I think the situation is likely significantly more nuanced than either of your points of view allows.
Suicide and basic needs being met is likely not highly correlated. On the other side suicide stats likely don’t include dependency related death, alcoholism can be a coping mechanism, if you didn’t commit suicide but instead murdered your liver and died early is that really a different statistic in your assessment?
The only way you can measure is access to basic needs, housing, shelter, medical care, nutrition. A century ago those things were significantly lower for the average person vs now. Could the world be in a better situation? Very likely yes, but is could also be much worse.
If you want to significantly change things then better, advocate for more social workers and to make sure the social welfare system works through them. They are in my experience very good at sussing out whether someone is a leech to society and is just looking for a handout of someone who is truly in need.
Advocate for adequate housing, more suburbs doesn’t help low-middle class people, you need more dense housing close to infrastructure or workplaces.
I respect your thoughts here because I think they come from a good place and that you want to help people.
I just don't know how to express to you how philosophically naive I think the kind of utilitarian assertion you've made is.
We can easily construct a thought experiment world that you and I would both agree is a living hellscape where all human needs were simultaneously being met. Most horror science fiction is predicated on those premises.
I don’t disagree, the world is much much more nuanced than a black or white take can express.
I just think we don’t need to debate this, things are better than a century ago but they are still not great.
Quality of life isn’t solely based on basic needs alone, but for the vast majority of people those basic needs are now met when they weren’t before. That doesn’t mean we get to say, “That’s good enough let’s pack up” there’s still a lot of work to do.
Fundamentally the question to me becomes "what is the meaning of life" and I don't actually think the answer is even "to be extremely comfortable".
This is my core disagreement with tech enthusiasts (specifically AI) people. It's just a naive way of understanding the human organism.
(You know, it occurs to me that most Americans aren't even extremely comfortable because they live in comfort with a massive amount of real or perceived precarity.)
I do want to see your point of view but I’m not seeing it clearly right now.
I can tell you my point of view is that we aren’t even sure what we should do. I know reasonably well how to solve the basic needs, in my experience that doesn’t mean you are going to be happy, I was the unhappiest in my life when I had the most I’ve had. Well maybe the second unhappiest, there was a point in my life I will never want to go back to, but I don’t think I will.
When everything was going well, I needed nothing, I was achieving all my life goals, I fought through the worst depression, I had to seek medical help.
Suicide and basic needs being met is likely not highly correlated. On the other side suicide stats likely don’t include dependency related death, alcoholism can be a coping mechanism, if you didn’t commit suicide but instead murdered your liver and died early is that really a different statistic in your assessment?
The only way you can measure is access to basic needs, housing, shelter, medical care, nutrition. A century ago those things were significantly lower for the average person vs now. Could the world be in a better situation? Very likely yes, but is could also be much worse.
If you want to significantly change things then better, advocate for more social workers and to make sure the social welfare system works through them. They are in my experience very good at sussing out whether someone is a leech to society and is just looking for a handout of someone who is truly in need.
Advocate for adequate housing, more suburbs doesn’t help low-middle class people, you need more dense housing close to infrastructure or workplaces.