The Good Old Days Were Awful Why the grass seems greener in other centuries

[prasad1]

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Thinking about the good old days triggers neurochemicals that make you feel good. You might reach the conclusion that life was better in the past. But if you had actually lived in the past, you would not have liked it.

Your sex partners would have been chosen for you if you had lived in the past. Your elders would have obligated you to partners who benefited them.

You would have felt dirty all the time if you lived in the past. Without hot running water or toilet paper, you would have had that camping-trip feeling your whole life. Your food would have been laced with vermin droppings and your drinking water would bring intestinal worms.

You would have been scared all the time if you lived in the past. Death would have snatched those around you, and people would explain this with theories that made it scarier. You wouldn't have left your village if you lived in the past because it was too dangerous. Home wasn't safe either because of invasions, famines, and routine domestic violence.


Today, we're safer, cleaner, and freer to choose our sex partners, but people are convinced that things are awful. Why do people think life was better in the past?

The Good Old Days Were Awful

Our brains focus on social pain because there's less physical pain than before. The social snubs in your life feel more brutal than the plague and pestilence of the past.

www.psychologytoday.com

 

[prasad1]

Looking back at history, ask yourself what era you would rather live in more than today.

You may be able to find an 80-year period when you could have avoided a major war. You might identify a time when there was relative peace, economic expansion, growth in civil rights, and optimism about the future.

But was that time really as rosy as you think it was?

The truth is that people today on average are faring much better than they were at any point in history.

This may not sound right. It may not feel right. But it is right.

The world has seen dramatic improvements over the last couple centuries, including better access to healthcare, less malnutrition, less violence, less war, less pollution, more education equality, more human rights, more democracy, and more freedom.

These are just a few tidbits about how much better life has gotten around the world in the last 200 years:

• Life expectancy has more than doubled in the last 150 years to 71 years old after staying stagnant at around 30 for thousands of years
• Child mortality has plummeted in the last 200 years to about 4% of kids dying before 5 years old, down from over 40% in 1820
• Illiteracy has plunged to 14% today, down from 88% in 1800
• Extreme poverty has dropped to about 10% today, down from close to 90% in 1820

3 Reasons You Are Wrong About ‘The Good Old Days’

And why NOW is the best time to be alive

medium.com

 

[Jaykay767]

Agree..living in the present is the best time to live..excluding the corona ..pandemic.

However we should try our best to preserve our ancient culture with caste and gender equality and reform.

Unforuntantely India has messed up big time by hapazard developemnt and temples lands are encroached and it has become a nightmare to visit them via the narrow lanes with houses and apartments on either side.

 

[Rangarajan Tnc]

As a person who lived in the past and had a partner chosen by parents and gradually acquired all the present day devices and life style, and suddenly locked into a condition similar to the past, it was really a good time.

 

[kamu]

Looking back at history, ask yourself what era you would rather live in more than today.

You may be able to find an 80-year period when you could have avoided a major war. You might identify a time when there was relative peace, economic expansion, growth in civil rights, and optimism about the future.


The truth is that people today on average are faring much better than they were at any point in history.

This may not sound right. It may not feel right. But it is right.

The world has seen dramatic improvements over the last couple centuries, including better access to healthcare, less malnutrition, less violence, less war, less pollution, more education equality, more human rights, more democracy, and more freedom.

These are just a few tidbits about how much better life has gotten around the world in the last 200 years:

• Life expectancy has more than doubled in the last 150 years to 71 years old after staying stagnant at around 30 for thousands of years
• Child mortality has plummeted in the last 200 years to about 4% of kids dying before 5 years old, down from over 40% in 1820
• Illiteracy has plunged to 14% today, down from 88% in 1800
• Extreme poverty has dropped to about 10% today, down from close to 90% in 1820

3 Reasons You Are Wrong About ‘The Good Old Days’

And why NOW is the best time to be alive

medium.com

I do not agree with you on many counts - 1] Life expectancy : astrology computes the planetary cycles in a person's life is for 120 years ! - this would not have been done if generally people died at 30 or 40 years of age -
2] child mortality - this again is only according to the calculations done by the westerners , and the "statistics" are for the time after the mughal and british eras.
3] Illiteracy - this again, my rebuttal for your point 2, holds good . India had the most number of universties in the world , when the westerners were fighting with sticks and stones and had the most miserable, insanitary homes to live .
4] Like wise - the amount of gold, foodgrains , in fact everything that was needed to live was in abundance in the Indian subcontinent as we know it today - as testfied by the many Greek, Chinese and Arabic scholars who have written about our land
5] To come to your first point last : In the ancient literature of our country, there is abundant indication of the freedom given to women - in all respects - whether it is the choice of a life partner, education, what they did with their lives, in short, to live life as they wanted and not as they were told to .

We have had a dark era of all that you mention , but , I believe, are coming out of , albeit slowly.

 

[Janaki Jambunathan]

Unforuntantely India has messed up big time by hapazard developemnt and temples lands are encroached and it has become a nightmare to visit them via the narrow lanes with houses and apartments on either side.(#3)

ஏழையின் சிரிப்பில் இறைவனை காண்போம் The liberals chose this path - and the approach (road) to temple became narrow lanes! It requires political will - You see this happening in Kasi ! Only Modi can do it!

Liberals - it is simple - place a b before road - becomes broad! வாய்சொல் வீரர்கள்!