How To Be Happy Anywhere

As far as I know what you describe isn't what is called "clinically depressed". There are people who are so depressed that they literally can't get out of bed.

I'm not an expert though.

Ask those aspirational chinese if they want to go back to the straw huts. Sure people are happier with less information. Just like a ostriches.

As soon as I saw the HN tagline, I wondered if anyone here had read Ecclesiastes. Good for you.

I would say that one must remember that knowledge isn't an end in itself. If you waste your Saturday reading Wikipedia or Quora without purpose, that will make you unhappy, because you are wasting time. So some portion of the happiness equation comes from acting purposefully.

So the author's conclusion is that we should temper our unhappiness over the state of the world, because the facts are that we live in the "best world" that has ever existed. I can't disagree with that, because I enjoy being happy, but I think this is an easy pathway to apathy. I also think that one of the very reasons we live in the best world ever is that we are so well informed.

It's easy to send warriors off to slaughter a village if you never have to witness death. The last century has seen an accelerating increase in the connectedness of the human race. When a single man's life is threatened on the other side of the globe, it's possible for millions of people, thousands of miles away, to learn about it. Our natural empathetic instincts kick in, and that simple knowledge causes a stirring discomfort within us.

Most people I've met don't really want to be uhnappy. So, once we have this knowledge, we have two choices. We either do what we can to stop the source of our unhappiness -- injustice, war, abuse, etc -- or we become apathetic. Because I am an optimist, I believe most people will chose the former, and I believe that is why our best days are ahead.