Welcome to the 1 new 12 Cities, 12 Months reader who has subscribed to this struggling blogger since last week! If you haven’t subscribed, join the 27 other people who are following the journey!
Hey everyone! If you are in the US, I hope you enjoyed the 3-day weekend. I spent mine doing one of my favorite activities as I travel to all these cities: attending sporting events (which is already one of my favorite things to do, lol). I started on Saturday night by going to Gillette Stadium where the New England Patriots play, but given the football offseason, I went to watch some fútbol featuring the Revolution and Orlando City F.C.
Less than 15 hours later, I headed to the heart of Boston proper to watch one of the most historic teams (the Boston Red Sox) play in one of the most historic stadiums (Fenway Park) in one of the most historic rivalries (Red Sox vs. Yankees). Although I had no stake in the game (personal pride or betting), the game proved to me that Boston is indeed one of the best sports towns in the US. Also, if you are a sports fan and have a bucket list of sporting events/stadiums to go to, Fenway Park is an absolute must-add to that list: truly one of the coolest stadiums I’ve ever been to.
Enough weekend talk. For this week’s blog, I wanted to talk about something that most people I believe tend to take for granted: right now is the best time in history to be alive. Although I truly believe this to be the case (and that it’s only going to get better from here), I also think there are a few explanations as to why people do not believe how amazing our lives are. Lastly, I want to look at a world in the future where tech will improve life moving forward. Let’s dig in!
Life’s Good 😎
I don’t know about you, but in my opinion, life on Earth has never been better! I know some of y’all might say, “Well…that’s easy for you to say…you get to travel the country right now.” To that, I say:
Fair enough
Just take a look at the statistics that help show how great it is to be a human being right now compared to previous times in human history
These charts come from the incredible website Our World in Data (highly recommend you check it out and just take a gander at all the statistics they track). As you can see, the difference between 1820 and 2015 is quite staggering on each of these metrics. There are fewer people globally living in poverty, more people than ever are receiving an education and learning how to read and write, fewer children are dying, people are freer than ever before…you get the point.
This vast improvement in the general baseline quality of life in today’s world can be largely attributed to the incredible technological developments we’ve seen in the last 200 years across multiple eras of breakthroughs:
1st & 2nd Industrial Revolutions (steam engines, light bulb)
Age of Electricity (telegraph, radio, TV)
Atomic Age (nuclear technology, space race)
Digital Revolution (digital computing, the internet)
Mobile Age (smartphones)
Big Data & AI (artificial intelligence & machine learning, web3 [had to include])
With all of the exciting technologies that are on the horizon, including nuclear fusion, quantum computing, AI, etc, as well as the technologies we don’t even know exist yet, one could only imagine that the baseline quality of life will only vastly improve from here on out. This isn’t meant to belittle all the problems we still face today (as there are still a lot of them) and the fact that the that there are still many people facing terrible living conditions (such as slavery which is still quite common). Rather, it should serve as a way for people to be grateful for these vast improvements and motivate them to continue the trend.
Life’s Bad? 🤔
Even with these statistics that prove how much better life on Earth for the human species has gotten over the last two centuries, the majority of people (at least in the US) believe that life is worse today than it was in the past. In fact, a recent Pew survey found that 58% of Americans think the country was better off for people like them 50 years ago. When you look back 50 years ago, times were fairly tumultuous in the US:
The US was in the middle of the Vietnam War, costing countless American lives and sparking protests back home
The US economy was in a period of stagflation, partially caused by the 1973 oil embargo from OAPEC, which significantly increased gas prices
One of the largest political scandals in history happened with Watergate (I guess major political scandals are still happening today, lol)
On top of this, the overall quality of life today is head and shoulders better than in the 1970s when you look at some of the statistics I mentioned in the graphics earlier, such as life expectancy, % of people living in extreme poverty, etc. So how come so many people still think life isn’t great?
Look…I’m no master psychologist (reading Atomic Habits twice doesn’t make me that), but I think I have a few explanations as to why:
Establishment Media
Quite simply put, establishment media has constantly pushed negative headlines to the American populace over and over, thus influencing the public perception of the state of human life on Earth. Just look at how the media has gotten more and more negative since 2000:
Why is this the case even though there have been some incredible scientific breakthroughs (such as a paralyzed man being able to walk naturally again through implants), technological developments (such as Chat GPT), and more? The main reason why is that these major media outlets are incentivized to do so. Humans naturally evolved to have a negativity bias. Generally speaking, this means that negative experiences, even if equally intense as positive ones, tend to have a stronger influence on a person's mental state and behaviors, meaning that an equally emotional negative event will generally impact a person more significantly than a positive one. AKA, people will click articles or watch TV channels more frequently when there is negative news over positive news. Why do you think CNN had a COVID tracker on their TV channel every day for what felt like an eternity?
Due to this constant negative sentiment from our lovely media providers like CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, the New York Times, and more, the US public has been convinced that life is worse off today even if, in reality, that’s not the case (again, I’m no expert, so I am really going off a limb here on this correlation, lol.)
Side note: Again, I’m just a 23-year-old struggling blogger, but if you’re looking to ditch these major news corps and find some better, less partisan, and more optimistic news sources, I’d highly recommend the following:
Packy McCormick’s Not Boring Newsletter (particularly the Weekly Doses of Optimism)
Pirate Wires (my new recent favorite)
Breaking Points podcast (the fairest and most balanced politics pod)
Jealousy
Although I love this song by the Gin Blossoms, this song specifically is not the reason people are feeling more unhappy (this song makes me feel quite the contrary). Although I am not an expert in this field, I believe jealousy plays a big part in people believing that life is worse today than in decades prior. Even though humans are living better lives than ever before (as previously shown), we still partake in a theory psychologists call Social Comparison. People partake in
Upward social comparisons (comparing ourselves to someone seen as superior)
Downward social comparisons (comparing ourselves to someone seen as inferior)
Based on studies, we tend to focus on upward comparisons (aka being jealous of others) which in turn make us feel worse about ourselves. It doesn’t help that it’s also easier to compare yourselves to others today than at any other time in history due to social media, where you constantly see people seemingly live their best lives traveling across Asia, partying on a multi-million dollar yacht, etc. (no shade meant to be thrown, lol).
The Paradox of Choice
Additionally, given the incredible surplus of opportunities that an increasingly better world has given us, we are more trapped and anxious. "The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less" by Barry Schwartz looks into the modern predicament of overwhelming choice. Schwartz posits that while autonomy and freedom of choice are fundamental to our well-being, today's culture of abundance with its endless array of options paradoxically leads to anxiety, dissatisfaction, and paralysis, not liberation (aka makes us feel less happy). By analyzing decision-making in various contexts - from consumer products to career paths, Schwartz reveals that an excess of choices can lead to decision fatigue, regret, raised expectations, and a diminished sense of overall happiness.
A great example of this is modern dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, or however many of these things there are these days (I swear I hear or see a new one every week). Although these apps allow you to see a higher volume of potential partners, the fact that there are so many options makes you believe that you can find someone better, thus making you less fulfilled in a relationship.
Conclusion
Even with the incredible advances that humans have made to make the baseline quality of life better, our monkey brains still interpret the world around us in such a negative light. In particular, most Americans today have a better baseline quality of life than the kings of Europe in the middle ages, the Great Gatsby fat cats of the 1920s, and even the majority of people roaming the world this second. My thought and concern is that even with some incredible technologies like artificial intelligence, nuclear fusion, quantum computing, etc. that will enable humans to live longer, healthier, more abundant lives, we will still be locked up in a mental prison cell longing for life in the past. I hope that over time, people can begin to appreciate how much better life has gotten (and will continue to get) by focusing on bringing up the bottom (baseline quality of life) instead of being jealous of those at the top to live happier, more grateful lives.
Thanks for reading! Didn’t expect this to become a psychology piece, but roll with the punches as they say. It is also probably all over the place cause I didn’t look over it too much, but I need to publish it before the weekend…so yeah. Don’t know what I’m going to be writing about next week, but it will most likely be shorter given that:
I will be writing my 2nd quarterly report for my mentors (check out my previous blog for more info)
I will be traveling to Chicago
My wonderful mom is visiting me in Boston this weekend
Regardless, thanks for reading, and enjoy the weekend!
Click the links below if you dare: