Whether intentionally or subconsciously, Umair Haque's quip is clearly derived from English philosopher Thomas Hobbes's description of the "natural state" of humanity were it not for political community: "the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

I've been thinking about Hobbes quite a bit lately because, in in our globalized, hyper-capitalist, "World Is Flat" civilization, life has become all too "Hobbesian." Hobbes had another phrase for this "natural state," a "war of all against all," that I keep coming back to when I consider today's labor markets.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobb…

Sounds like the Roaring 20s

I'd wager the middle two are true, but do statistics back up the first and last adjectives?

"You know how sometimes you're thinking about a problem over and over again and then someone breezes past and restates the problem in a sentence that makes you look at everything in a whole new light? That's what this did for me, except the "whole new light" is basically depressing as fuck."

Isn't that something persons have been stating since well before the time of Socrates?

Life hasn't been necessarily "getting better", but some statements have been parroted throughout every generation.

@3 for some demographics, yes. In particular for women at lower formal education levels.

things are more like they are now than they've ever been before.

I should clarify.... I ws referring to the shorter part.

"For almost forty years Republicans have pursued a divide-and-conquer strategy intended to convince working-class whites that the poor were their enemies. The big news is it’s starting to backfire."

- Robert Reich

It's a pointless statement. And like like undead ayn rand pointed out. Someone has been saying that every generation.

Show me a statement that can offer insight to why certain thing are bad. Why is life getting harder? Or how to change things. Then maybe you are actually saying something worth talking about.

Pessimism is so boring.

What coolio said.

Yep.

Although if spewing pointless commentary for the stranger is the pinnacle of your working career, then yes, there's reason to be depressed.

@10 FTW. First of all life expectancy is demonstrably increasing. The rest of it is the same whining that you hear every generation.

Here's the data on life expectancy. It's increasing for all groups, and the gender and race gaps are shrinking.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/8187…

@13: But how can he get his "sheeple" zingers in?!

Of the four claims, shorter is factually false, and the others are only true when using a short frame of reference.

Shorter, harder, dumber? Really? At the beginning of the 20th century, the at birth life expectancy was a little over 30. As science/technology progresses, education and literacy rates have gone up and up. I'd wager to guess that the amount of leisure time the average person has also significantly increased. "Nastier" is a fuzzy concept, but given changes in our society regarding gender/racial equality, I'd say life is a lot less nasty for a lot of people.

Oh, things are much MUCH better now than at almost any time in history. If you think life is short and nasty now, imagine living during Medieval times.

But I understand the sentiment.

Also, @7 clearly won this thread.

If my first name was Umair, I would be depressed too. Quit dragging us down! Your life sucks, mine is O.K.

shorter, nastier, harder, dumber?

Wasn't that a rejected Daft Punk lyric?

Life is not actually getting shorter. Yes, our life expectancy can and should be 2-3 years more than it is, but life expectancy is still very slowly increasing. Occasionally you see a provocative headline claiming this is changing, but so far the evidence produced to support this thesis fails back up that claim.

You might want to think beyond the good old USA and look at the fact that things are much better worldwide. The whole global economy issue has had mixed results for us, but the impact on the poorest countries has been empirically excellent - longer life, higher standard of living, etc.

@13,

The 20 percent millennial unemployment rate is a serious issue.

It takes a profound, willful ignorance of history, or an overwhelming narcissism to believe that anything about that tweet isn't nonsense.

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/1…