How Bad Are Things? (2015)

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.

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.

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.

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.