
How Bad Are Things? (2015) - barry-cotter
https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/12/24/how-bad-are-things/
======
SolaceQuantum
In my experience this is very true upon simply becoming the kind of person who
is open to listening to others. The vast majority of people you've run into
have had huge difficulties in life, or are affected by people close to them
who have huge difficulties in their lives.

People tell me I'm a wonderful listener due to my lack of judgement on their
problems (more than once, people, including my therapist, tell me I'd make a
great therapist), but really I've internalized the idea that _everyone is
living a life less than what they hoped their life would be_ to various
extents and that there is also a near _infinite_ combination of ways to
achieve this effect such that no one can be dismissed for their misery in any
respect without also dismissing the "legitimate" misery of a wide swath of
people.

When I come across people who are willing to dismiss others' concerns, either
by dismissing them as oversensitive, or dismissing them as evil, I wonder if
they've internalized this logic too. And if they have, what their experiences
are to cause them to conclude that dismissal is the reasonable choice.

~~~
DisruptiveDave
> but really I've internalized the idea that everyone is living a life less
> than what they hoped their life would be to various extents and that there
> is also a near infinite combination of ways to achieve this effect such that
> no one can be dismissed for their misery in any respect without also
> dismissing the "legitimate" misery of a wide swath of people.

There's a downside to this logic, one of the enabling sort. I consider myself
fairly empathetic, but with a very pragmatic tint. I find many, many people
take on complaining and a victim/underdog status with an almost hobby-like
approach. And I watch how others react, which is exactly as expected:
sympathy, attention, allowing those complainers a way out of personal
responsibility or true introspection (specifically into their role in managing
reactions to external events). It's a never ending cycle. And it hardly ever
promotes growth. And almost never results in true happiness (happiness is
probably the wrong word...maybe contentedness is better, tho maybe not).

So, the same way you wonder about those people who "dismiss others' concerns,"
I wonder about those who kowtow to others' words and fail to consider the
reality (perceived, of course) behind them. It often feels lazy to me. And
short-term thinking. Truly caring about another person sometimes means
forsaking short-term "feel goods" for long term growth.

~~~
kazagistar
Sure, the idea that the right solution is always sympathy and material
assistance is a bit reductionistic.

But the idea that what's best for people is always tough love and a job is
just as reductionistic and oversimplified.

And at scale, neither blanket solution is perfectly effective, but one at
least leans towards kindness.

~~~
DisruptiveDave
Of course, we agree there. Re: your final sentence, what I'm actually saying
here is that this version of "kindness" may be actively harming some people in
the long run. But because humans are generally bad at long-term thinking, we
follow our instincts (i.e. "make this person feel immediately better any way
possible in this immediate moment"). So, "kindness" isn't necessarily kind in
these situations. Your desire to help is betrayed by your mind. Your actions
are harmful. Think about that.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
I should clarify because I feel there is some confusion- I do not desire to
help someone. I do not desire to be kind, nor compassionate. I merely find it
more useful to be willing to listen to others and come from a place to desire
to understand first, evaluate second, act third. I've stated to my companions
that I'm not a compassionate, empathetic, or kind person (to their vehement
disagreement) because my willingness to listen does not spawn from any of the
reasoning you are pointing as flawed.

~~~
DisruptiveDave
Good clarification. Listen -> evaluate -> act is a solid approach.

------
DoreenMichele
_3\. Or maybe many of the people I know are in fact this unhappy, but they
never tell anyone except their psychiatrist all of the pieces necessary to put
their life story together._

When I moved back home during my divorce and lived with relatives, I got to
see all kinds of stuff going on that I had no knowledge of when I used to
visit, keep in touch by phone, etc. I moved out, to an apartment a mile or two
away, and went back to getting the whitewashed view of their lives.

I don't think they were even trying to particularly hide things from me. It
just didn't come up. It just wasn't possible to convey every bit of minutiae
about their lives to me all the time when I wasn't there seeing it firsthand.

You typically have far more limited information about the lives of people
around you than you imagine. You don't really know what your neighbors are
doing. You don't really know what your coworkers and boss do all day. Etc.

Think of the endless news stories where the neighbors are simply shocked that
their next door neighbor was a drug dealer for the Mafia, a serial killer,
etc. We often know people a lot less well than we imagine we do.

------
apo
> I work in a wealthy, mostly-white college town consistently ranked one of
> the best places to live in the country.

I wonder to what extent the setting in which the author works selects for
people who will feel isolated/regretful and therefore develop the kinds of
problems s/he encounters.

> The town where I practice psychiatry is mostly white and mostly wealthy.
> That doesn’t save it.

The underlying assumption is that white and wealthy must not be _worse_ off
than the alternative.

But what if the environment itself creates problems that less affluent
environments don't?

\- Children can afford to move out of the house and so they do

\- Couples can afford to get divorced, and so they do

\- Individuals can afford to experiment with behaviors that lead to addiction,
and so they do

\- Families don't need their children economically, so they spend their time
in the care of others or alone

There can be no regret without choice. The more money you have, the more real
choices you get to make. And the more ways you can come to regret those
choices.

~~~
nradov
Divorce is less common among affluent couples.

~~~
apo
Seems plausible - got a reference?

~~~
positivejam
I had also heard that. This was the first source I found, which paints a
slightly more complicated picture, but does seem to indicate that divorce is
less common among the affluent.

[https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/marriage-and-
divor...](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/marriage-and-divorce-
patterns-by-gender-race-and-educational-attainment.htm)

~~~
apo
That's a good study, but I'm not sure it disentangles income from education:

> Moreover, the “divorce gap” between college graduates and those with less
> education was larger in the NLSY79 cohort than it was for the 1950–1955
> birth cohort. In the NLSY79 cohort, the divorce rate for first marriages is
> nearly 20 percentage points lower for those who have completed their
> bachelor’s degree compared with those who have completed high school,
> regardless of whether they have some college or not. The gap is even
> greater, approaching 30 percentage points, when comparing those with a
> college degree to those with less than a high school diploma. Just as with
> first marriages, college graduates were more likely to stay in a second
> marriage when compared with groups that have less education.

Couples that get married after degrees have waited longer to get married than
couples that either drop out of high school or marry after high school.
College grads tend to earn more.

So it seems any income difference must account for bachelor's degrees and the
extra time before getting married that requires.

------
drngdds
It's frustrating that the author acknowledges that most bad things are
probably heavily correlated, but just soldiers on with his point as though
they're independent random variables. Poverty in particular is heavily
correlated with, well, most bad things that can happen to a person.

~~~
m463
I know someone who was abused as a child, and was treated for drug addiction.
When he went to drug rehab, every single person he talked to had been abused
as a child.

------
hpoe
I might disagree with his conclusion which seems to be that things are just as
bad now, or worse than they were say 70 years ago. I would argue the problems
we face have changed, and that some of the big problems we dealt with 40 or 70
years ago are substantially smaller now then they were then.

That being said that doesn't mean our problems are any less real now but for
example, lynching is much less of a problem in the US then it was 100 years
ago, and the risk of someone losing a limb during a blogging accident is
substantially smaller than the risk of someone losing a limb whilst working
with heavy manufacturing equipment. Over course I don't mean this in every
case, but across the board many of these conditions have improved.

Now it seems that many of the problems we face are much more mental and
emotional than physical, That doesn't make the suffering they present any less
real for those experiencing it but it does mean in some ways things have
gotten better, even if we now face different problems.

~~~
whatever_dude
> I might disagree with his conclusion which seems to be that things are just
> as bad now, or worse than they were say 70 years ago.

I'm not sure it's his conclusion. From the article:

> This is also why I am wary whenever people start boasting about how much
> better we’re doing than back in the bad old days. That precise statement
> seems to in fact be true. But people have a bad tendency to follow it up
> with “And so now most people have it pretty good”

I think his point is that things might be better, subjectively, but they're
still not that good, objectively.

------
mberning
I think it paints an unnecessarily bleak picture due to many of those
circumstances not necessarily being life long afflictions, although some could
be. I think you also need to account for the severity of the impairment. For
example, I had a fairly traumatic experience and definitely had some issues
for maybe 6-12 months, but I completely got over it. That is very different
than somebody with severe PTSD that never subsides.

------
Maxbunny
Love the blog, but this is one of the weaker pieces. There is ABUNDANT data on
this topic, which all point to the large majority of people being mostly
content with their life. This result holds true even for low income countries,
but not for the poorest countries.

Even without looking at data, the author should consider that his patients
come to him to specifically talk about their problems, and not what is going
well in their life. It gives him a skewed perspective.

~~~
WhompingWindows
Can you link to that abundant data and provide evidence for your claim?

~~~
3minus1
In Thinking Fast and Slow, Kahneman talks about an experiment where they had
people answer a quick questionaire about their immediate emotional state
throughout the day, kind of like sampling. Something like are you stressed,
angry, happy, etc. at this very moment. If I remember correctly, the results
showed that most people are fine most of the time, but a small number of
people are in constant emotional distress.

------
tmaly
I always try to remind myself that everyone is fighting their own battles.

If someone cuts me off while I am driving, I come up with alternate
explanations. Maybe that person really has to use the bathroom etc. Rather
than think a person is just being evil.

Something I have noticed before, the physical demeanor of people you see
walking around you has a psychological effect on yourself. Many years ago this
came up in a conversation I was having with a retired Math professor.

~~~
psweber
I started using that approach in late adolescence as I was discovering that
everyone has an internal world that I can't understand. I tried to give people
the benefit of the doubt and operate under the assumption that there is an
underlying reason for hostile behavior.

Over the years, I got seriously burned personally and professionally by
malicious people that I made excuses for in my head. It hardened my heart and
caused me to be less understanding and forgiving of people.

Now I've come full circle. I'm back to your approach, but I play more
defensively. People likely have a reason for being malicious that is out of
their control. I don't need to judge them, but I do need to protect myself and
my loved ones.

~~~
aidenn0
> Now I've come full circle. I'm back to your approach, but I play more
> defensively. People likely have a reason for being malicious that is out of
> their control. I don't need to judge them, but I do need to protect myself
> and my loved ones.

Yeah, if I get killed by someone who was not malicious, I'm just as dead as if
I get killed by someone who was. To use the aggressive driver example: I don't
need to be angered or insulted by someone cutting me off, but if I end up near
them down the road, I'm going to try to change lanes or otherwise try to not
end up near them.

I think the main thing is to not be angered by the (assumed) maliciousness.
I've seen people generate a lot of anger because they assume every slight is
intentionally aimed at them: they cut me off just to piss me off; they didn't
wave back because they hate me &c.

------
ijpoijpoihpiuoh
The author probably knows this, but I think a lot of these bad things are
dependent one one another. Probably all of them. Poverty (food stamps)
probably correlates strongly with all of abuse, especially physical, pain,
prison, cognitive disability, other disability, schizophrenia, and old age.
Dementia is heavily associated with old age as well.

Which is not to say that things are great, but I think the badness is fairly
concentrated on a relatively smaller set of people than the script's results
indicate.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Agreed. Problems like this compound like there's no tomorrow.

As someone who lives somewhere that's very blue collar and works somewhere
very rich and white collar the difference is incredibly stark.

Where I live you see the signs that some people have problems, people living
out of cars, the occasional mobility scooter avoiding the potholes on the
sidewalk, houses will go unrepaired for long periods of time you stand in line
to check out at some store and there's fat people, the cashier sounds like she
smokes a pack a day and you can't tell if she's 30 or 50, the police don't
blink twice when someone's smoking weed in public or rolling a stop in a
rusted out 30yo shitbox, people bitch about not having enough money for all
the shit you have to do in life, Walmart is just another place to shop.

Then I go to work and there's not a single car over 15yo sitting in the
gridlock, there's women carrying brand name shopping bags and out jogging on
the sidewalk, ever lawn is meticulously maintained and every window and door
is cleaned daily, nobody smokes, nobody is overweight, nobody has regrettable
tattoos, nobody is carrying beer while riding a bike, bored cops feel the need
to check out anyone who dare drive something that's economically out of place
through the wrong neighborhood on a weekend (the help don't come on Sunday),
people bitch about other people using plastic straws and bags, Walmart is
regarded as someone you don't go if you can avoid it, etc.

What bothers me isn't that the urban wealthy (definition of wealthy to include
upper middle) don't understand the problems the urban and rural poor (no, I
don't live in the boondocks, I commute in from a small rust-belt-esque city)
but that they act like they do and that they have all the solutions.

~~~
cheerlessbog
Do the people in that second group consider themselves happy and fortunate?

In some poor areas people have particularly strong social ties - in part
because they haven't moved to the area. That can have real value.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Most people in both groups seem generally happy but the latter group thinks
the world is ending because climate change/trump/microplastics/etc. The poorer
group definitely has the more positive outlook but one could argue they're not
thinking long enough term (but who could blame them). Generally speaking the
sources of anguish for the rich group doesn't even make the cut to be
considered a problem for the poor group.

------
WhompingWindows
I loved the 20 person simulation the author used. His point about universal
suffering reminds me of another point by Sam Harris:

"Everyone you know is practically drowning in suffering"

SH brings up this point to contextualize our own suffering. It's hard for us
to socialize with others and make connections, but if we consider other
peoples' plights and struggles, it gives us more perspective and may aid us to
talk, converse, and collaborate with them.

I tried to apply this in driving. If I am honked at, I usually feel it's not
justified and it slightly harms my mood. Therefore, when I see other drivers
doing something unsafe or unskillful, I try to spare the horn and simply slow
down myself. This is likely another suffering, late person with back pain,
bills weighing on them, possibly phone addiction or something urgent going on,
and the least I can do is slow down and give them space.

Looking around us and appreciating the suffering of others is a very useful
exercise.

~~~
equalarrow
Driving, for me, is a massive exercise in being mindful. My goal, however, is
not to mind the suffering of others but instead, to take those inputs, not
associate with them, and let them go.

For instance, some driver doesn't want to get in the queue at the back, so
they drive up and cut over in front of me or a car or two up. There are a lot
of thoughts on that that could go through your mind. These range from "no
fair" to "jerk" to other things.

But, I've come to realize the best way to deal with that is to detach. You can
either not let the person in and then go down that range of thoughts/emotions
(primarily negative) or just let them in and not dwell on it. Observe it
(assuming it's not jeopardizing anyone's safety) and let it go.

This is a very simple exercise, but it has the potential to be carried on to
larger experiences in life. I'm not here to judge if you don't think it is, I
just know what makes sense to me. And this is not something I have come up
with on my own. This and similar techniques have been highlighted in quite a
few books I've read, people I've listened to at various events.

This for me is a much deeper discussion and I think completely personal to the
experiencer. I tend to fall on the side of being mindful of yourself and the
struggles/suffering of existence are of your own doing and choices (obviously,
this is a simplistic statement, but to me true on a high level).

I've been listening/watching quite a bit of Naval Ravikant podcasts/videos. I
think he has a lot of good wisdom to digest and he definitely covers this
subject. I highly recommend anything of his you come across.
[https://nav.al](https://nav.al)

~~~
flycaliguy
Oh yeah, I’m all about being a detached driver. I don’t even look into their
window to see the driver. I just leave it at “red SUV” and don’t allow myself
to develop a picture of the driver.

------
qntty
> This is part of why I get enraged whenever somebody on Tumblr says “People
> in Group X need to realize they have it really good”, or “You’re a Group X
> member, so stop pretending like you have real problems.”

One of these is not like the other. You can have it good by being white and
still have real problems.

~~~
overthemoon
You're right.

I think it's unremarkable to say:

People who are not straight and/or white tend to have worse outcomes than
people who are straight and/or white.

\-- and --

Straight white people can have hard, miserable lives.

His specific anger is at the notion that members of minority groups suffer
THEREFORE members of majority groups do not suffer. But as you said, you can
still have it better than people in a minority group--on average--and also
suffer.

There's so much annoying crosstalk when it comes to these issues. That being
said, his call to empathy is a good one.

~~~
ehvatum
Send these miserable, privileged people to Africa to dig latrines for a year.
They'll be a lot happier when they return.

Deprivation is a necessary dimension of human experience. I was looking at
setting up one-month trips for snowflakes through Canadian muskeg guided by
special forces veterans, but it turns out that only the government can legally
form a meeting of minds sufficient to conclude a contract where one party
agrees to what amounts to boot camp.

Empathizing with people whose only problem is that their experience does not
include overcoming adversity is a challenge that I think is best met with
tough love. More of the same clearly is not going to do any good.

~~~
michaelmrose
The fact that somewhere other people have it worse has never been a valid or
meaningful response to suffering. It is so facile it works on almost any level
of horror.

You could fallaciously say I'm sorry you had your legs eaten by bears but did
you hear about joe, joe was eaten alive by ants!

Your anecdote regarding your would be boot camp is probably off topic but
allowing people to abrogate basic human rights so you can have a camping trip
seems like an atrocious idea.

It would be the worst idea I'd heard this week but I just conversed with a guy
planning to deliberately make chlorine gas to go to war with the weeds in his
garden.

~~~
ehvatum
It is _not_ facile to ask if experiencing deprivation is a necessary condition
for experiencing happiness. Consider that strength training develops muscles.
Does facing genuine adversity develop emotional response such that people
become capable of enjoying a world of plenty?

~~~
michaelmrose
I think the proximity and ultimate fact of death first around us and then
ultimately happening to us is sufficient deprivation to appreciate life.

Suffering is more likely to stunt then enrich.

~~~
ehvatum
Suffering that does not respond to effort is definitely stunting. The thesis
motivating my muskeg boot-camp concept is that participants exit the
wilderness under their own power and therefore develop agency.

My perspective on this is somewhat unusual; I chose to canoe across Manitoba
because I felt like I was a weakling who had never truly confronted necessity.
It took three weeks, and I remember thinking, many times, "this absolutely and
completely sucks, but I'm going to remember this as a great experience." Sure
enough, that is the case.

There is a lot of masochism in my life because I depend on it to keep
depression away. It is for my spirit what gravity is for my body - in the
sense that long term zero-G exposure is unhealthy. I can't help but think a
persevering experience would help these folks, whose lives are apparently so
unchallenged that the mundane necessities of day-to-day existence grow
untenable.

That's a result of my perspective, which is the perspective of a masochist. I
am aware that pain and pleasure are linked for me to an unusual degree. I feel
like it should be that way for everyone, and they're really missing out! I
guess I'd be a pretty terrible therapist.

If only we all had suffering as an immediate consequence of not living up to
our potential, you know? It would be better. So I'm prescribing shock collar
controlled by an iOS/Android app that monitors subject behavior... It could
really help these people realize that they were correct to think that they
ought to be happy with their non-shock-collar lives! And they would be!

------
gbuk2013
> The town where I practice psychiatry is mostly white and mostly wealthy.
> That doesn’t save it.

Ethnicity and wealth are physical things. Happiness is an emotion you feel.
They are related only insofar as one depends on physical things for happiness.
This is a spiritual issue really (not to be confused with religion or any sort
of belief) and this is something that our (otherwise very successful) modern
way of life is very much neglecting.

~~~
shaki-dora
Scott wasn't trying to make an incredibly racist point that being white is
intrinsically linked to happiness, but merely that being white in the US is
considered privileged, a.k.a. "playing life on easy".

~~~
newswriter99
Try being white trash in a poor part of the south and get back to me how
"easy" things are.

~~~
g_sch
I think that if you read GP more generously, you'll see that they weren't
implying that being white guarantees success. Rather, the point of privilege
is that, all things being equal, people who appear white will on average face
less conscious/unconscious discrimination and thus fewer obstacles over the
course of their lives.

------
QuadrupleA
There does seem to be a certain "external things are the reason for my misery"
thread through all these stories that bugs me, even though it's an interesting
and well-written piece.

These patients, with the exact same circumstances, could have found some peace
by accepting and working within their constraints - the 70-year old woman
could accept the situation with the granddaughter and find other outlets for
caretaking or being with children, or tried a legal way to address the
situation, accepting the outcome whether it works or not ("I took my best
shot, the rest is up to fate"). The man with PTSD could learn techniques, CBT
perhaps, to cope with the anxiety triggers and expand his comfort zone in the
world again, found ways to deal with his anger so it didn't turn into
violence, etc.

Not saying these circumstances are easy, but everyone's life has particular
challenges and avenues of growth, and in the grand scheme that's often a good
thing. Everyone's life has constraints, without exception - I can't teleport
instantly anywhere I want on the planet by snapping my fingers; if I spend my
days lamenting that and thinking that I should, I'll be miserable.

On the one hand yes we should help each other better our external
circumstances; but on the other hand I believe most external things aren't
truly necessary for contentment, and indeed the belief that they are causes
more misery than the circumstances.

~~~
barry-cotter
> the 70-year old woman could accept the situation with the granddaughter and
> find other outlets for caretaking or being with children, or tried a legal
> way to address the situation

Wow, what a simultaneously disgusting and ignorant sentiment. Disgusting,
because it assumes children, family and relationships are fungible, and
ignorant, because it assumes grandparents have rights of some kind, when they
don’t.

~~~
QuadrupleA
What a nasty reply. Is it so inconceivable that the (hypothetical) woman might
have maternal / nurturing instincts that strict blood relations aren't the
only possible outlet for? Obviously it's a tragedy, for the granddaughter in
particular, and if anything at all can be done about the situation then it
should be, but sometimes these things are complicated and there aren't a lot
of options and you just have to accept and make peace. Or be full of futile,
useless anger that pollutes the rest of your life and the people around you.

Also I just said "legal", e.g. child protective services or notifying police,
not Legal Rights of Grandmothers On Their Grandchildren or whatever you're
assuming.

------
rofo1
> This is also why I am wary whenever people start boasting

> about how much better we’re doing than back in the bad old

> days. That precise statement seems to in fact be true. But

> people have a bad tendency to follow it up with “And so

> now most people have it pretty good”. I don’t think we

> have any idea how many people do or don’t have it pretty good.

We do have it good. Would you rather be middle class today or a king in 18th
century?

We have it _amazingly_ good. The fact that we can't see this ("we" as in
society) tells me that our appetites are impossible to satisfy.

At least 90% of all problems I've seen between people are unnecessary and
result mostly of lack of compassion and selfishness.

There are problems that are truly unsolvable and tragic - where death or
significant health issues are involved - but other than that, people create
problems themselves either by being selfish or being the victim of someone
else's selfishness.

What would it take to say "I am satisfied with what I have; with the friend
near me; with the family near me; with the material possessions that I have;
with the values that I own; and _I don 't need anything else_" ?

Everything else being finite, why would our appetites be infinite?

I know some rich people - they are unbelievably unhappy people. You probably
can't tell due to their lavish lifestyle, but if you are close to them - you'd
know. And they have it all for god knows how many generations henceforth.
Really amazing, once you think about it.

~~~
D-Coder
> We do have it good. Would you rather be middle class today or a king in 18th
> century?

>

> We have it amazingly good. The fact that we can't see this ("we" as in
> society) tells me that our appetites are impossible to satisfy.

I completely agree with your first point.

I think your second point may be wrong; rather, people have very little
knowledge of how things used to be, so every stubbed toe feels cosmic.
(Remember your history class that mentioned the Hundred Years War? WTF does
the _name_ of that war tell you???)

~~~
g_sch
I understand what you're driving at, but I think war is actually a pretty good
example of something that's become significantly worse over time. It used to
be fought on a small scale. The biggest battles had just a few thousand
casualties.

Today, war is total, nothing is off-limits, and global conflicts reach levels
of destruction unimaginable in the 15th century. And a few nations possess
enough firepower, in nuclear and conventional form, to essentially end human
existence on earth if they choose.

------
joenot443
For those new to Scott Alexander's (SSC) writing, definitely check out his
About/Top Posts page
([https://slatestarcodex.com/about/](https://slatestarcodex.com/about/)) and
check out whatever you find interesting.

------
hirundo
If people wore an accurate net misery score on their foreheads, I wonder if it
would reduce or increase identity based conflict? Would we look at the scores
of people at the intersection of disadvantaged groups, see that they were
suffering a lot more, and increase our support for them? Or would we see that
putatively privileged classes suffer about as much as others, and conclude
that people are people, and our sympathy and support for each other shouldn't
focus on demographics?

I wonder if an objective misery score is possible, maybe with a portable
continuous brain scanning device. I'd think that the data is in there, if only
we had the tech to extract it.

~~~
kazagistar
I dont think this article has any reading which says that privileged classes
suffer the same as others. They still suffer, but the ways and chance of
people in non white non affluent groups suffering is higher. The point was
just to not be black and white about privilege as the only source of
suffering.

------
dang
Discussed at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10799124](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10799124)

------
nradov
I have literally heard wealthy people complain at length about the difficulty
of finding a reliable gardening service for their mansion. Should I listen to
their concerns without judging? Or is it reasonable to dismiss their misery?
(This is a rhetorical question.)

~~~
munchbunny
I'll bite, just to answer the non-rhetorical part of your rhetorical question.
There are four interesting aspects of what you wrote.

1\. The implied belief that there is a cosmic measuring stick for how good
someone has it, but, more importantly, that this measuring stick matters. The
judging accomplishes nothing, other than to let the person judging feel
internally superior for a moment. The more relevant issue is letting that
judgement cloud any rational decisions you need to make later with respect to
the people you're judging.

2\. If you're making policy decisions, then this cosmic measuring stick of
suffering would matter (like taxing gardening services, I guess?), but are you
making policy decisions?

3\. Do you need something from them, and does that inform how you'll behave
towards them regardless of what you actually think of them? Startup founders
who didn't come from rich backgrounds experience this all the time around
VC's. But it's not really possible to keep the functional motivation and the
desire to fit in entirely separate.

4\. Are they just complaining because shared lightweight misery makes for fun
socialization? People who aren't rich do that too. The content may just be a
function of their environment.

------
owenversteeg
So, the author basically draws the conclusion that Things are Very Bad,
(primarily) backed by a number of statistics, as well as his own perspective
seeing people in bad situations as a psychiatrist.

I - strongly - disagree.

First of all, like the author says, these statistics are most likely inflated,
"since I took them from groups working on these problems and those groups have
every incentive to make them sound as bad as possible".

Secondly, even if you take the numbers given as fact, this is incredibly bad
statistics (like most statistics not done by actual statisticians.)

Specifically: Most of these problems go hand in hand. If you were physically
abused as a child, there's a higher chance you were also sexually abused as a
child. If you were abused at all, there's a higher chance you'll go to prison.
If you have chronic pain, there's a higher chance you'll become a heroin
addict. If you're a heroin addict, there's a higher chance you'll go to
prison. If you went to prison, there's a higher chance you'll be unemployed
after.

I have made it one of my main life goals to meet all kinds of people. Really
_all_ kinds: homeless people, extremely rich people, devout Muslims, devotees
of all religions (Bahá'í, Hare Krishna, you name it), "normal people" around
the world, farmers, writers, surrealists, artists, drug dealers, geniuses,
idiots, assholes, extremely kind people...

One thing I've found is that the good (and the bad) seems to clump. If you get
lucky and end up with some of (good friends|good family|good partner|good
financial situation|good career|good health|happy) you will often end up
acquiring some of the others. The reverse also works. If you had a terrible
childhood, that often leads to crime/drug use, which can lead to prison, which
most always leads to further problems in life. So, in a room of 100 people,
maybe:

\- 9% were abused as a child \- 1% were in prison \- 7% were depressed \- 2%
were addicted to heroin/meth/prescription pills \- 10% were very unhappy with
their life \- 7% had chronic pain

...but 90/100 had none of the above, because most of those overlapped.

I'm not saying that the world is perfect, but rather that many negative things
clump.

TL;DR: If one person in 10 is sad, one is poor, one is sick, one is a heroin
addict and one is in prison, that doesn't mean 6/10 people have one of these
issues... perhaps 9/10 are fine, and it's just one person who's got all of
those issues. Which of those 10 do you think is going to a psychiatrist?

Further note: In America, the cycle of poverty/jail/addiction can trap entire
families for generations. In other countries, government assistance can take
the worry of housing or medical care off your back either permanently or long
enough to work on other problems.

------
throwayEngineer
What should humanity do?

The big hitters are Drug addiction and Chronic Pain.

I don't have a solution for drug addiction, but I can't blame our generation
for not finding a solution. No generation has, and given caffeine addiction,
it's extremely hard for others to help with.

Chronic Pain needs to end. Between Doctors of Physical Therapy and
medications, there are little reason for people to be experiencing chronic
pain. Take note that the author was very generic about their meaning on that.

The rest of the stuff are significantly smaller and usually involved a
traumatic event.

What can we do?

~~~
alecmg
> given caffeine addiction

Caffeine is not addictive. Physiological effect of constant coffee drinking go
away without side effects after two weeks. It has no (known) negative effects
on health or sociological function as actual drugs have.

I can't figure out why you mentioned caffeine at all

~~~
f02a
I think I'm a caffeine addict. If I try to quit caffeine, I'll have flu-like
symptoms and migraines for at least a week or two. I can see how that's less
bad than a heroin addiction, but isn't addiction somewhat of a spectrum?

------
asdf21
Isn't that just entropy in action... There are a zillion ways for any system
to be disordered, and only a handful that we would consider "ordered".

Life is constantly fighting entropy, and always eventually fails. It makes
sense for disorder and even misery to be fairly common.

I do tend to dismiss the concerns of others, simply because I've come to the
conclusion that I cannot fix the vast majority of the problems of other
people. I can't fix any of the issues mentioned in this article, for instance.
I'd rather work on my own problems, and the issues of people closest to me,
because then I have some chance.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
_" I do tend to dismiss the concerns of others, simply because I've come to
the conclusion that I cannot fix the vast majority of the problems of other
people."_

Sorry, I don't understand this logic. I cannot solve world hunger but I
recognize that poor food distribution is a problem. Similarly, I cannot solve
someone's traumas but I can recognize they've been traumatized. Are we
operating on different concepts of dismissing someone's experiences or
concerns?

~~~
asdf21
What good does recognizing someone's traumas do, exactly?

The leading therapeutic modality, CBT, specifically says _not_ to do this --
to basically ignore and try to get past trauma by attempting to live a better
life moving forward, rather than rehashing the past and perpetually opening
old wounds.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
From what I understand, your interpretation of CBT is not correct. I
understand that the first step of CBT is to analyze a patient as a whole to
decide what behaviors need to be adjusted. This _requires_ recognizing that
trauma happened and its effect on the behavior of the person. Is this
incorrect?

~~~
asdf21
You identify goals and problematic beliefs and behaviors that impinge on the
patient's ability to meet those goals.

You can "recognize" that trauma occurred without analyzing it in depth.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
Can you explain to me what you believe I am saying? I don't understand how
your conclusions follow from my language. Most specifically, I do not
understand where the alternative to dismissal is in-depth analysis.

------
foobar_
Happiness is like the shadow that always evades.

~~~
ambicapter
"Le bonheur est la plus grandes des conquêtes, celle qu'on fait contre le
destin qui nous est imposé" ~Albert Camus

(Happiness is the greatest of conquests, one which we achieve in spite of the
fate which is imposed on us)

------
rawTruthHurts
>This is part of why I get enraged whenever somebody on Tumblr says “People in
Group X need to realize they have it really good”,

Imagine that 70 year old lady he describes lacking access to proper health
care or shelter. Not that I am unsympathetic, but first world problems are
first world problems, get enraged at your own peril.

