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comment by b_b
b_b  ·  3468 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: I don't understand why you have to pay to live on a planet you were born on.

This isn't a crisis or modernity. People have been unhappy since the dawn of time. Successive technological advances have all been (at least ostensibly) attempts to alleviate our collective privation and penury. Even though middle class people in the developed world pretty much are free of starvation, happiness still evades most people. I think this is more a fact that people view happiness as a thing to be achieved rather than one emotion among many. Life is a process, and there is no end game.

Of course none of us chose to be born, but we each have the choice whether to keep living. The fact that so few of us choose so is a testament to life not being all that bad, no? At least, it seems to be the lesser of the two evils, so to speak.





organicAnt  ·  3468 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    This isn't a crisis or modernity. People have been unhappy since the dawn of time.

Do you mean that people are responsible for their own (un)happiness and it's not the system's fault or responsibility to cater for that?

    Of course none of us chose to be born, but we each have the choice whether to keep living.

Are you suggesting suicide as a solution to unhappiness with a lifestyle you didn't choose and don't know how to change?!

b_b  ·  3468 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Do you mean that people are responsible for their own (un)happiness and it's not the system's fault or responsibility to cater for that?

I mean people mistake modernity as the cause of unhappiness, and if you pay attention to history, it's easy to see that unhappiness predates modernity by millenia. Therefore, modernity (or capitalism) is not the primary cause of our shared despair.

    Are you suggesting suicide as a solution to unhappiness with a lifestyle you didn't choose and don't know how to change?!

No. I'm saying it's obviously the better choice for most people to learn to cope with life. There's a lot one can get out of living, and complaining isn't a great help in our struggle.

organicAnt  ·  3468 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I mean people mistake modernity as the cause of unhappiness, and if you pay attention to history, it's easy to see that unhappiness predates modernity by millenia.

I'm not sure that the kind of unhappiness of the past, when we struggled for basic needs, can be compared with today's unhappiness with the modern consumerist lifestyle which is long past the state of survival.

    Therefore, modernity (or capitalism) is not the primary cause of our shared despair.

What would you attribute our shared despair to? A pre-deterministic human "nature"?

    There's a lot one can get out of living, and complaining isn't a great help in our struggle.

What would you suggest that people who are unhappy do to help in our struggle?