Do you think humans in the future in general will be more or less happy than they are now?
Ask HN: Are people optimistic about the future?
1–10 of 100 posts
Re: Ask HN: Are people optimistic about the future?
#2I think it’ll be the same. There will be new aspects in life to bring joy, and misery in counterparts.
Re: Ask HN: Are people optimistic about the future?
#3On an individual level there's always opportunities to find happiness, but in aggregate seems like the future is pretty bleak for a handful of preventable yet unavoidable reasons and most people will be adversely impacted.
Re: Ask HN: Are people optimistic about the future?
#4Happiness is due to sudden improvement AKA going from 0 to 1 in a relatively short time.
If I were to make a comparison happiness is the sub 3 seconds 0-100 that you can achieve with your sportscar, or skydiving.
WHat you are referring to is the Concorde flying at 80000ft at mach 2.12
That's impressive but won't bring about the same limbic happiness and excitement as the aforementioned experiences.
And actually it's how evolution brings about improvement, everybody is trying to improve and collectively as humanity incredible progress happens over time but no individual can take joy or credit from it and thus everybody has to keep pushing to bring about personal improvement that would bring happiness that in turn on a large scale would produce large improvement at the societal level
Re: Ask HN: Are people optimistic about the future?
#5No, it feels like its game over for most people. No more lives left to play. Most people whose parents went from farming --> jobs now feel their parents made a fatal mistake. There is nothing for them to fall back on. It is hard to go back to farming. Which is made worse because there is no land, the lands for sold for a pittance, which now costs a substantial amount of money.
Re: Ask HN: Are people optimistic about the future?
#6The title and the description ask two different questions.
I do not think people are optimistic about the future. Back in the late 90's/early 2000s yes, people were very optimistic. Everyone was so thrilled to get to the 21st century. Now, people seem clinically depressed, technology is no longer something designed to make you happy, or make your life easier. It is just a battle to control your attention and sell you garbage.
Will people be happier in the future? Honestly I don't know. Anyone can "decide" to be happy to some degree. As a large group/society, no I don't think people will be happy.
Re: Ask HN: Are people optimistic about the future?
#7I think this:
"این نیز بگذرد"
Attributed to Attar of Nishapur (1142-1221), who was beheaded by Genghis Kahn's Mongols. In one of Attar's fables, a powerful king gathered a group of wise men and asked them to produce a ring that would make him happy when sad, and sad when happy. After much consultation among themselves, the wise men presented the king with a ring inscribed "This, too, will pass".
- https://archive.org/details/quoteverifierwho00keye/page/160/...
We live now in bad days. This, too, will pass.
Re: Ask HN: Are people optimistic about the future?
#8Probably more or less the same given enough to average things out.
If you look back you probably think in certain ages people were really miserable, but people knows how to adapt and eventually they got used to it.
Re: Ask HN: Are people optimistic about the future?
#9No, it feels like its game over for most people. No more lives left to play. Most people whose parents went from farming --> jobs now feel their parents made a fatal mistake. There is nothing for them to fall back on. It is hard to go back to farming. Which is made worse because there is no land, the lands for sold for a pittance, which now costs a substantial amount of money.
Where are you that the average person wants to go back to farming?
Re: Ask HN: Are people optimistic about the future?
#10Absolutely. We live in a time of unprecedented wealth, stability, health, acceptance, and knowledge. Don’t listen to the daily news, compare our situation to past generations and different times. If I had a Time Machine I would not use it to go to some earlier era