Comment by ThalesX | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ThalesX | Hacker News Reader

I've recently finished reading "Civilized to Death"[0] and I can't help feel there's some truth to some of the ideas.

One idea that stuck with me is that shit zoos have concrete cages for the monkeys, and they're miserable in them, showing similar signs to modern humans (depression, addition, anger), whereas nice zoos try to keep the monkeys in similar environments to those that they evolved for, where the monkeys are pretty much chill. The author argues that we're constructing concrete zoos for ourselves and in the process making ourselves miserable. We're so far detached from what our bodies and minds evolved for, that it's an alien environment for our species.

If this holds truth, it's really no wonder that the more we pile on and the further we stray from our true species' preferences, the more horrible we will feel, and this hikikomori is a fine illustration of that.

As some comments pointed out 'what about the great depression', 'what about 'nuclear war', "don't you like your electricity"? These are all human patches for human made problems. I don't think the correlation between progress and wellbeing is as clear cut as some would like to see it.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Civilized-Death-What-Lost-Modernity/d...

I think even if we lived in a green paradise, there would be those who would measure themselves to others and still find themselves "short" to their more vocally successful peers

I think inequality and toxic competition from an early age demanded by our soceity is a much bigger factor

Depends on the checks and balances you have in the 'society'. Are vocally succesful peers lauded? Then perhaps you could run into this situation. Are they mocked for having a big mouth? Maybe the chances are slimmer.

> I think inequality and toxic competition from an early age demanded by our soceity is a much bigger factor

Yeah, I tend to agree with you in that these are important factors into how things are playing out. And the scale. My God. We used to have inequality and competition between a small subset of people, now we're competing with 7+ billion.

I think the “by the way our planet’s dying” just adds to the framing of despair. It’s not the root cause but certainly compounds to it. Independently of this phenomenon, it almost feels like we’re reliving the ‘70s (pollution, urban decay, political breakdown).

Just need to point out that the planet isn't dying, but our ecosystem is. We're like a zit or a mouth ulcer to the planet.

Agreed with regards to the scale, but without the ecosystem the planet is basically dead, like any other planet we know of.

I said our ecosystem, not the ecosystem. It's very unlikely that we are able to cause a runaway greenhouse effect on Earth like what happened on Venus and there's no evidence that this is happening anyway (as we'd be unlikely to be able to stop it; we have about 2 billion years to figure that out). So we'll wipe ourselves out and a good chunk of life on Earth today, but we won't kill the planet.

People feeling increasingly crushed by the daily grind to keep one’s head above water is almost certainly a bigger factor. So many people are just one unfortunate event, or even worse, one paycheck away from financial ruin with little in the way of an institutional safety net (and in the case of many, even a friends/family support network) and that takes a massive toll on one’s psyche.

Speaking for myself, if all needs were guaranteed to be met I’d probably be happier living in a walkable metropolis than idyllic countryside. The part of the city that sucks isn’t the city as much as it is the rat race.

I'm pretty sure the declining birth rate (or "fertility") is among the consequences of the change you are describing. The difference with past misery is the lack of stories to cover it up, or to give hope that this is temporary and it will get better.

I haven't read the book, but I think "concrete zoos," for humans, is more metaphorical than literal. Humans find comfort in much wider ranges of environment. If it were available, I'm sure many would find spaceships to be comforting environments.

IMO, the problem is that we're at this stage of social development, where capitalism, and the antiquated culture of jobs, management and deadline, is actively incentivized to limit human potential and creativity. Why? Because that's where competition comes from.

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