Why are people today so unhappy?

“Like the girl who has been trending recently having a mental breakdown as she struggles to pay her rent and education and is trapped in a work where she works 9-5 with 2 hour commute both ways and has a shitty pay”

She wasn’t having a breakdown. She was just emotional which is a fairly common female response to that sort of stress.  She was actually self aware and knew it would be perceived as whining.   She isn’t trapped nor do I think she used that that word.  She was coming to the realization that the life she has chosen to this point she hates.  It is an understandable reaction.  But she is in that position because she listened to the very things this post is about.  She listened to lies told by 3rd wave feminists and that side of things in general that tells her the way to be content is to go to college and work her butt off.    I find it interesting that you as a self proclaimed progressive simultaneously touts that sort of mindset for women and then complains about it effects.

“true but hard work only does not equal to a better life. ”

True, but it makes the chances far far higher. There is NOTHING that guarantees a better life. A better life, or a happy one, is often dependent on attitude, effort and perspective.  Many people in the US have won the lottery and ended up wishing they never did despite being handed millions of dollars.

But we should not equate success or happiness to money.  That is a mistake.  Again, one of the very reasons I made this post.

“The number one rule in labor is the employee wants to work as little as possible”

Yeah, under communism.  But in a more or less quasi free market many people choose to and want to work hard because it DOES increase their chances of success and many find satisfaction through it.

“Liberals are definitely not the same as radical left”

I did not say they were, I was describing policy not people. But I agree.  At this point the radical left considers classic liberals extreme right.

“the empirical evidence strongly suggests declining fertility rate is correlated with modernization and development of societies.”

When I stated that I was thinking about what I know. Which is the West.  In the west every policy out there makes less people.  But I don’t know that you can use China for that argument.  They started the 1 child policy in 1980 so of course the birthrate went down.

But in the west everything encourages either have less children or no children.  Now, it is of course possible for 2 things to be true at once.  I think what I am saying is true but I will agree that what you are saying is also true.  However, you mention birth control as one of the reasons.  That is a radical liberal policy, just an old one. And as far as the pill itself that was born out of some dark ideas initially.   I find it something that has overall harmed society and continues to.  And not just because it makes less children but it is one of the first things that starts to absolve people of personal responsibility and that entire train of thought has deeply harmed society.  I will take that as far as saying things began to go sideways when sex was decoupled from reproduction entirely.

@AdrianJones

That is a great point.  However it is my belief that while social media exacerbates the issue it is not the root cause.  But it is clearly the main vector of spread of the incorrect info that is the root cause.

@GiggaVega

Very thoughtful post man.  You make some great points.  And I can see you clearly have put thought work into this topic.  I actually find this topic critically important because I believe this to be root of much of the unhappiness and confusion about right and wrong.  That’s is a thing because the issue is not that people are violating right/wrong I honestly think they don’t know what that is. We have a society that glorifies the self and cheers you on to please you as often as possible.  So when people put that into practice and they are miserable as hell they are confused because they are doing everything prescribed to them to be happy. So they wonder if something is wrong with them, they get on medicine and seek therapy because they are “depressed”.  The reality is they are not “depressed” and they are unhappy because they should be because they have done nothing correct to attain contentment because they literally don’t know how.  There are outlets to figure this out such as God and other ideas labelled conservative and those are all considered to be silly nonsense.  So such a person remains unhappy and sees no path to anything else and eventually hopelessness sets in and life seems to be nothing but an accident.

I think it should also be mentioned social media is not the root of all this, it is simply the vehicle by which it is spreads.  But I think one could argue it is such a great mechanism for that if you took away the mechanism the spread almost stops.  However if you look back historically long before there was social media or internet the spread of bad ideas still happened.  Just slower.

I applaud you for you work against pedophiles. I know you took much flak for it but none of us make any real progress without some kind of personal sacrifice.  That is something most folks won’t commit to and as such those willing to do evil slowly take over.  But I believe the tide is beginning to turn.

The reason some of the gay lobby is so vicious about defending pedophilia is that there seems to be some link between gay men and pedophilia such that they are statistically higher to have pedophiles in their ranks (that is also a murky stat). That is not to infer all gay men are pedophiles, this just means that inside of that lobby you probably have a number of them using that gay lobby as a shield and a weapon.  There are many great gay folks working diligently against the pedophiles and calling them out.  I have seen this and it’s becoming more prevalent which is good to see.

I believe their is also a philosophical link between gay and pedophilia.  Again, I am NOT saying gay folks are pedophiles.  What I am saying is most any philosophical argument used to defend or explain homosexuality can also be used to explain and defend pedophilia.  And that is why decades ago people feared one movement could lead to the other.  And here we are on the precipice of that.  The one obstacle between gay is ok so pedophilia is ok is the age of consent.  So we see that being attacked as well and we also have the injection of the thought that kids are sexually aware and can decide for themselves.  It’s a very small jump from “kids can pick their gender” to “kids can consent to sex”.  Much of the push of that end of things explicitly states children are sexual beings hence the idea they must be informed about all things sexual early on.

I agree with you that many people (on all sides) are sick.  This is true.  They are confused and focus on the wrong things.  Society is now very removed from the thing it was founded on, God. And as such it decays. If people put in 1/10th the energy to making things better as they do with hating others the world would be a far better place.  And that is an end we must all keep working towards.  We can never give up on that goal because once you do there is no hope.

• This reply was modified 1 year ago by Vknid.

“It was simply a theoretical example to illustrate that the theory of labor I explained earlier is absolute, even in capitalism. Employees want maximum possible wage for minimum possible working hours, while the employers want the opposite.”

How is a theory absolute?  It’s a theory.

You description is incorrect.  Is that sometimes the situation?  Yes.  But it leaves out all those who are working hard to get ahead either at someone else’s company or their own in which case they are often happy to work more for less for future rewards.  This is the antithesis to your description. Both situations exist but my example is only found in capitalism and yours IS the general rule for communism/socialism where there is no motivation to do anymore than you are forced to as it gains you nothing.

“There are pretty simple methods to better your happiness on a surface level like @Maverick suggested. Eat healthy, exercise, grt enough sleep, go out and socialize after work/school  most importantly don’t take everything too seriously.”

On a surface level yes.  But the entire reason I made this thread was to highlight the long term misery the current prescription for “happiness” is causing. The reality is we should be aiming for contentment, that being long term happiness, vs. momentary pleasure.  Surviving off of momentary pleasure is a snowball rolling down a hill with misery and regret at the bottom.