Life is a scam - but it might be ok to fall for it

Before people start calling me a pessimist follower of Arthur Schopenhauer let me clear up my position. I do think that life is worth living. I would never try and convince someone to take his own life or remove another's person life just because he thinks that his / the other person's life is unworthy of existence.

But, I do have to publicly state that life itself, is a scam. As is daylight savings time. In any case, I suggest you keep reading. I am convinced that you will find some value to these words.

Let's start by defining a universally acceptable scam.

The US health system is a scam (and health systems in general). Health expenditures of the average American citizen have gone up 5x in the last 50 years but the lifespan of Americans has essentially remained the same and has even been declining in the past 4 years.

Yes, I am aware of the fact that before 1970 there were two WWs, but it doesn't even matter right ? The usual way of calculation is not the cohort life expecancy but rather the period life expectancy. With period life expectancy we can remove the unwanted factors, such as wars or pandemics and make an estimation based on an average year. It is the definition used by most international organizations, including the UN and the World Bank, when reporting ‘life expectancy’ figures.

So, as you can see, although Americans spend more for their health, they end up living the same. One may argue that in life,quality is more important that quantity. Life quality usually translates to a greater satisfaction and happiness index. You have a good life quality, you are happy.

I wish humanity had more data on human happiness but we can work with what we have. Thanks to OurWorldInData we can see that the share of people in the US who say they are happy has fallen dramatically over the last two decades. So, even while Americans spend more to improve their life expectancy and quality they still end up living the same and being less happy. Sounds like a scam to me!

Now, let's take a look at TV appliances. If you're in your early 20's, like me, you may remember this.

Do you also remember how bad this was compared to today's TVs ? Remember the static noise ? The low image quality and the crappy speakers ?

Back in 2021.

That's an 8K TV from Samsung (no sponsor plug). Pick one to play your favorite game and watch wour favotite Netflix show.

I choose the 8K TV.

So, clearly, features and capabilities of TVs have skyrocketed in the past 20 years. We went from a noisy box to a silent book-thin QLED panel.

Prices are so bearish that I think we're actually stealing money from the industry (we're not, but it still feels like that).

In 2021 we get unbelievable value for the money that we pay for TV sets and almost every other consumer electronic product. TVs are not a scam.

Now that we have an empirical way of defining what is and whatnot a scam, I can explain why life is a scam.

The 3 fundamental blocks of life are:

The main way of excelling in all 3 is companionship and relationship. It is also the prize.

The data we have for human loneliness are scarce (I am not even going to discuss the ongoing pandemic since I am really trying to avoid anything cohort). Sources, like The Economist and OurWorldInData are publishing contradicting results.

Students are not a representative sample of society. In fact, they tend to be a very biased sample since they're always in company of other students. In the early ages of person's life, one tends to not be extremely selective on which people his going to engage with. Thus, companionships and relationships are easily formed.

People are putting so much effort in relationships and companionships. Platforms that worth billions of dollars have been developed to interconnect people from all around the globe, allowing them to share each and every piece of their life, yet, here we are seeing headlines about a loneliness epidemic.

Nature has developed an ingenious system of sustaining entities. The three fundamental requirements for life are being fulfilled by the reward of the successful satisfaction of the requirement. It's perfect.

Although, while we apparently achieve the three goals set by nature to sustain life (survival, reproduction and evolution) we are feeling like relationships and companionships are failing us. What is happening ? How did we break a nearly perfect system that nature has build for keeping us alive and happy?

I really don't know, yet. I am interested in finding out.

Coming back to my original statement, that life is a scam, it's true. Life is indeed a scam. We're giving so much effort for survival, reproduction and evolution and yet we are somehow robbed of true relationships and companionships. We're giving so much to receive so little.

I need to find out why, how and when the system broke.


Tags: life

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