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This is a great response. Good stuff.

Nicely put

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I'm allergic to tigers. I am also allergic to house cats. I did not think there was a connection until I got into the baby tiger petting experience exhibit. Oooo boy, my allergies were flaring.

not everyone needs drugs??? maybe it s just u??? just do a dopamine detox

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Thanks, yeah. I'll definitely have a look at it.

Edit : Audio book is free with Audible too!

Or you could just you know... Stop watching the news all the time.

The book 'Factfulness' by Hans Rosling goes into this in detail if anyone's interested. There's also a TED talk if you haven't got time for a book. Edit: TED added.

The brain is a problem solving machine. In the absence of "real" problems it has a tendency to create some to have something to do.

Another factor is that in our ancient past social isolation meant certain death. So new societal rules stress us almost as much as a looming predator because if we don't follow them properly we could/ would be ostracised.

We also spend much less time in groups which gives us a negative impression of our social security which causes intense stress as above.

As an ex weed smoker of 20 plus years I assure you we're better off without it. I was also on anti depressants for around 5 years and I'm so much better now without either of those crutches. I view them as pain killers when your leg is broken, they help the symptoms but they don't do anything to cure the ailment. Only effort and a genuine desire to change bad habits helps in my experience.

Mostly because you don't run into them, so you would never know if you're allergic or not.

Like a lot of people that are allergic to housecats are also allergic to lions, but how are they ever going to find out about that?

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Other than sleeping, peoples brains get no chance to be idle nowadays with their heads always full of tech. Idle time gives you the chance to think through things. So many people are just winging it and making ill thought out decisions.

You are around 90% correct.

Correct: we have created an anxiety/depression-inducing society. The fact that we had such societies before does not change that. We also had better ones.

Correct: many/most people live in a (near) constant state of stress, anxiety, apathy or depression

Correct: marijuana and anti-depressants can be used to alleviate the state temporarily

Incorrect: those 2 are not the only methods of coping with modern society. I don't even mean other addictives, alcohol, sex, gambling, video games. There exist real ways of healthy unwinding, coping, building a sort of "resistance". Physical and mental exercises, sports, joga, meditation, spending time with family and friends, self-reflection, journaling, talking about it (even to yourself), screaming (just not at people), physical exertion (produces endorphines!), etc.

This is what I think too. It’s like when someone says that there are more gay or trans people now. There aren’t more. They always existed. They were just massively oppressed or killed. Now they can barely put their heads above water, and everyone is like where did they all come from?

Spousal abuse is present nowadays as well as back hundreds of years ago. Good people existed back then as they do now. Harsher law punishment might prevent some violence now but morality exists within us and people actually knew to differ right from wrong without anyone telling them so.

Alcoholism is a big problem nowadays too with people knowing that they are depressed. I agree that awareness is higher and medication makes a big difference today but still a lot of people choose drugs and alcohol (not always because they are depressed though).

My point in the first comment was that out of physical exhaustion people easily fell asleep at night and didn't have time to overthink things. They kinda had to live in the moment. Science today does say that physical exercise reduce anxiety levels and depression. I agree that back then depression definetely existed....I just think it was less present.

Depends where in the world, I guess. But for the most part, things have gotten much better. Maybe you should revise your history.

You do realise that there are billions of people that don’t need marijjuana or anti-depressants, right? This might just be a you thing, are you seeing a therapist??

Still, we have created societies in the past that were mentally easier to live in

And their wives went to doctors who prescribed various things such as trepanning, leeches, laudanum...

Thank you

Fair point I suppose