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Why does culture get less happy year after year?

erikhoel.substack.com

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Re: Why does culture get less happy year after year?

#81

Post by danjoredd »

Apocryphon wrote: post #59
danjoredd wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but I also think the romanticization of depression is a factor as well. Just look at "Doomer" culture on the internet, or "black pill" types. Watch one of those videos on youtube, and all of a sudden you get a deluge of those types of vids. That is what I fear for future generations. When depression is seen as an aesthetic, some people(mostly teenagers) try to identify with it and accidentally end up depressed…

Does no one remember goths? Or before them, whatever the '80s subculture around gloomy New Wave bands like Joy Division, Depeche Mode, or New Order were called? And before them, the punk movement that was a reaction against the carefree utopianism of the hippies? Rockers? Greasers? Romanticism? Yeah, the over-romanticizing of mental illness, and how prevalent it is thanks to always-on digital culture, is a real conce…

I agree, but back then they didn't have algorithms based on online activity to fuel the spiral. What we are getting is that, but worse because it is harder to escape

Re: Why does culture get less happy year after year?

#82

Post by danjoredd »

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #46
danjoredd wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but I also think the romanticization of depression is a factor as well. Just look at "Doomer" culture on the internet, or "black pill" types. Watch one of those videos on youtube, and all of a sudden you get a deluge of those types of vids. That is what I fear for future generations. When depression is seen as an aesthetic, some people(mostly teenagers) try to identify with it and accidentally end up depressed…

It's important to realize where doomer culture came from. It largely began as a response to feel good messages which were decorating the truth of things at the benefit of no one. The main issue being, doomer culture can be embraced as a way to accept things that are beyond your power and double efforts on what you can change, or as a way to toss away all efforts and be in a perpetual state of not caring. It also serv…

My problem is when you lean too far in to that, it can quickly transform into defeatism, which is worse than simply not caring.

Re: Why does culture get less happy year after year?

#83

Post by mikkergp »

rossdavidh wrote: post #2

Missing the obvious hypothesis: people in the past had real problems, like living through a war (by fighting in it or having it fought where you were, not by seeing it on TV), or the Great Depression, or other real, actual threats to life and limb. Something happy was a counterbalance. Now, if you're a member of a pampered elite able to work at movies/TV/other mass media for a living (for each one who can, many try a…

While I think there is correlation here, I think a better arugment would be for the cyclical nature of art. When society goes one way art may go another. (or at times the same way, I doubt it's a 180 relationship)

> Now, if you're a member of a pampered elite able to work at movies/TV/other mass media for a living

Hasn't this always been true? I can't imagine a time in history when plays/literature/music has been more accessible to the working class.

Re: Why does culture get less happy year after year?

#84

Post by briga »

groby_b wrote: post #79
briga wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said, there were still issues back then. You're right, happiness is individual, not cultural. But one culture can be happier, on average, than another. And if I'm not just romanticizing the past it does genuinely seem like people were happier back then. The economy was booming. The United Nations seemed to promise global peace. We were taking our first steps into space. It seemed like there was a whole world o…

For the arts, the possibilities have exploded. You can shoot an entire movie for budgets that are in the budget of individuals/small groups. You can find an audience for your art orders of magnitude bigger than anything you could find then. Commercially, you can start high tech businesses in your garage that weren't even dreamt of in the 50s. As for space, we're currently landing rockets on ships. We're actively plan…

Ok you're right. I just think about how empires like Rome that collapsed in on themselves at the height of their power and can't help but see parallels with what is happening now. An affluent apathetic population that just let things slide back into chaos. But I suppose that's hardly an original observation

Re: Why does culture get less happy year after year?

#86

Post by tsol »

juanci_to wrote: post #11
superchroma wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or perhaps it's because the world is falling apart and we're on a solid trajectory to make it worse, and unlike a war, it's not something easy to bounce back from?

Let's be fair, humanity has been saying that everything is falling apart for centuries. There's in the front page a post that's named: "A brief history of nobody wants to work anymore"¹ that shows registers from as early as 1894 of media saying "Nobody wants to work anymore". Even the classic "Kids these days" can be tracked back to 624 BCE². Socrates said too something along those lines: «The children now love luxur…

It wasn't actually Socrates that said that, btw

Re: Why does culture get less happy year after year?

#87

Post by unmole »

rossdavidh wrote: post #2

Missing the obvious hypothesis: people in the past had real problems, like living through a war (by fighting in it or having it fought where you were, not by seeing it on TV), or the Great Depression, or other real, actual threats to life and limb. Something happy was a counterbalance. Now, if you're a member of a pampered elite able to work at movies/TV/other mass media for a living (for each one who can, many try a…

We are the fortunate ones

Who've never faced opression's gun

We are the fortunate ones

Imitations of rebellion

We acted it out

We wear the colors

Confined by the things we own

We're not without

We're like each other

Pretending we're here alone

https://youtu.be/OCy5461BtTg

Re: Why does culture get less happy year after year?

#88

Post by vitiral »

godshatter wrote: post #68
vitiral wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can (and IMO should) disable youtube suggestions based on your past browsing. You can also have it only store 3 months worth of tracking (in case you ever turn the suggestions back on). It definitely lowers the quality of the suggestions... but that's kind of the point.

I take it one step farther and only watch YouTube in a private session and don't log in. When the recommendations get strange, I close the window and open a new one.

doesn't work for premium, but it used to be my very same strategy!

Re: Why does culture get less happy year after year?

#89

Post by juanci_to »

tsol wrote: post #86
juanci_to wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be fair, humanity has been saying that everything is falling apart for centuries. There's in the front page a post that's named: "A brief history of nobody wants to work anymore"¹ that shows registers from as early as 1894 of media saying "Nobody wants to work anymore". Even the classic "Kids these days" can be tracked back to 624 BCE². Socrates said too something along those lines: «The children now love luxur…

It wasn't actually Socrates that said that, btw

It's then one of these moments: «Not every quote you read on the Internet is true.» – Abraham Lincoln
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