worth in the room.

[lamasery]

Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that's, like, the point of life or something, or something one ought to expect. It kinda snuck up on us, actually, until one day we were like "whoa, are we... on the verge of 'making it'?"

Then a couple years later, not so much.

The point I intended was that we were doing pretty great, and on paper should be doing even better now, but are actually doing less-great (though, still, can't truly complain). If that's how it's looked for us... I mean I look around and imagine trying to get by on a median household income, and holy shit. It seems a whole lot tougher now than it did when we were sitting around median, years ago.

[kakacik]

Don't get mortgages/private schools/expensive cars or hobbies that you can't manage comfortably with 2/3 of your income (or if in faang-level than 1/3 to 1/2 max).

Even less if you need to pay for your own healthcare outside of working contract.

I know its very luring, but its a one way trap into misery and ruined life one way or another. Doesn't matter how well current economy is doing, what are projections etc. thats a basic 101 mathematics.

[jimbokun]

Well you need to live someplace and homes near the best jobs are the most expensive, all new cars and many used ones are expensive, and state universities can also be expensive these days.

[Tanoc]

Mortgages are necessary unless you want to continue to rent. Single story two bedroom houses are selling for $250,000, while the people paying for them make $60,000 a year. People can't buy those outright. Meanwhile to rent the same thing is $1,400 a month and you don't get to sell part or whole of the rental property to recoup some of the cost you spent over the years. One year of renting comes out to $16,000 which is almost the equivalent of the average 8% down payment on that $250,00 mortage.

And private schools aren't the killer. Daycare is. Daycare's gotten stupidly expensive, and with so many families where both parents are working it's necessary in order to take care of children younger then nine or so who can't be by themselves at home. Most people don't live near family that can take care of those kids these days, so it's either professional childcare or nothing.

As for expensive hobbies? Dude everything's fucking expensive now. Gaming's gone from $129 for a PlayStation 2 and $40 for a game ($234 and $72 in 2026 money) to $649 for a PlayStation 5, $70 for a game, $30 for the three additional packs that were split from the base game to drive up profits, and $10 every month for PlayStation Network access. Want to go collecting vintage sports jackets? Good luck outwitting the scalpers buying them all in secondhand stores for $15 and then selling them on Etsy for $120. Want to get into crocheting? Either brave the yarn from sketchy Chinese online shops that likely won't even hold up to a single hook or pay $20 for a roll of it at Michael's or Hobby Lobby because every other crafts store was murdered by private equity. Collecting Pokemon or Magic The Gathering cards? You're lucky if the store display box isn't empty from scalpers filching them all to resell the meta cards online for 20% more. Learning an instrument? With the recent closings of so many luthiers and the wood import shortage from tariffs buying even the shittiest guitar is like $175 now, where as six years ago you could get one for $100.

That's not even getting into how many more bills and monthly subscriptions there are now compared to twenty five years ago that suck people's money away.

[WarmWash]

Dollars are dumb and you should price your place in society based on the demand/impact of the job you do.

To put that in an example, during covid lots of people who never made more than $12/hr were suddenly able to hop into jobs (lateral movement) paying $20/hr.

In there head they almost doubled their income, and placed themselves in a much high social class. But that is not how it works. $20 simply became the new $12, and they were pissed as all hell when realized they went nowhere.

If you work as a cashier in city Z, you will live the life of a cashier in city Z, regardless of your pay.

[tensor]

Actually it's extremely well documented in science studies that money absolutely makes you happy up to a certain point. Basically if you don't have a home and food due to not enough funds, then yes money absolutely equals happiness.

Inequality has grown to the point where the majority of younger people now have no hope of ever owning a home, and even large parts of the country are struggling with something as basic as food.

The HN crowd lives in a top 5% bubble and often forgets how bad it is for most people. All this talk of "money doesn't make happiness" is terrible. Money for basic necessities is the problem here.

[thephyber]

It goes a little further than “money for basic necessities”.

It’s about being able to provide the necessities AND having income security. I remember reading about a study that said poor people who have to scramble to deal with all of the extra steps that accompany being poor (no credit cards, maybe no bank account, dealing with getting utilities turned back on, etc) is the equivalent of losing about 15 IQ points from your optimal.

It’s the difference between being able to work “in the zone” / flow state frequently and being always stuck in “fight or flight” mode. One makes you successful while the other actively sabotages you.

[tmvphil]

No, happiness increases linearly with log(money), well beyond basic necessities https://happiness-science.org/price-of-happiness/

[eudamoniac]

> Inequality has grown to the point where the majority of younger people now have no hope of ever owning a home

Please stop repeating this myth. Look further up the thread for gen Z homeowner statistics.

[justsomehnguy]

> in science studies that money absolutely makes you happy up to a certain point

Perceived happines. It's hard to talk about happines with a person with an empty stomach. But I was much more happy when I was young and poor than I became a not poor but no longer a young one.

[Gander5739]

> Perceived hapiness

Is there any other kind?

[justsomehnguy]

You can buy any bicycle[0] you want when you are rich but if you didn't had a bicycle in your childhood then you didn't had a bicycle in your childhood.

[0] or LEGO, Transformers action figure, whatever

[ninalanyon]

That's not because you were poor then and not now but because you had few responsibilities then and many now. When you were young your needs were small and solely affected you, now your needs encompass those of family (I'm guessing that you have children). Even without family you have responsibilities to society and employer that you either did not have when young or that were simply less urgent.

[bombcar]

I suspect that for many people, the pounding outside is what mainly affects their happiness - if everything reported in the news is sunshine and happiness, they tend happier.

And if it's all doom and gloom and "go outside and you kill grandma" - are we surprised they get sad?

[autoexec]

In my experience most people don't care about what the news tells them anywhere near as much as what's going on in their personal lives.

If they've got money and they aren't worried about paying their bills or the price of food or the price of gas and they can afford a nice place to live and can afford to send their kids to college and can take at least one big vacation a year and they're spending their time going out with their friends they aren't losing much sleep over news stories that mention war in Somalia, or some politician's latest scandal, or how deforestation is threatening the habitat of a bunch of animals. They might not like what they hear, but they'll feel pretty happy about their life.

When their standard of living declines and they have to cut back to make ends meet and they watch their children struggle in ways they didn't have to at their age and their grandma actually dies because she went outside people start to get upset and suddenly the constant news stories about the latest pointless trillion dollar war, and the politician stealing from taxpayers, and the huge decline in wildlife populations starts to hit differently.

[jmcgough]

COVID almost certainly had something to do with it, but the US isn't the only country that faced lockdowns, nor is it the only country that experienced inflation. Why is it that most other countries' happiness scores have returned to near-baseline since then, while the US is still so much lower?

[ryandrake]

The USA really didn't have lockdowns, where people were actually forbidden to leave their homes. Apart from a handful of metro areas, what was actualy implemented were feeble 'stay at home suggestions' with tons of exceptions. It was entirely voluntary, and people broadly ignored them (again, outside a few areas). Around me, everyone was still out and about, eating at restaurants, buying their khakis, and basically ignoring that there was a deadly airborne disease being spread around. The only thing that seemed to be adequately enforced were school closures.

[keybored]

> The article is smarter than the title makes it sound. He's not seriously proposing that being rich makes you happy.

Not everything is supposed to be read literally. But this seems to be the Abundance author so maybe it really is unironic and that tediously sincere.

> And I think it's been pretty well-proven that happiness is largely driven by the strength and quality of our social relationships.

Everyone who has enough money to not worry about money agrees.

> Anything that cuts us off from our friends, or prevents us from forming new friendships, is going to be visible in the happiness data.

Great news for the developing countries with healthy social connections. Not so great news for a country with great wealth and income inequality and atomized connections.

[sophrosyne42]

These are the secondary and tertiary bad effects of lockdowns which were ignored at the time.

[mindslight]

Have you found any studies showing long-term differences between the half of states that had "lockdowns" versus the half that did not?

[nephihaha]

A lot of things were, and continue to be ignored about lockdown. It killed a lot of addicts — alcoholics and drug addicts alike, probably online gamblers too.

There were major jumps in suicide during the lockdown and in the next two or three years after.

[ZunarJ5]

I have a complicated lisfranc injury that's taken years now to sort due to covid. My partner is still dealing with autoimmune issues. We will be dealing with the aftermath for decades.

[deeg]

If it was COVID, though, wouldn't we expect to see the same thing in other countries?

[spockz]

We do see it in other countries. But even if we didn’t see it, it could still be that the situation in the states was at such a precarious position that COVID tipped it there (more) than in other places, making it more visible. Also other places such as Europe in general have bigger safety nets so the fallout of the damage is less.

[nephihaha]

You do. I don't live in the USA and things are worse since lockdown.

Don't believe the propaganda that Nordic people are happiest. I reckon it's probably one of the Pacific islands.

[joe_mamba]

>You do. I don't live in the USA and things are worse since lockdown.

Yep, this. It's been worse everywhere since then. I didn't know how much I'd be missing the days of 2014-2018 right about now. If only I knew how good we had it.

>Don't believe the propaganda that Nordic people are happiest.

When you have the highest rates of suicides, coffee, alcohol and antidepressant usage, you're only left with the happy people ;)

[hunterpayne]

Those happiness studies are more about cultural norms of communication and how questions about emotions translate into various local languages. They have little to do with happiness itself and say more about how cultures shape languages.

[mvdtnz]

I wonder if COVID revealed to Americans how toxic their individualistic culture is. For a long time it kind of seemed like individualism was working well for you but COVID was the first crisis since WW2 where the country was asked to pull in the same direction together and it really just fell apart.

I'd be miderable too if I learned my entire worldview, and that of my countrymen, was dangerously wrong and there's no way to really fix it.

[chasd00]

> where the country was asked to pull in the same direction together

There was no asking, if the country was asked then the term "lockdown" wouldn't have been used. On the other hand, there were no soldiers on the street forcing everyone inside. People chose to do it and maybe that's where the social strife really comes from, people realized they just do what they're told by authority and they're not the free-thinking individuals they thought they were.

I'm still amazed at the level of total, blind, compliance of the US population. I expected riots in the streets but there was nothing. At least traffic was less. And HN was especially depressing, any mention of "lockdowns" maybe not being the best idea or what Sweden was doing was totally shouted down. I'll never forget that.

[array_key_first]

Riots in the streets because you have to wear a piece of cloth on your mouth and stand slightly farther away from people?

I don't know how people are so delusional to think lockdown was a lockdown. Did we... did we have the same COVID?

I went to work every day, in person, at a restaurant. I served people every day, in person, at said restaurant. I went shopping at the grocery store. I went to the park, to the mall. These were all "essential jobs", somehow.

The only thing that changed is they put those little stickers on the ground telling people where to stand. Oh, and I wore a mask.

[anthonypasq]

part of the issue with Covid is that it was highly state dependent so everyone is talking past each other and accusing people of gaslighting and memory holing stuff.

if you lived in Texas, many people would agree with your assessment. I lived in Massachusetts and I can tell you that was not at all my experience. All communal venues including the beach???? were shut down. there was extreme social pressure to never step outside. I know this sounds like a made up story, but i literally had friends accuse me of killing their grandmother because I as a healthy 24 year old wanted to go to a concert AFTER vaccines were available.

If you lived in a primarily liberal culture, the authoritarianism, virtue signaling and hypocrisy were completely insane.

my little brother didnt get a senior year of highschool or freshman year of college, and yet people like you claim the only thing that happened was people didnt want to put a piece of cloth over their mouths. Its extremely disingenuous and i can tell you my brother has not been the same since covid.

[hirvi74]

> If you lived in a primarily liberal culture, the authoritarianism, virtue signaling and hypocrisy were completely insane.

Perhaps so, but in 2020-2023, it appears that the harsh imposition of Massachusetts was not in vain when compared to states like Texas, for example.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/state-stats/deaths/covid19.html

Sure, correlation does not imply causation, but correlations do imply associations.

> Its extremely disingenuous

It is also extremely privileged and entitled. More Americans died from Covid in a few years than the sum of US solider deaths in all US wars combined from 1776-2026.

[anthonypasq]

IDK why i bother but ill bite.

> Perhaps so, but in 2020-2023, it appears that the harsh imposition of Massachusetts was not in vain when compared to states like Texas, for example.

if youll notice, the difference in death rates only diverges in 2021. in 2020, both states were the same color. this is because the only thing that actually solved covid was vaccines, and republicans were dumb as shit to think the vaccines didnt work.

> It is also extremely privileged and entitled. More Americans died from Covid in a few years than the sum of US solider deaths in all US wars combined from 1776-2026.

this is a complete non-sequiter to the thing i was calling disingenuous. it is disingenuous to say that the people who had issues with the US policy response to covid was simply that they were whiny babies who wouldnt wear a mask. My brother literally had 2 of the most important years of his childhood completely ruined.

besides the fact that this comparison is so dumb on so many levels, (like comparing any death toll to number of 9/11's a day), yes it is tragic that so many people died of covid. But again, the primary failure there was people not getting the vaccine.

[giardini]

So how did Sweden do vis-a-vis the USA?

[tayo42]

There were riots in the streets, it was just over another black guy being killed by a racist cop though.

[chasd00]

yeah and remember when those gatherings/protests got a thumbs up from the CDC but having friends over for dinner was off the table? God, what a ridiculous time that was.

[ceejayoz]

Almost like outside and inside are different, eh?

[embeng4096]

So why were public outdoor areas like skate parks filled with sand to “promote social distancing”?[1] Or parking lots at beaches and state parks closed “to curb the spread of coronavirus”?[2]

[1]: https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/coronavirus-san-clem...

[2]: https://calmatters.org/health/coronavirus/2020/03/coronaviru...

[suttontom]

The hypocrisy was most notable in experts who said those protesting against the lockdowns (outside), who were considered right wing, were risking spreading the disease, but then said the opposite when the protests supported a left-wing narrative.

Also the CDC who said you had to stay six feet apart even outside who then were OK with people gathering close together during protests and shouting (specifically called out by the CDC as a risky behavior).

[guzfip]

> people realized they just do what they're told by authority and they're not the free-thinking individuals they thought they were

Nah, no one who seriously thought this has come around to the truth.

[nephihaha]

Lockdown, not "Covid". And that Covid lockdown was a little taste of the extreme form of top down collectivism. (Covid was around both before and after the lockdowns.)

The USA got off lockdown lightly in the main. Continental Europe, Canada and Australia all went nuts with it. Especially the Northern Territory and State of Victoria.

[chasd00]

> top down collectivism

The Dallas County judge was driving my neighborhood berating people for walking their dogs and telling them to get inside. It was totally insane, i couldn't believe what I was seeing. I met him at a fundraiser once and asked him why he wasn't wearing a mask. My wife's friend (hosting the fundraiser) asked me to leave. His little hobby authoritarian regime during that time was the stupidest thing i'd ever seen but what made me the most angry/shocked is everyone just complied.

/I live in Dallas, TX. The judge is Clay Jenkons https://www.dallascounty.org/government/comcrt/jenkins/

[watwut]

But Europeans and Canadians and Australians are not nearly as much "traumatized" by idea that OMG lockdown happened due to covid.

The complete societal inability to adapt seems to be bigger issue in USA.

Neither Europe nor Canada are as much affected despite having more lockdowns. It was not lockdown as such, but something else about Americans

[ryandrake]

Interesting how the stay-at-home orders were much more serious and enforced outside of the USA, yet it was the USA that complained and moaned about them the most. Nobody was forcing us to stay inside our homes, and a lot of people ignored the order and went out anyway. Yet, so many Americans were absolutely outraged and indignant and complaining about Their Freedom, at the minor inconvenience of having their favorite restaurant closed.

[jerlam]

The US may have had the most visible polarization about it. We had a President threatening to "open up the states" while state governors issued more and more restrictive orders. Depending on what news media you watched, there were ERs filled with bodies or there were people on the beach enjoying their spring break.

The contradictory messages from every levels of government for years did a lot to break the underlying faith in the system.

[nephihaha]

"it was the USA that complained and moaned about them them"

There were protests in China but most people never got to hear about them due to heavy censorship. In Australia, indigenous youth started to "go bush" for the first time in many years to avoid living like that. There were also anti-lockdown protests in various countries which were subjected to media blackout. In Australia when their truckers tried to organise protest, internet and phone service was withdrawn from them.

Many more things we never got to hear about.

[nephihaha]

It happened due to government not to Covid. A virus is not a conscious being, it cannot order lockdowns and would continue regardless of whether there was one or not.

By the way, the UK is in a complete mess due to Covid. It destroyed at least a seventh of its businesses. Probably more when we omit the ones that died off in 2022- as a delayed result of it.

There were truckers' protests in Canada and Australia (the latter resulting in internet and phone signals being cut in some areas.)

[pb7]

Europeans, Canadians, and Australians are used to living in nanny states that dictate their lives.

[hirvi74]

People will complain that the government did too little or too much, but the key is that people will always complain.

[nephihaha]

They have the right to, and sometimes they will be justified in their complaints.

Some people will also obey whoever is in charge. History bears that out.

[traderj0e]

But individualism turned out to be ok in that case. By the time vaccines were out, it had already mutated enough that it didn't make much of a difference whether or not people vaccinated, and most people ended up getting some variant of it. The bickering stopped, and US ended lockdowns around the same time as other countries.

If we were less lucky and it turned out to be super deadly and only solvable with more cooperation, that would fall apart here.

[tzs]

> By the time vaccines were out, it had already mutated enough that it didn't make much of a difference whether or not people vaccinated, and most people ended up getting some variant of it.

Vaccines made a huge difference in whether or not when you ended up getting it you got a severe case with a significantly higher risk of hospitalization or death or got a case that was just in the mild to really annoying range.

[Geee]

Actually the less collectivist approaches e.g. Sweden caused much less trouble.

[anon291]

I mean this is just silly. If anything, America was more communal than most countries during covid, as churches, clubs, gyms, continued to meet, even if in secret. Except for the extremists, no one really cared to be honest.

If anything, it made me realize how uninterested in being governed Americans are, and how pervasive this attitude is. Lest you think it's all 'MAGA' types, consider my brother who lives on the Central Coast of California in a heavily hispanic enclave. We visited a few times.

Despite California being one of the strictest states, I don't think there was a single sign or signal that anything was going on. My sister-in-law's large hispanic family continued to hold every family event indoors or at parks, without masking, or anything. We had a great time with the cousins.

Our church continued to meet in secret, flaunting the spirit of the law, if not the letter, and people were fine. COVID ran through once at the beginning, and then we were just there laughing at the government. Great bonding time honestly.

[Geee]

Individualism means voluntary cooperation. Collectivism is state-imposed forced cooperation. Decentralized vs. centralized. It's a common misconception that individualism means no cooperation; actually it means that each individual can choose who they want to cooperate with.

[array_key_first]

This isn't how most people would define individualism and collectivism, I think.

Individualism is the propensity to do whatever is best for the individual, even if it hurts the collective. Collectivism is the propensity to do what's best for the collective, even if it hurts the individual.

Wearing masks and social distancing helps the collective. But because Americans are highly individualistic, and doing so is ever so slightly less convenient than not doing so, many people decided not to wear masks or social distance.

Oftentimes what is best for the individual and what is best for the collective are one and the same. That is the only reason America works at all. COVID was not one of those times.

[anon291]

Does it matter what the cause is for the purpose of the social benefits of community?

[cucumber3732842]

>consider my brother who lives on the Central Coast of California in a heavily hispanic enclave. We visited a few times.

On a local level covid restrictions seem to have had as much to do with economics as they did politics.

[bjourne]

100% right. What we (rather 80+ year old corrupt politicians) did to young people during covid was downright criminal. Almost two of their most important years destroyed.

[phtrivier]

Well, to be fair, it allowed some of the old people to survive more than two years, so...

Young people should react by voting in people who will defend them. Instead, they joined the elderly un voting for Trump. Go figure.

[tzs]

Boomers only slightly favored Trump in 2024.

Young voters (Gen Z) went Harris by 10 points.

People in the first ~1/2 of middle age (Millennials) slightly favored Harris.

It was the second ~1/2 of middle age (Gen X) that were pro Trump, by 6 points.

Boomers had the best turnout. 31% of eligible voters but 40% of actual voters. Gen X was 28% of eligible voters and 26% of actual voters. Millennials were also 28% of eligible voters and were 25% of actual voters. Gen Z was 13% of eligible voters but only 9% of actual voters.

[phtrivier]

A group "slightly" favoring Harris, thanks to the electoral college, is a group that favors Trump :P

Also, gen z favored Haris by ONLY 10 points ? As in 55/45 ? Isn't the stat usually more on the order of 60/40 (if not 65/35) for this age group ?

[tzs]

But also due to the electoral college a small change in turnout in swing states can have a large effect. None of the swing states had higher than average Boomer concentration. Pennsylvania is right about average, and the rest were all lower.

Gen Z went for Biden by 24 points, but the shifted right for 2024 so only went for Harris by 10.

Millennials were similar, going for Biden by 19.

Gen X favored Trump in 2020 by about about 6% and in 2024 by about 8%.

Only Boomers have moved left. They favored Trump by 8% over Clinton, about 5% over Biden, but then only 1-2% over Harris.

[phtrivier]

> Gen Z went for Biden by 24 points, but the shifted right for 2024 so only went for Harris by 10.

Kinda confirms my point, no ? Sure, not a "majority" of Gen Z went for Trump. But such a shift has to mean _something_ was done wrong.

That being said, I once again got my timing wrong - most of the restrictions of covid happened before Biden was elected, so it would not really make sense for them to blame it on Biden.

I suppose inflation was enough for them...

[watwut]

Young people were more pro lockdowns then old people.

And also, America did nit had two years of lockdowns.

[chasd00]

absolutely true. Masks + lockdown hobbies (baking etc) were virtue signaling and everywhere online.

[mjmsmith]

Many Americans were traumatized by being asked to wear a mask because they’re big angry babies. Many other Americans were traumatized by the discovery that they’re surrounded by big angry babies.

[eudamoniac]

Yeah... "asked"...

[giardini]

I began watching for Covid cases early. I asked everyone I met: "Have you had Covid?" and "Do you know anyone who has had covid?"

Six months into the pandemic only a single acquaintance claimed to have had the disease. A year later and there were only 3 such people. To this day I count no more than 5.

I believe that the story of the pandemic has yet to be written. IMO the "powers that be" panicked and drove the population into mass hysteria. Or perhaps they used the pandemic to achieve political ends.

There were definitely cases among certain populations: esp. elderly and immune-compromised in some cities. And there was a world of mismanagement: masks, ventilators, makeshift hospitals, quarantine facilities, etc. Lots of money was made and lots of money was given away by various governmental entities. There's no accounting for it.

Maybe you can be the person who does the study that, once and for all, justifies the wearing of masks during Covid. I only wore a mask when I was told to. But I am healthy and lucky and somehow avoided getting Covid. Or maybe I caught it but didn't know b/c I was so f'ing healthy. Who knows?

[array_key_first]

Wearing a mask was always such a non-issue. Even if the effect was only marginal, there's essentially no cost to wearing a mask.

It's, like, slightly uncomfortable. Slightly. As the other commenter said, people complained not because there were legitimate complaints, but rather because they were big babies.

I believe you could've asked them to do anything and they would have complained. It wasn't the mask. It was the concept that they would have to do something simple for the greater good, and someone else was asking them to do it. Meaning, they were (are?) fundamentally stubborn, individualistic, and selfish people.

[mjmsmith]

There have been over 100 million cases and over one million deaths in the US. Congratulations to you and your acquaintances for being extreme outliers.

[hirvi74]

I am sorry, but this is a statistically ignorant take. Your selection bias and infinitesimal sample size do not accurately account for a country with a population of almost 350 million people.

> And there was a world of mismanagement: masks, ventilators, makeshift hospitals, quarantine facilities, etc. Lots of money was made and lots of money was given away by various governmental entities. There's no accounting for it.

There were greater priorities at the time. I truly believe many governments operated with what knowledge they had at the time. It's all too easy to judge past actions with current knowledge.

> I only wore a mask when I was told to. But I am healthy and lucky...

I am glad you are healthy and lucky. But why do you hold such contempt for your fellow humans who might not be healthy nor as lucky?

[thephyber]

2020 / Covid did A LOT of things, not just scramble our social lives.

There was a pretty large check from the government to workers (which supercharged some people risk-taking in stocks, crypto, events betting, sports betting). It became the year of WallStreetBets and meme stocks.

White collar people were working from home, which eliminated tedious commutes but also blended together work and home life. I’m pretty sure one of my sisters snapped dealing with several kids doing Zoom schooling and teaching her own classes over Zoom.

Many Americans reconsidered what is important in life. Another one of my sisters was “an essential worker” but wasn’t (and still isn’t) paid well and the health benefits didn’t increase even when the likelihood of getting a debilitating disease did.

It was also contentious politically, with a major election. I cut off half of my family after they went down the QAnon / Election Theft rabbit hole and they began to inhabit a completely different reality than I did. We all reacted to extreme stress in different ways and one of those ways was to distrust American institutions.

There are some post-2020 things that happened. Interest rates rose in 2022 for the first time since 2009ish. Lots of tech companies hired like drunken sailors during 2020 and began to layoff once the interest rates rose environment started to curb spending and investment. Twitter was bought and most of the staff was cut, giving other executives in Silicon Valley cover for attempting the same.

To stay with your theme of social lives changing, I think my personality has changed a bit where I am less likely to socialize with strangers (like in a 3rd space), to go out in the evenings, to hang out with coworkers.

[WarmWash]

Those checks had the smallest impact out of all the things the government did.

0% interest rates was insane when most cash cow workers simply shifted to working from home (sorry, I know it's harsh, but hourly workers are not the backbone of the American economy). The gov also froze student loan payments, and froze rent payments. It also payed full unemployment and for longer. Oh and PPP loans....

It was an absolute money bonanza, and way way far beyond what was actually needed.

[carabiner]

Lockdown was such a massive mistake. Masks are good, vaccines are good, shutting down everyone's lives in hopes of protecting already extremely unhealthy people, to which effectiveness was never established, was devastating to the world. Cities were hollowed out - ask ANYONE who lives in NYC, LA, even smaller cities like Seattle, and they'll tell you how nightlife was decimated by pandemic.

[ryandrake]

Outside of those cities, though, there really wasn't a "lockdown." Nobody was forced to stay in their homes. People treated it as optional and were out and about despite the utterly unenforced "stay at home". Around me, it had a minor impact on traffic, but no noticeable impact on stores, restaurants, and socialization.

[slaw]

National and state parks were closed. Flights cancelled. There was not much to do outside.

[jerlam]

There were a lot more people outside during lockdown. There were running and cycling booms.

[cucumber3732842]

Literally every form of outdoor recreational equipment from cornhole to million dollar power boats had a huge sales boom during covid.

[nslsm]

>Just to state the obvious: 2020 was the year of COVID, which played hell with peoples' social lives.

No, it was government mandates that played hell with peoples' social lives.

[amanaplanacanal]

Plenty of people cut back on socializing, separate from whatever local lockdown policies might have been in place.

[mcphage]

> No, it was government mandates that played hell with peoples' social lives.

What did the government mandate about your social life?

[sokoloff]

Closing restaurants, bars, and movie theaters had a negative effect on social lives as a direct result of government mandates.

[account42]

Much worse than that in Germany - they literally had rules for gathering with your family with complex charts to determine with you you are allowed to meet (with single adults living on their own getting the worst of it). Utter insanity, all of it.

[ActorNightly]

Can we stop pretending that it was Covid, and not the felon pedophile and his cronies in charge of the country? You can see on the plot that the shit started in 2016.

[sph]

Sure, because the world was just great before 2016. The orange idiot is just the culmination of decades of decline, not a random blip in American history.

[ActorNightly]

I mean, in a roundabout way you are right in your second sentence, it just wasn't decades of decline, on the opposite, it was a decade of positive growth. The world was pretty good prior to 2016. By all accounts, economy was doing good, tech was happening, cool things were being done.

Most of the actual important issues were solved or on the way of being solved, so people slowly started to make the trivial problems seem way grander than they are. Hedonistic adaptation is part of human nature, and the cycle has been seen in history many times in many civilizations.

Meanwhile, ironically, in societies where there is significant hardship every day, whether its going out and farming or having to work harder for your meal at home, dealing with adverse weather, and other things, you tend to see way more inclusion and coherence between humans, because they really never get a chance to get accustomed to a good life.

[hunterpayne]

I agree but like most tragedies, it wasn't the event, it was the reaction. Trump did very little in his 1st term (especially in comparison to now), yet extremist/politically addicted people lost their minds constantly. It was their radicalization and increased extremism that caused most of the harm. And as most of their real life social circle pulled back from their extremism they got deeper into their social media bubble. And they still haven't come back and I don't expect them to for some time.

[sph]

Trump might've been "subdued" in his 1st term, but social media was already at its breaking point even before he sat in the White House the first time. Remember the cesspool that was /r/TheDonald for example, the 4chan psyop factory, the pepe the frog memes, Steve Bannon, etc.

Trump is a product of the idiocy of the American electorate. He's also a product of the forces that have worked for many, many years to have a guy like him run the country. Trump is what you eventually get after the Reagans, the Nixons, the George Wallaces have sown the seeds.

[gjm11]

What plot? All the plots in the article either (1) show the change for the worse happening in 2020 or later or (2) are explicitly comparing "before 2020" with "after 2020".

(I do agree that Mr Trump is a shockingly bad president in oh so many ways. But the malaise being described here doesn't seem to have started in 2016. Not every bad thing is his fault.)

[anon291]

Trump is a terrible president and person. Unfortunately, Trump derangement syndrome is also a real thing. We are a country full of fools of one persuasion or another.

[jmyeet]

Covid wasn't some magical line in the sand when things got bad. It's really the tipping point for a trend that began in the 1970s of increasing inequality. Two big things happened in the pandemic that have nothing to do with other issues of social isolation:

1. The fear companies had of raising prices went away thanks to inflation. It's when dynamic pricing in various forms (eg RealPage for rents) really took off. Supermarkets started engaging in essentially unspoken collusion. This tends to get labelled as "price leadership" rather than "price fixing" where the only difference is the first is legal and the second isn't but they're otherwise identical; and

2. Governments around the world engaged in massive wealth transfer to the wealthy, which creates asset price inflation, particularly with housing. Some countries tried to claw some of this back with so-called windfall profits tax. Personally, I think there should've been a corporate tax of 80%+ for 2020-2023 (at least).

The usual tool that governments use to tackle inflation is monetary policy. The theory goes that you raise interest rates, it makes borrowing more expensive and it dampens the heat in the economy. That's true but it's also a very blunt instrument. It hurts everyone from the biggest borrowers to people buying homes.

What never gets serious discussion let alone policy discussion (at least in the US) is fiscal policy, secpfically taxation. Temporarily high corporate taxes would've had a similar effect on tempering M&A, share buybacks, etc but it would've only targeted companies who were profiting from, say, a huge spike in oil prices.

But there are other factors too that existed before Covid such as private equity, which is simply buying up all the competition, making everything more expensive, paying back an LBO and then loading up a company with exploding debt so some sucker down the line can buy it before it blows up.