What has been the median level of aggregate human joy/misery since 4000 BC?

[Jon Miller]

Remember that on this scale a serf in the middle ages (in a 'normal' time with some peace and some war) as approximately a 30. Which I think I agree with. Only abnormally bad times would push misery higher than joy I think.

JM

[Jon Miller]

Even if you assume that abnormally bad times push misery up higher than abnormally good times push joy up, I still think the average median would be above 15.

JM

[C0ckney]

one of the problems is that until recently we rarely hear about the lives of ordinary people, i.e. those that make up the bulk of the population, and when we do it's almost never in their own words.

[Proteus_MST]

Even if you assume that abnormally bad times push misery up higher than abnormally good times push joy up, I still think the average median would be above 15.

JM

I disagree ...
the hypothetical example says that the hypothetical serf wasn´t often sick during his life ... that he had a Pyro-Fetish and therefore loved being burned alive ... that he liked his job and also doesn´t account for any losses he might have encountered in his life. It also doesn´t account for any wars.

I think that until the 17th or even 18th century malnutrition among common peasants was common as well as lots of diseases (which wouldn´t be treated .... either because of a lack of medical knowledge at this time ... or because the peasants lacked the funds to afford the treatment by a physician who was educated in an university).

Also wars have been a rather common occurrence until the modern times ... with direct impact on the peasants ... either because themselves or their family members were drafted into the military .. or because their villages were subject to an army marching through (leading to plundering, rapes and killings among the peasants)

And only a minority of the population lived in the relative safety of the cities ... most were peasants (and well, even cities didn´t provide absolute safety ... especially after succumbing to a siege ... just think about the sack of Magdeburg ... or the destruction of Carthago (which turned the few surviving inhabitants into roman slaves))

Combine this with the hard labor on the fields (of which a lot of the yield had to be given to the liege lord and only a small part was for the peasants themselves) and the all present loss of relatives to natural and unnatural deaths then IMHO the median happiness of people during most of the times was well below zero

[Jon Miller]

I base my assumptions on reading things like this http://www.economist.com/blogs/freee...nd_uncertainty

And I should say that I can imagine an error band between 10 and 50.

JM

[Elok]

I think that, by and large, people in all times and places tend to adjust to their experiences and find happiness in spite of circumstances. Obviously the slave working to death in the Laurium silver mines was just miserable, full stop. But we have people today who live in unheard-of luxury by the standards of prior times and are still perpetually unhappy because they can't help thinking of what they don't have or how they've failed to live up to the standards of their family, society, etc. Or just have FUBARed family dynamics, or modern rich-people diseases like diabetes, or whatever. And there were people in the Middle Ages who had monotonous and insufficient diets, lived under continual threat of war and domestic unrest, and frequently had to bury their own dead children . . . but still enjoyed regular church-enforced holidays and plenty of cheap thrills (generally involving cruelty to animals).

[loinburger]

Somebody who I believe to be knowledgeable on the subject told me that people's happiness tends to be more or less independent of their external circumstances, e.g. somebody who is unhappy and wins the lottery will briefly become happier but will then settle back to their old level of unhappiness (assuming that they haven't gone bankrupt in the meantime), and that somebody who is generally happy but then has a love one unexpectedly die will briefly become unhappier but will then rise back to their old level of happiness.

[Aeson]

I'd say in the 30's, maybe 40's. Primitive societies seem to have a lot of joy even in modern times where most of their territory has been lost (so a harder life). Modern societies (even poor ones) also have a lot of joy for most people most of the time. The middle ages through industrial era were likely the low points world-wide. Even then though, even in times of war, it appears most people thought life was worth living most of the time. So at least some positive value.

Shorter lifespans through most of human history may actually have been a positive in regards to this type of scoring. Dying is something everyone does, but early deaths tend to be less drawn out than later ones, and without all the problems associated with ageing past your physical prime.

[rah]

Old age may be hard, but it beats the alternative.

[Bereta_Eder]

Cavemen lived well on to their 60s-70s

The limited lifespan doesn't hold water any more apparently

[Bereta_Eder]

I think that, by and large, people in all times and places tend to adjust to their experiences and find happiness in spite of circumstances. Obviously the slave working to death in the Laurium silver mines .

laurium? probably lavrio?

anyway slavery still exists today.
It's because of corporations and democracy and the imbalance of power.
But this is being rectified. (and will lead to war)

[Dinner]

I'd go with slightly above zero for the human average.

[Proteus_MST]

Cavemen lived well on to their 60s-70s

The limited lifespan doesn't hold water any more apparently

AFAIK a major reason for the lower calculated life expectancy in past ages is,
that the older cultures had a higher children mortality, which pushed the mean age of death down by a large deal ...
once you reached adulthood you had the chance to reach an age of 50+
(if no wars, famines, epidemies affected you) ... especially if you were member of the upper class

[N35t0r]

If measuring instantaneous joy/misery, then I'd say closer to 0. People tend to forget bad things and remember good things, so a guy who looks back on his life and thinks it's a 30 probably had something closer to 0, and is only selectively remembering more good stuff than bad.

If measuring perceived joy / misery then probably closer to 30-35

[rah]

In general I'd agree but then there are a few traumatic bad things that are never forgotten and may remain with a person for a life time.
The early death of a parent, spouse, or worse, a child.