Well, people in the West report higher levels of life satisfaction than people anywhere else, and we're much better off than we used to be, but I agree it could be better still.
Well, it's all relative. Old people today are better off than ever before in a variety of ways, including having more fun.
As I said, there are tradeoffs involved with increasing prosperity, and I think we should consider ways to deal with the negatives without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But I also think we shouldn't focus exclusively on the downside of increased prosperity.
Look man, I get that you're a modernist liberal, and you see society through the lens of an over arching narrative. One of progress over time, where for the most part things only get better. And there is a lot of truth to that. But the picture you paint is one of a straight line. When in reality, there are ebbs and flows to things. Sometimes things get horrifically worse, sometimes there are massive leaps forward. Sometimes there is slow entropy and a slow backslide. Sometimes there is marginal incremental progress. I know thats your goldilocks zone.
What can you point to, to support the idea that things are mostly only getting better for old folks, other than material wealth? Because that's all you seem to point to, their material wealth. And you talk about these alarming social and mental health trends, as if they're negligible.
-life expectancy just decreased for the first time in recorded US history. I know you're aware of that. So why is that missing from your analysis? Doesn't really seem like things are only getting better if now our life expectancy gains are reversing and were now dying younger, does it?
-more old people are being abandoned to die in nursing homes than ever before, more old people are isolated and alone than ever before. None of that really jives very well with your narrative of constant progress in one direction.
These things aren't just negligible, marginal issues. They're a crisis needing to be addressed.
I agree. We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. There's nothing wrong with older people being more prosperous than they were a century ago. It's actually quite good (as long as they aren't hoarding that wealth and using it to vacuum up all of the housing and to lobby your government to deregulate every sector of the economy and stop all environmental protections....OOPS thats exactly what the elderly did with their increased prosperity but thats a different convo) .You know what social security did for the elderly poverty rate. That's good stuff.
I also don't think we need to return to having 4 generations, and 3 different family units within a family, all sharing the same home. I think it's healthier than what we do now, but it's just an example to point out what's on the other end of the spectrum from our current arrangement. There's a lot of middle ground between that, and 2 parents raising 2.3 children in a suburban box where they're not in walking or driving distance to any loved ones and where the kids see their grandparents once a year for Thanksgiving. There's a ton of in-between.
Lastly I just want to comment on the first thing you said. I'm not entirely sure what you're saying when you say "the west", has "higher life satisfaction" than anywhere else. The "west" is doing an insane amount of heavy lifting there, and you know that. The united states is not in the top 10 of happiest countries on any list, survey or study. The Nordic countries are. And those are technically "the west", but the US and the Nordic countries have vastly different economic and social models. So you can't just claim the achievements of these nations as those of the US, which is what it seems like you're doing by gesturing towards "the west" here.
When looking at just the modern developed world, the US has one of the worst rates of suicide and depression in the world. The amount of sexlessness among men is at an all time high in recorded history. The amount of social connections and friends among Americans is at an all time low. These are not trivial concerns. These are people's lives. As an example, telling a 36 year old man that hasn't had sex in 6 years, who doesn't have a single friend and hasn't spent time with a friend in 5 years, that he's just winning too much and he's too prosperous, comes off as pretty callous and oafish.
. Make music that appeals to the lowest common denominator. Music that has nothing to say, and can be infinitely replicated for maximum profits. No culture is going to spring up around music like that. The exception here, is the only super popular and visible music culture these days, is one that cartoonishly espouses the same ethos that is grinding the music industry to dust - modern hip hop. The message of every popular modern hip hop song - make money, consume, don't give a fuck about anything. There are popular rappers that don't do that (J. Cole, Kendrick, etc) but they're the exception and relatively not as popular or successful as their mumble rap peers.
