alt Hacker NewsWhat if the drugs just make us... better? As in happier, less stressed, and more suited to what modern life requires from us.
Happiness isn't necessary to pass on your genes. Most animals, especially prey animals, spend much of their lives scared, because death is inevitable otherwise. We've now created a safe and pleasant environment our ancestors could only dream of, yet many of us are still unhappy. There's no real evidence we were broadly happier in the distant past either, we're just a different kind of unhappy now.
Seems to me we've developed a tool that makes people feel better and function better, perhaps by blunting some of the vestigial leftover emotions we needed when every tree might have had a sabre-tooth tiger hiding behind it.
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What if the drugs just make us... better?
What if, indeed. You are in a thread that discusses the side effects and addiction.
>Seems to me
Are you a good candidate for a control? Let me ask you seriously… could you stop taking them and function?
“Seems to me” that you are at best a little biased here.
"more suited to what modern life requires from us." This part scares me because I would prefer that we rearrange our economic and social world so that people can have more free time, more vacation, more relaxation, and way more social time too.
I have known many people in my personal life in the united states who have an extremely stressful and depressing life due to external stressors (job, debt) and in response are on powerful psichiatric meds with the sometimes-severe withdrawal problems mentioned in this thread.