Are you happy?

[Prateek_Sanjay]

Are you at peace with yourself and the world around you? Are you content with the way things are?

I would say I am. Quite fully.

I am just as well aware as everyone else on this forum is of the endless dents made on to high civilization and liberty.

And yet, I just appreciate what an enormous upgrade that is from the feudalistic, despotic, and oppressive manner of humans for 95% of human history. We have only found new sins and new means of oppression, but I guess we can accept that favouring the present over the future, along with plundering and expropriating of millions of people as an unavoidable part of human temptation. Too often the gains of coercion for some people last longer than the cost they have to pay for it, but at least the cost is paid eventually.

So I think we did pretty well despite that constraint.

[Merlin]

I’m afraid I’m far too young to be at peace with the world. I’ll give my best shot to try changing something, and when I reach my sixties, whether I’ve suceeded or not, then I’ll be at peace with the world. Right now there’s too much business waiting.

Also, I wouldn’t be too quick to assume we’re nowadays as free as anyone has ever been. Applied to the whole world that holds, but for individual societies it would seem a far cry indeed.