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Comment by harimau777 | Hacker News Reader

Sure, but to what degree does that wealth include the things that really matter? Everyone has more widgets but there's not enough room in the places people want to live, most people are working unsatisfying jobs, and many people can't find love.

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We are doing much better in terms of food availability, lower chance of dying early from diseases, one can communicate with people over the entire world, travel easily to all sides of the globe, and many more things. That people find ways to be less-than-happy regardless of material conditions. That does not mean the world is fundamentally zero sum. Actually I would argue that choosing to compete for the same things that everyone else wants, like living in the same places, is choosing a zero sum game where it is not needed.

It's possible that material conditions aren't nearly as important to happiness is commonly believed. Perhaps people are happier dying younger with a family and a degree of autonomy than they are living more years alone with little autonomy.

That is also the tale of humanity. 100 years ago an “unsatisfying job” was working on a farm with your abusive uncle. “Can’t find love” meant that all the men died in a war so…

In developed countries, there’s not much in the way of mass starvation anymore, and normal people have at least some chance of being able to spend money on things not directly required for survival, of being able to retire, etc. They’re generally literate and have some freedom to move between jobs. They’re unlikely to freeze to death if there’s a bad winter, and so on.

None of this was the case for the vast majority of people two centuries ago!

People not being able to find love seems largely beside the point; that’s not an economic issue, it’s a personal one. You could have a society as fabulously rich or grindingly poor as you like for that.

I don't think that one can separate the economic from the personal. Economics has a huge impact on the way that people interact socially, influences physical health which influences physical attractiveness, has a major impact on mental health, etc.

As far as I can tell, people in the past (at least post serfdom) also had greater opportunity to travel in search of greater opportunity. Today immigration controls make it difficult for people to leave failing countries like the US.

> As far as I can tell, people in the past (at least post serfdom) also had greater opportunity to travel in search of greater opportunity.

... Eh, different challenges, really. By the mid-19th century, adult death rates on transatlantic emigrant ships had fallen to a mere 1-3% (~10% for children), with some spikes into double-digits for adults due to disease. It was a one-way voyage; virtually no-one ever returned.

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