It's like in The Matrix, it's not until you unplug yourself that you realize that the world is worse than it has ever been. Opportunities essentually don't exist at all.

Also the argument that "if they don't realize it, then it won't hurt them" doesn't apply because it will hurt them badly in the end. Once they reach a certain age and realize that they're wasted their entire lives on video games, star wars, star treck, lord of the rings, game of thrones, etc... It will hurt badly and they won't have any way to recover.

A large part of what got me out of my depression was making meaning for my life. Discovering what really matters to me, and living my life by my discovered values.

I'm also, now, easily the most optimistic person in my peer-group (I definitely was not before). I believe the world is getting better every year, and that the human race will rise to overcome all the challenges presented to us.

That's a myth unfortunately:

> Now, for the first time, researchers went beyond deaths to examine the global causes of illness and disability. They found that the single largest cause of disability worldwide was mental disorders – largely, the common illnesses of depression and anxiety. They caused a seventh of all the disability in the world. In the poorest countries as well as the richest, and at every socioeconomic level in between, mental disorders were the greatest thief of productive life.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/30/busting-the-...

That we've evolved for the former situation and seem to be miserable in the latter seems to be the grandparent's point.

If the odds of achieving your goals and leading a satisfying life in the real world approach 0% (e.g. because of hyper-capitalism and monopolistic, anti-competitive, centralizing market forces), then it's completely understandable that you'd want to escape into virtual worlds which give you the dopamine rush which your real life continuously fails to deliver.

As a formerly homeless person living in a neighborhood filled with poverty, I'm going to humbly disagree with you on this point.

The article is about why we're unreasonably pessimistic. You are illustrating the point.

The average American will never experience homelessness so citing that as an example of adversity for the average American is wrong.

According to the story itself, most Americans are on the verge of: "reducing spending elsewhere (26%), borrowing from family and/or friends (16%) or using credit cards (12%)."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unab...

Still worth a read if you are able to separate it from the murder he committed. I wonder if the press would still release manifestos like this today. My government would not and by doing that ironically works towards what he saw as a threat.

Movies teach nothing about overcoming adversity, because they are not like adversity in life at all. They are about someone predestined to win to win.

Your comment put it in a very different perspective. Thank you, I'm going to write that email now.

Most people sling coffee, serve food, work in factories, panic around in delivery vehicles all day, and with one wrongs step or bad health outcome they could be in doom. Lack of job stability, longer retirement, lack of community ... these things take their tole. Kind of a permanent existential anxiety.

Just 'keeping on doing', facing the daily grind and all the little things, taking care of kids - without falling down (because the cost could be catastrophe) is actually 'facing adversity'.

I don't believe that thinking about nameless, faceless people thousands and thousands of miles away is particularly effective at altering daily behavior and mindset here, but it's important to recognize nonetheless.

Among the world's population at large, no way. Even homeless Americans are way better off than the average person in Asia, Africa, or South America. In China people regularly work 9-9-6 (9 AM to 9 PM, 6 days a week); if you lose your job, you have zero social safety net other than your savings and your family; your property can be confiscated if you piss off the wrong party official; and there's a callous disregard for life so that if you get run over by a taxi it's your own problem. In parts of Central America the nominal government has no control, and you can be caught in a random crossfire. My wife served in the Peace Corps in Peru; she stayed with the richest woman in the village, who owned a house with 3.5 walls and a regular stream of reptilian visitors. That woman's occupation? Brewing moonshine in 55 gallon oil drums, to serve as the village's primary beverage and social lubricant.

The striking thing about what I noticed is is: Only the lonely people are unhappy. Give the average Cambodian a bucket of chicken feet and a carton of beer and they'll immediately share it with their friends/family and be unbelievably happy.

They have really strong community and family ties, and while that does have downsides (especially for women, whose behaviour is under control almost all the time), it also gives incredible support and comfort.

The contrast between Camobodia and Australia is noticeable: Cambodians are mostly poor and happy, and Australians are mostly rich and angry.

This is if you don't take into account purchasing power parity and the relative expense of things like education, medical care and housing.

Being homeless in San Francisco isn't going to be as fun than being, say, lower middle class in Uruguay even if your nominal income is higher.

I'm not sure the article is. Because the article keeps talking about objective realities.

But human beings experience life subjectively. Making more than your brother in law is a big ego boost. Having the highest degree in your family, even if that is only a BA.

Human beings judge ourselves subjectively.

Technology has broken down borders, increased our self awareness and provided us with education. Which is a good thing, but it also has it's negatives.

One of those negatives is the borders: we are now all part of a global economy. Everyone intertwined with everyone else. I used to be able to go to a town hall that had a lot more sway in how things worked. Now it's a global system that will grind on and grind up anyone who dares get in it's way.

The other point is our self awareness. It's now impossible to live without understanding that... I'm complicit in some child's slavery because I have a phone in my pocket. Likely some of that meat I eat was treated with horrendous cruelty. The pages I need to print and waste because of some bureaucratic rule will cost the lives of thousands of animals in a rain forest where the trees were cut down in a terrible way. My tax dollars will be used to kill and torture people for profit. My car is costing other people their live's from it's pollution, the same as my plane trip. The arguments we used to use to justify this, have been proven false.

Coming to terms with our own terrible behavior would be easier if not for our increase in education.

Since the time of the Gutenberg press, population has gone up 10~, but educated population has gone up something like 1000 or even 10,000 times.

This increase in education has had a huge increase in scientific knowledge. But it also makes any individual much less likely to be outstanding.

So again, our individuality is lessened. But worse, you are average. Mediocre. When there's 100 biologists in the world, you can always find some way to be slightly different. With 3,000,000 biologists in the world, how could you expect to shine?

I think these things add to something that's been brewing for a couple of hundred years: a loss of meaning.

The latest things that we used to feel special: capitalism, communism, our nationality, our race, our religion, have also been falling by the wayside, dying with other idols and invincible messiahs.

We use to think of ourselves as special for a lot of reasons. Science and tech have made it very clear, we aren't special. Just a random primate descendant on a lonely little rock in the middle of a totally uncaring universe.

Now we can't even take console in being the best at something in our own little area.

I think these real negatives are suppressed because they speak poorly of human nature (we are silly creatures) and it leads to irrational negativity in other areas; whether it is worrying over a 'growing crime rate' which doesn't exist, or complaining about vaccines.

Not sure how to handle these issues, I don't really have any suggestions. Just more pointless observations. :p

When there's 100 biologists in the world, you probably aren't one of them. You would just be some mediocre uneducated nobody. How do you expect to shine?

Of course, be it 100 or 3,000,000, at least you'd have the opportunity to shine if your world were the small town you were born in, not the whole planet (or continent).

There's a problem but it is not education that lessens our individuality.

The town halls now don't have that much effect. Complain about education? Worry about federal funding and national wide programs. It's not something that happened over night. It's been happening literally since the technology/science era, which I think of starting with Gutenberg.

BTW, I'm not saying education is a problem. I'm saying it has problems, unexpected consequences with the obvious good side.

But this is what is implied by the opening statement 'The Average American' etc. etc. , no?

The 'The Average American' does face 'adversity', because most people are barely getting by.

Imagine middle aged parents without spectacular health care coverage, someone gets a cavity and needs a root canal. That's $1000 - and actually beyond the 'average Americans' ability to pay for out of hand. A cavity can be little economic emergency. It means no car trip to Myrtle Beach, or no piano lessons for the kids, or worse, having to put it on the Credit Card, pay terrible rates etc.. And 'cousin Joe' was pulled over for DUI. He'll lose his job if he doesn't make bail, he needs you to co-sign for him. Now you have to make sure he shows up for court. Parents are inching older, have some income but likely need to go into a home, which will be exceedingly expensive. There are umpteen such challenges is 'most people's lives'.

So I agree with the sentiment that normal, employed middle class families wherein there's stability and gainful employment, low crime etc. - yes, it's effete, and not much adversity there.

There is a class of Americans for whom life doesn't have a lot of adversity, fully agree. But it's not 'most'.

> ...

> It means no car trip to Myrtle Beach

were you trying to make the point that people concoct adversity where it doesn't exist? because i think you're doing good work on that front. keep it up.

In case you're having trouble contextualizing: a family in that situation is an inch from ruin. They will never have anything, and odds are, they'll hit a bump now and again and it will get messy.

Those kinds of families are always coming in and out of financial difficulty.

That's your example of facing adversity?

Did you read the article? If you're lying awake at night worrying whether you can afford little Timmy's piano lessons you aren't in the same boat as a cave man that's worried about getting eaten by a lion.

Getting eaten by a lion is less misery. And a lion you can fight with a few guys. Job market? Might as well be hitting a tank with your bare fists.

If anything, it's the lack of control and not the level of adversity that is the problem.

Getting eaten by a lion is in no way similar to not getting a 'good' job, in fact I'll go further and say it's not similar to not getting a job at all.

Except this one nobody can really fix. The drawback of invisible poorly understood market processes with many inputs. The only thing you can try to do is make your chances better, be adaptable and adapt.

Even bad illness can often be abated with a few (commonly known as terrible) exceptions.

My point was to illustrate a family that might have next to nothing - and who's only aspirational escape from slinging coffee at the Waffle House is a low-budget weekender at a slimly dive like Myrtle Beach, will with one tiny blip of a minor medical issue, have that taken away, and possibly go into debt.

Could you imagine a life of serving at a restaurant, never able to afford even the most basic getaway, going ever deeper into debt for basic things like 'visits to the dentist'? When you tack on just a couple of 'issues', it all comes apart.

Those families have $500 'net worth' and are at any time inches away from ruin, no retirement savings, no way to send their kids to college. If they have a bad day at work, or if their boss doesn't like them they could lose their jobs. If they inure themselves playing softball - it's calamity. Getting one credit card to pay off the other. 'Pay day loans'. Unable to cobble together 'first and last months' rent. Bad credit. A minor offence and unable to make bail. A car that breaks down, no way to get to work, and a boss that doesn't care one bit. Coming down with something as minor as 'late onset Asthma' which is $50/month of meds they cannot afford.

That is the grinding adversity that about 1/2 of America faces with no way out.

I've never heard of myrtle beach prior to your comment so that nuance passed me by.

Still if myrtle beach is that bad why go there? And piano lessons are firmly in the realms of the middle class, not 1 pay cheque from disaster poor.

Which circles back to my prior comment, so no I'm not trolling.

Having to raise a family, maintain one's well-being, and being a good community member all while having to live in dour conditions that are never likely to improve, I would argue is actual adversity.

You zeroed in on the single claim that "the average American doesn't face adversity" and ignored the broader context. Yes, that claim is literally false. But your response isn't one that addresses the substance of the comment you replied to.

In the United States, your effort towards this goal have an insanely high correlation with actually making it happen. Perhaps the best in any country in the world, in fact.

And even those people are often better off than a typical human for most of history.