If you drive your car to a desk job where you sit in a zoom meeting all day and then stuff your face with food you bought, you're going to crash and burn. If your "hobbies" involve "Netflix", you've got a problem.
Take for example a diet that causes gut problems, which then causes anxiety to manifest physically, which result in anti-depressant medication, which you guessed it, cause gut problems.
However, when a raise in mental-health issues correlate with a an inequality crisis, de-funding of mental health services, and lowering of national food standards ( UK, Brexit, Austerity ), maybe it's not so much that we can't sit in offices, but rather balance has simply been stripped for profit.
In modern times, obesity is one of the biggest health issues among the poor. The poor of times past would think we're living in a utopia. And in terms of "stuff" we probably are, but it doesn't feel like a utopia because it obviously isn't. Current times are probably the best evidence imaginable that all of the things we relatively ignore in terms of quality of life (family, nature, philosophy/purpose, and so on) are, at the minimum, no less important than the things we obsess over like income, education, and sexuality.
While it's true that overall living conditions have improved, with more access to amenities like plumbing and clean water, this doesn't mean inequality has lost its relevance. Inequality still has a profound impact on mental health, social cohesion, and overall well-being.
Many people in developed countries live in makeshift housing without basic necessities like electricity, plumbing, and clean water. This indicates that not everyone benefits equally from societal advancements, and calling these amenities "privileges" overlooks their fundamental importance.
Furthermore, while obesity is indeed a prevalent issue among the poor today, it often results from limited access to healthy food options, which is another manifestation of inequality. You also mentioned that inequality contributes to obesity, so dismissing it as a scapegoat contradicts this observation.
The poor of the past might view our access to "stuff" as utopian, but they wouldn't likely see the lives of today's poor in the same light. Improved material conditions don't necessarily translate to improved quality of life, especially when disparities in wealth and opportunity persist. Quality of life involves more than just material wealth; it encompasses family, community, purpose, and other non-material aspects. Inequality affects all these dimensions, making it a crucial issue to address.
Mens sana in corpore sanoJuvenal - 2nd century AD
I have worried about emails while swimming.
I have worried about swimming while emailing.
And I'm not even swimming.
It's more like 100 years for this division.
> continuous stimuli and artificially induced anxiety and stress of modern world
Is anxiety artificial?
400k years ago, humanity emerges. 40k years ago we finish raping and murdering the last of our close ancestors off the face of the earth (Neandertals and Densovians). It's not like we settled down after that. What are the founding stories for Rome: one brother kills another then go one town over a kidnap some wives (rape of the sabine women).
I picked Rome because the Pax Romana was 200 years of peace. ON the back of mass professionalized violence (the Legion). It wasnt exactly a time of ease and abundance out side the select few.
The last dual in America was less than 200 years ago.
2 generations ago you were lucky to make it out of a major war... the ones we have had since have been mild and voluntary.
We live in a time of abundance, ease, and calm in comparison to history.
No bears are going to eat us. No one is going to come in and burn the village down. We're not worried about starving. Or war... the "plague" was a bit upsetting but in the grand scheme of things it didn't kill a lot of us.
Are we supposed to be anxious and stressed for real reasons, are we programed to be that way, and are now freaking out over minor things because we have gotten rid of all the major ones?
That's only true if you're talking specifically about US-involved wars, from the US side of things. For a lot of people, the Iraq War (for instance) was neither mild nor voluntary.
To expand on what you're saying I think many of people who have lived through those wars would look at our "western" complaints of stress and anxiety as abject nonsense. And thats not to be dismissive of what people "feel" were built in to be hyper on guard based on history.
I have a corollary to this: a lot of people in tech, who are great at their shitty office job, they all have some terrible job in their path that they will happily tell you they never want to go back to.
We spend 1/3 of the day sleeping in beds, raised off the floor, sometimes in apartments 10s of metres away from the ground.
We spend 1/3 of the day working in artificial offices, sat on chairs, 10s of metres away from the ground.
The other 1/3 of the day we may be sat in cars/ other transport raised from the ground, sat at tables, sat on our sofas, in our flats doing chores etc. Even if we are walking from A to B, if you are a city dweller, you're probably still walking on tarmac separated with the rubber soles on your shoes.
He then asked when the last time I touched grass or soil with the soles of my feet (or even with my hands). At the time it was about April in London, so just coming out of winter. I think the last time I had honestly walked barefoot on grass/soil was possibly September - and I LOVE the outdoors, go running/ hiking often, very active lifestyle etc.
We have grown so far away from how we evolved, so quickly, and most of us are completely unaware of it. So yes, I ditto your comment - modern society, its stimulus and it's constant FOMO orientation, is absolutely causing our issues today.
I couldn't afford to buy a property in London with a garden to address this issue, so subsequently moved up to North Leeds. I now ensure I am outside in my bare feet at least once or twice a week regardless of the weather. This morning I spent five minutes walking through a stream barefoot to the base of a local waterfall, listening to the birds, playing with my dog, feeling the nature, and wow do I feel happy and focused today as a result. Megacity life if killing us.
Perhaps "optimizing for time/money" is as much who we really are as slow living and you're just ignoring the other half.
You're wrong there. One of the original corporations grew to become the sovereign power over a whole sub continent and eventually got nationalized into a colonial administration. Another original corporation had a para military mandate and conducted large scale open ended naval warfare in three different continents.
True, mental health likely wasn't much of an issue. But the other issues you got in exchange...
Epistemology - stuff we know about knowledge - never really moved into the psychological and political.
Study some and you'll hear all about "justified true beliefs" and so on. A lot of what we call science is built on this foundation. But there are things we know, and can prove, but cannot say. John Bowlby wrote on "knowing what you are not supposed to know and feeling what you are not supposed to feel" [0]
Therefore science built on partial epistemology must also remain partial. All science is inherently political; medicine and digital technologies are shining examples.
This blockage, where we spend our energy in modernity pretending, avoiding, finding reasons to believe in things we know are abhorrent, defending our ego against insecurity... means we get overworked with moral labour. It's exhausting just to doom-scroll with one finger and get out of bed to work for some shitty company that's ruining the planet.
Many people start to feel better when they have some sort of epiphany, breakdown, break-through and just start being more honest. More honest with themselves. More honest with others. You lose friends, but you gain new ones [1]. You lose a job, but you get a better one, for you. Rather than meeting resistance and disagreement, you find that "everybody knows" [2]. I think that honesty is the key to mental health.
[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/487334/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Both_Sides,_Now
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everybody_Knows_(Leonard_Cohen...
For example, it is paramount for an alcoholic to get rid of any trace of alcohol in his home and any other frequented places. Do you perhaps believe that instead he should just "get his act together" and through "sheer will" ignore the temptation of alcohol even if he is surrounded by it 24/7?
Also,
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
As long as we don't change out lifestyle to something simpler fundamentally, I doubt we can really solve problems with any kind of drugs or medical tests etc.
I hope a holistic approach will take us back to who we really are, which would gradually solve our both mental and physical health problems.