"In general, most Western industrial countries are now less happy than they were between 2005 and 2010. Fifteen of them have had significant drops, compared to four with significant increases."
"In eight of the ten global regions shown in Figure 2.2 (covering roughly 90% of the world’s population), those in the youngest age group have higher life evaluations now than in 2006–2010, either in absolute terms or relative to those over 25. Youth wellbeing has only fallen in the NANZ countries [United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand] and Western Europe, both absolutely and relative to adults. [Emphasis added]"
You're looking for data to validate your emotions, instead of the other way around. But the memetic emotional vibes of humanity are not objective.
The link you shared appears to me to be a conclusion in search of a evidence. Unfortunately the fields of psychology/sociology are ground zero for the replication crisis.
Ditto for Jonathan Haidt's entire body of work, which was based on shaky foundations.
What's more likely is you're measuring the cultural mood of the youth today influenced by current media climates (hipsterdom), instead of objective reality.
But if you genuinely think the youth of today would be happier getting firebombed during WW2, living through segregation, or working in an auto factory in the 1970s, I'd be happy to send them back there and let them see for themselves.
You see this on Reddit where the bot accounts will just comment in German, French or Italian randomly (and other bot accounts responding to it won't even bat an eye, responding in English as if it's the most natural thing in the world)
I get that impression, because opposition to surveillance cameras here is very often accompanied by a statement along the lines of "and society doesn't even see any benefit from it".
>where the government just arbitrarily says "Oh, sorry we have 'enough' datacenters / Subway sandwich shops / golf courses / storage facilities so you aren't allowed to build one" -- even if it becomes a populist belief that they should.
It's not really arbitrary though, is it? It's decided by duly-elected representatives who answer to the citizens of the municipality. A government "of the people", etc.
I feel like what you're arguing against is precisely why we have local governments in the first place.
Well, you could definitely do policies like that in a plain democracy or republic without any guaranteed rights of the citizens. In our particular constitutional systems, and many others, the founding documents say that the government can't do certain things, even if they pass a law saying they can. (Of course, the Constitution can be amended to remove rights, but there is an intentionally high bar to meet in order to do that.)
Congress could pass a law tomorrow, or California could pass a ballot measure with a 100% Yes vote, saying (for instance) that some random company now belongs to the government, or to Gavin Newsom personally, or to me, but the courts would still be obligated to strike it down since that grossly violates the Seventh Amendment. Ideas like this are commonly referred to as being checks against "mob rule" - the system recognizes that 'what the people want' isn't necessarily supreme when it runs up against other people's recognized rights.
You're right about the countermeasures, but I can't help but look at 1971 (473 confirmed cases, then almost 100,000 the next year).
reply