u/One-Relationship1905

Whenever somebody complains about something in their life, we often respond with "look how great we have it compared to a century (or whenever) ago", "look how easy everything is", or "look how comfortable we are today, our ancestors has to ...".

But what if that's actually the problem? What if the comfort and convenience is making life unfulfilling. We all need a sense of achievement to feel fulfilled in our lives i.e. we need a goal that requires a non-trivial amount of effort to achieve and there needs to be a reasonable chance of success. In the primitive era that goal was survival which involved hunting for food, looking after crops, chopping wood and bringing water. It requires a non-trivial amount of effort but it is also not an insurmountable task. If we managed to survive we were more or less fulfilled.

Modern life makes survival relatively easy thus reducing the effort required to a trivial-level. We survive but don't feel fulfilled just by surviving. We need to look for other goals to feel fulfilled, but the problem with those are that 1) they are artificial in nature making their pursuit somewhat meaningless, 2) often are also achievable with a trivial amount of effort or are fundamentally unachievable regardless of how much effort we put. This leaves people feeling unfulfilled and depressed despite being comfortable and having access to a lot of conveniences.

There's also the issue of reduced autonomy. Nobody likes being told want to do by somebody else, yet in the modern world we are always being told what to do by somebody else whether it's by our bosses at work or by the rules, laws and regulations that we are constantly bombarded with. We have to follow the instructions of our bosses at work, we have to obey a host of traffic rules when going to work, and even in our free time we are limited in how freely we can explore nature, i.e. we have to be mindful of private property, we need to buy a national park pass to explore the national park, there's a whole set of rules of what you can do, where you can go, where you can camp, how long you can stay, etc. We have less autonomy in the modern world, than we did before, which contributes to us feeling unfulfilled.

Related to autonomy is the control over our destiny. In the past our destiny was primarily in our own hands, even if there were situation that are out of our control. Nowadays our destiny is in the hands of our employers, large organizations and our governments. We don't have any real control over what either of those institutions do, leaving us feeling powerless. Even if we were just as powerless in the primitive era as we are now, at least we had an illusion of control. The illusion of control is powerful. That's why a lot of people are terrified of flying yet don't think twice before getting into a car even though an accident is statistically far more likely in the latter. A car with you behind the wheel gives you the illusion of control, whereas in a plane your destiny is in the hands of the pilot over whom you have no control whatsoever.

Finally there's the issue of the environment we live in being fundamentally unpleasant in some sense. We mostly live in cities that are crowded, noisy, stressful and detached from nature. We are surrounded by stressed, angry and aggressive people who further contribute to us feeling unfulfilled.

Could it be that modern world is actually making us feel unfulfilled and hence is the problem?

Whenever somebody complains about something in their life, we often respond with "look how great we have it compared to a century (or whenever) ago", "look how easy everything is", or "look how comfortable we are today, our ancestors has to ...".

But what if that's actually the problem? What if the comfort and convenience is making life unfulfilling. We all need a sense of achievement to feel fulfilled in our lives i.e. we need a goal that requires a non-trivial amount of effort to achieve and there needs to be a reasonable chance of success. In the primitive era that goal was survival which involved hunting for food, looking after crops, chopping wood and bringing water. It requires a non-trivial amount of effort but it is also not an insurmountable task. If we managed to survive we were more or less fulfilled.

Modern life makes survival relatively easy thus reducing the effort required to a trivial-level. We survive but don't feel fulfilled just by surviving. We need to look for other goals to feel fulfilled, but the problem with those are that 1) they are artificial in nature making their pursuit somewhat meaningless, 2) often are also achievable with a trivial amount of effort or are fundamentally unachievable regardless of how much effort we put. This leaves people feeling unfulfilled and depressed despite being comfortable and having access to a lot of conveniences.

There's also the issue of reduced autonomy. Nobody likes being told want to do by somebody else, yet in the modern world we are always being told what to do by somebody else whether it's by our bosses at work or by the rules, laws and regulations that we are constantly bombarded with. We have to follow the instructions of our bosses at work, we have to obey a host of traffic rules when going to work, and even in our free time we are limited in how freely we can explore nature, i.e. we have to be mindful of private property, we need to buy a national park pass to explore the national park, there's a whole set of rules of what you can do, where you can go, where you can camp, how long you can stay, etc. We have less autonomy in the modern world, than we did before, which contributes to us feeling unfulfilled.

Related to autonomy is the control over our destiny. In the past our destiny was primarily in our own hands, even if there were situation that are out of our control. Nowadays our destiny is in the hands of our employers, large organizations and our governments. We don't have any real control over what either of those institutions do, leaving us feeling powerless. Even if we were just as powerless in the primitive era as we are now, at least we had an illusion of control. The illusion of control is powerful. That's why a lot of people are terrified of flying yet don't think twice before getting into a car even though an accident is statistically far more likely in the latter. A car with you behind the wheel gives you the illusion of control, whereas in a plane your destiny is in the hands of the pilot over whom you have no control whatsoever.

Finally there's the issue of the environment we live in being fundamentally unpleasant in some sense. We mostly live in cities that are crowded, noisy, stressful and detached from nature. We are surrounded by stressed, angry and aggressive people who further contribute to us feeling unfulfilled.

Could it be that modern world is actually making us feel unfulfilled and hence is the problem?

In order to have prosperity under capitalism, the economy has to keep growing indefinitely. Often that economic growth comes from population growth. However this cannot keep going on forever in a world where resources are finite. Eventually the growth is going to stop. Will capitalism still be able to maintain prosperity at that point or is capitalism fundamentally unsustainable in the long run?

Technology doesn't make life easier. It adds some conveniences and luxuries but at the cost of making life more complicated and expensive.

We all focus on how great technology is but forget that technology isn't free, it's very expensive to produce and operate. It relies on scarce resources that are only found in a select few locations across the world.

Take the automobile for example. It reduces the physical effort needed to move ourselves and cargo around however it adds a reliance on oil, which is a scarce resource that most countries in the world don't have. As a result, we don't just need food or water to sustain life but also oil now. Electric cars aren't any better as most of electricity is produced by burning scarce fossil fuels. Not to mention their batteries are made from Lithium which is an even scarcer resource.

Fast forward to AI, it can do amazing things however at the cost of consuming massive amounts of energy. We're not making our lives easier, we're just shifting the cost around. We now spend more effort sourcing the energy to run the AI than the effort we saved by having AI do our work for us.

The worst part is that technology makes survival complicated. In the preindustrial era life was more or less "chop wood, bring water". It's far more complicated nowadays, especially since your survival is predicated on society perceiving you as useful and irreplaceable in an age where people are becoming less and less useful, due to technology taking their "usefulness" away from them, and at the same time we have more people than we've ever had, which means pretty much everybody is replaceable.

I know the primary response is going to be "go live in the woods if you don't like technology". Well that's actually illegal, unless you happen to own the woods, and it is actually enforced, i.e. "squatters" do get discovered and removed from public land, with the help of ... technology.