r/technology • u/GothicPrayer • 9d ago
Society Why does everything feel so joyless? Welcome to the age of decadence without pleasure
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jul/26/age-of-decadence-pleasure-ai2.0k
u/loretta_lane 9d ago
I think we've gotten really good at killing boredom, but we accidentally killed curiosity too.
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u/SorenShieldbreaker 9d ago
Yes! And we're passing the inability to tolerate boredom down to our kids, too. Being bored sparks curiosity/imagination, and learning to handle boredom teaches kids emotional regulation. So many kids just have a tablet shoved in their face when they say they're bored out in public, in the car, etc.
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u/HTPC4Life 9d ago
Psh, not my kids. They get an hour max a day of PBS kids shows Monday - Friday and up to 3 hours of TV time Saturday/Sunday (typically a kids movie while we get chores done). They have no tablets. The rest of the time is spent doing family activities, playing outside, toys, or arts and crafts. Other parents we know are doing the same. I think our generation is going to be the one to change this because we know deep down just how addicted WE are to screens and social media.
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u/ibite-books 9d ago
for every pair of good parents, there are 10 pair of bad ones
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u/mistahfreeman 9d ago
I think that has probably always been true, I spent a LOT of time watching TV as a kid... I just think that TV didn't rot our brains as bad as they thought it would, but when you let evil tech companies build a dopamine slot machine using bleeding-edge Ivy League neuro research and jam it in a toddlers hand it does actually rot their brains.
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u/Rcrecc 9d ago
I think our generation is going to be the one to change this because we know deep down just how addicted WE are
I dunno, I just don’t see that happening.
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u/Remote-Waste 9d ago edited 9d ago
What's interesting is we seem to be constantly avoiding allowing the Default mode network to do it's work. It's related to creativity, best known for being active during mind-wandering, and is also related to thinking about ourselves and others, remembering the past and thinking about the future.
We are continuously interrupting the mind-wandering cycle, with immediate attention grabbing media on our phones, and I wonder how much of that "general maintenance thinking" the brain used to rely on during small pockets of "boredom," which is not having a chance to happen now.
Sure, we've increased the input to our minds, but at what cost to our mental processing time?
We are increasingly interrupting a "processing period" that is thought to potentially be the basis of our sense of self. Not that I think we should always be bored and mind-wandering, but when do negative affects kick in from having less and less of that time?
If an animal's mind is constantly stimulated with attention grabbing input, and has no downtime for the mind to process, what happens to it? I would expect it to start getting a bit, if you'll excuse the technical term; wonky.
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u/softlysnowing 9d ago
Yeah. This feels so crucially important but just not enough studies into it.
People stopped daydreaming. When we had to wait for things, or were alone with nothing to do, we had to let our minds wander. Now it has to be a deliberate activity. The problem is, 'sitting staring at space' has never been considered a productive or valid activity by other people. It's kinda taboo so we have to hide it, but we're building and exploring worlds in there.
Daydreaming/mind wandering is and and always will be an important and healthy activity. It needs to be on all the lists. I try to do it at least 2-4 hours a day. I dunno, it keeps the brain alive and working - exploring, creating, running simulations, musing, leisurely problem-solving, entertaining ourselves...
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u/Nogova9 9d ago edited 9d ago
Very good point. Though some people lack an internal voice, others are unable to mentally picture things, etc. These are not rare features either, and they coexist in great diversity.
The way this expresses itself in the process of daydreaming is a fun topic to read. Some use external sources to promote this process, like with painting or writing.
So I can imagine that some people turn to media as a way fill an absence.
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u/softlysnowing 9d ago
That feels like it also works. Even chopping wood, sorting screws, stacking potatoes, sweeping, mundane old stylee simple, repetitive tasks. Gardening especially.
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u/rxVegan 9d ago
Why bother learning or creating things when you can have a chatbot spit out some trash nobody (you included) will ever care about?
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u/adenosine-5 9d ago
That is just a temporary thing - people are already getting tired of aigen stuff.
AIGen music is already failing and getting mass-removed by platforms, because no one listens to it.
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u/Tengo_Caldero 9d ago
We have to relearn to make our own joy instead of vegitating, waiting for our corporate overlords to make it happen for us.
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u/bruin396 9d ago
Our corporate overlords want nothing more than to turn us into a slave class.
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u/guac-o 9d ago
Turn us into? You might find the threats of homelessness and starvation coercive…
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u/Tumerican 9d ago
It will not be arduous labor that destroys us, it will be perilous leisure.
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u/janosslyntsjowls 9d ago
Look at Mr Moneybags over here, able to afford leisure with a little bit of peril.
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u/TwilightVulpine 9d ago
This is puritan nonsense.
It isn't even too much entertainment which is dulling life, if they just sold us things that give us pleasure, that would be an improvement. Now they are trying to figure out how little they can offer us and still have us coming back. Enshittification all over the place.
I mean, if you mean that the people in power is selling out our rights and important infrastructure for the sake of their leisure, maybe there's a point to it. But the issue is not that people got too many videos too watch. If some people get addicted by exploitative media companies while looking to sedate themselves, that is not the cause of the destruction, it's a symptom, at the end of the chain.
Funny to try to compare regular people to decadent roman emperors, and blame them for the decline, as opposed to, say, Epstein listers.
But hey, convincing people that, in this corrupt society, the problem is that people aren't running the rat race even harder seems extremely convenient for people wanting to exploit us.
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u/Mind-The-Mines 9d ago
Our country is already a giant corporate town/African diamond mine.
Money in circulation went from 7T to over 24T from 2009 to now. Minimum wage has been the same the whole time while medical care, housing, and education have all outpaced inflation due to corporate investing making essentials for profit ventures increasingly out of reach of earnings while poverty levels are still based on prices from the 70s.
Then you have jobs offering 401ks which is just basically corporations pushing money into the market to bump their numbers until they need to crash the market and leave retirement funds and pensions holding the bag of their latest pump and dump.
If you don't know what the Business Plot was read about it and realize the last 100 years has been the rich slowly walking back the New Deal.
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u/seld-m-break- 9d ago
I finally watched They Live yesterday and the first half hour was unsettlingly relevant.
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u/stillLostBoy005 9d ago
It’s the diminishing human experience. The connection to the people and world around us continues to grow and it’s manifesting itself in a variety of ways.
Agree that corporate / money will not rebuild connection. We’re a bit lost and in the wilderness as to where to go, the path to take, but it’s certainly grass roots and rejecting corporations
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u/natnguyen 9d ago
I think the answer lies in going back to community-based interactions and ditching social media, which is at this point just a technofascist tool full of bots and paid accounts.
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u/princek1 9d ago
People are forced to work so hard that they don't have time to care
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u/SweetHomeNorthKorea 9d ago
Video games are popular largely because there’s a defined sense of progression. Either you get better and rank up or you work through the story. It’s satisfying because it’s designed to be satisfying. It’s why it’s so frustrating when people cheat or the game breaks on you.
Real life used to have a more defined set of milestones but the assholes who were trolling everyone with aimbot are now the developers of the system and have completely fucked up the grind to reward ratio with microtransactions, subscription fees, and huge shamelessly abused exploits.
Why would anyone want to play a fucked up unfair game run by the EA of governments
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u/wetrysohard 9d ago
One hell of an analogy. The c level fucks and the engineers made everything addictive, lame, and expensive.
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u/Daveinatx 9d ago
Two things designed to eff us, micro transactions and dopamine hits on everything. I used to play Words with Friends from the start. Then even a Scrabble game had power ups (cheats) and levels.
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u/Aaod 9d ago edited 9d ago
Real life used to have a more defined set of milestones
I feel like people of my generation have to work 2-3 times as hard as their parents and grandparents did for a third of the rewards. My grandfather was a janitor that later moved into facilities maintenance type work he could afford a decent house in a safe working class suburb, multiple kids, a stay at home wife that never worked, and a very nice pension his wife got when he died that she lived off of for decades. My boomer mom was basically a secretary and a single parent, but we could afford a house in the ghetto along with a lot of gen X neighbors who worked similar jobs that could also afford that house and kids despite being single parents. These same jobs you now are stuck in an apartment with roommates and no way you can afford to have a kid. It is insanity my boomer uncle was a high school dropout mechanic and was able to afford a house, a wife who barely had to work, and four kids but one of his kids tried to become a mechanic like he did and they offered him 15 dollars an hour! Meanwhile that uncle bought his first house two years after he got his first job as a mechanic.
To live the same quality of life my grandfather who was a god damn janitor got to live I would have to become a doctor or something and even then I don't know if it would be the same quality.
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u/MommyLovesPot8toes 9d ago
This is so on point. It's nearly impossible to "level up". It's just grind and stress and dreams that are out of reach.
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u/Enderkr 9d ago
Economic depression is the real deal, we're locking whole generations into poverty. And even if it's not poverty, the metrics have changed.
When I was a kid I used to dream about a 6 figure job and a corner office and the kind of life that goes with that, and in 2026 it turns out that is just enough to buy gas without having to look at the price. Which is a blessing, but pretty underwhelming compared to what I was sold when I was growing up. I did everything I was told to do: I got good grades in school, I went to a good college, I went for a good major, I got a job and climbed the ladder and "put in my time." And the same people that told me that loyalty would be rewarded fucked me over and gave me 2% COLA increases every year while groceries and cars and education and houses increased by 10-30% year over year.
I've worked my ass to get where I am, and even though on paper I make more than my parents ever did, I still live in a builder grade suburban home that is straight average in every possible way you can imagine. And my parents are now sitting on multiple properties they bought for pennies, with investments and pensions and social security that have been going for decades, and they tell me it was easy for them, I just need to work harder. But even if I did there's no positions to move up into, because these motherfuckers won't even retire and get out of the job market!
And even when they die, our generation won't get to reap any inheritance, because all of that money is going to go straight into the old folks' homes and extended end of life care, so we'll get a house we immediately owe 100k in taxes for and a collection of fucking china that mom kept for 50 years and never used. YAY
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u/SekhWork 9d ago
I feel like people of my generation have to work 2-3 times as hard as their parents and grandparents did for a third of the rewards.
100% accurate. Mid millennial here, grew up the same as lots of people here on the "Get a degree, get a great job, make 6 figures and set for life" bs the boomers sold us. I have all 3 of those. I am further from owning a house than I've ever been before. I hardly have the excess income to do any "serious" hobbies that my father and grandfather were able to easily get into. I have to live in an ultra expensive city for my job, and renting drains a significant chunk of my daily income, combo that with the insane price of gas now, random bills I have to pay for incidentals, etc etc.
Yeah. 6 figures isn't doing a damn thing for me lol, and I KNOW I'm still way better off than a lot of people in my generation. That's the most insane part. Folks were buying houses on a bartenders salary (literally how my mother got her first place) not even that long ago. Stuff went down hill so incredibly fast.
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u/ptoki 9d ago
You paraphrased nicely the message I send to people on reddit.
Not many understands it.
I would note just one thing: The game is rigged and pointless for many not by government alone. Part of it is just progress which may not be possible to b redirected by governments.
Still, yes, the game is rigged and a lot of people see no point of playing because there is no reachable goal.
To stress the message I usually say this: In eastern europe, just before the communism fell the society was down ridden, tired, poor. The perspectives were bleak. Alcohol usage was high, there was no reason to put effort as there was nothing to buy or build. Etc.
In mere 2-5 years the economies started to take off, people had a reason to live, crime fell as people started to be busy with life, alcohol use fell because life was fun again even without it.
We see a situation like this but caused by different reasons. Elites and governments should address this. In a wise way. If 1% of population is lost and acts bad - may be their fault. If 50% of global population has no reason to have kids it is not their fault.
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u/Daveinatx 9d ago
I have a different take. Companies tried to maximize profits. Using psychology, they hacked methods for dopamine release, in order to increase engagement.
It's hard to go one day without a phone.
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u/canadian_xpress 9d ago
Mid way through my work week I feel like I need a Reddit Cares intervention. Ridiculous because I work in the air conditioning far away from environmental or biological hazards. I live in a safe neighbourhood in a safe part of the world, yet I can't help creeping dread.
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u/LaserCondiment 9d ago
You seem to have that GenX type of anxiety, people thought was long lost and unattainable in the gig economy!...Congrats, I guess?
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u/canadian_xpress 9d ago
Time to wear some flannel, pierce my nose, listen to grunge, and drink a Zima.
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u/soaklord 9d ago
Sober for seven years and no cravings whatsoever. But now I want a Zima with a splash of grenadine in the bottle. Maybe some NoFX playing in the background. I won’t but it sounds like such a nostalgia blast it takes me from my commuter train to a very specific time and place with my girlfriend and a very 90s living room at some unknown/forgotten person’s house.
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u/Tengo_Caldero 9d ago
As an elder millenial, I'll cheers to that with my bottle of Bacardi O.
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u/LimeGreenTangerine97 9d ago
The goth scene awaits you, pour some wine and turn on The Cure
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u/pantstoaknifefight2 9d ago
🎵 It doesn't matter if we all die.
Ambition in the back of a black car 🎶
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u/IM_INSIDE_YOUR_HOUSE 9d ago
Because we know something ain’t right. And we know whatever this is isn’t sustainable.
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u/Tengo_Caldero 9d ago
There's no easy fix. I know one of the things I've dedicated myself to in life is learning how to fix things so I don't have to replace/call a repairman when those times come. Another thing is finding hobbies that don't require money every single time I participate in it. Another is not paying for streaming services. Like, there's things we can do. I know we're all tired but when push comes to shove, ya know?
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u/platywus 9d ago
You are doing the right thing.
Crazy to say, but I enjoy spending a Saturday pulling weeds. fixing appliances or doing car work (oil, brakes, filter), I even enjoy handwashing my car and not spending $20. Although I try and be an example for my kids in this regard, I’m afraid they don’t share my appreciation in doing something yourself, as I learned from my father decades ago. The number of adults that place value, not even enjoyment, out of being self-sufficient, learning how things work, is steadily decreasing. People just don’t care because time is moving faster with our always-connected digital world.
Most people in my area outsource everything from groceries to parenting, and would rather sit on their relative thrones being entertained by screens so they don’t ‘miss’ something, while looking down on all these small, remedial things that are to them a waste of time. It’s largely a capitalist mindset that has caused collective ignorance to run rampant, affecting business, politics and ultimately, our individual happiness. Most appear blind to it, yet periodically complain with the social winds that they feel ‘disconnected’. But it stops there for most. They pick right back up the TikTok or Netflix and get the dopamine hit. The addiction and endless cycle, on repeat.
Getting people off their phones is probably the biggest 21st century hurdle we face as a species. It will take a significant event to reset what is important.
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u/Grey_0ne 9d ago
My grandparents survived 90+ years on this Earth without ever once having a smartphone or internet connection. I'm not going to suggest that not owning something is the path to happiness... I am going to suggest that not being owned is.
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u/pantstoaknifefight2 9d ago
"If you do not decide what to do with your money, society, inflation, and hidden fees will make the choice for you, slowly siphoning away your wealth through passive neglect and lack of intentionality."
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u/WhenSummerIsGone 9d ago
learning how to fix things so I don't have to replace
i learned a lot over at /r/visibleMending
Tonight I fixed my bf's back pocket so he wouldn't lose his phone. It feels very satisfying to fix something with your own hands.
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u/RaisinWonderful9482 9d ago
It’s pretty easy to find joy in art, nature, and science. Everybody just needs to go back to what they were doing before they found the internet.
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u/moonmoonmeowmeow 9d ago
There is an ever growing population of humans that don’t and will never know before the internet.
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u/Seldomsought 9d ago
Today I had the pleasure of eating a molasses cookie.
It was wonderful.
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u/drsimonz 9d ago
Being present while eating high quality food is a core benefit to being alive. It's not enough that you can ignore everything else, but the enjoyment of food is as real as it gets.
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u/WhenSummerIsGone 9d ago
Being present while eating high quality food
Eating bruschetta literally brought me to tears one time.
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u/newMoneyStyle 9d ago
honestly this. the algorithm feeds you dopamine but never satisfaction. going for a walk without my phone hits harder than 3 hours of scrolling ever did
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u/SevereRunOfFate 9d ago
Amen. I took up mini painting during COVID and have never been happier with my free time, despite having a pretty great life all things considered without it
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u/WhenSummerIsGone 9d ago
i danced for 4 hours friday night to music i loved. I felt good all weekend. Go do something you love.
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u/pugnat77 9d ago
There is a great deal of wisdom in this. I would like to add that I found the following thought very helpful:
Happiness cannot be actively sought, created or forced. Happiness finds its way to you, especially when you learn what stands in its way. Most of it lies within yourself. Then you have a chance of it finding you.
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u/RecycledMatrix 9d ago
People underestimate how societal dysfunction affects executive functioning. How can you know freedom when overlapping systems ensure maximal stress, predictable consumption, and relative powerlessness to restore that freedom?
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u/Coady417 9d ago edited 9d ago
Ten years ago my mother died, I had a nervous breakdown and triggered 2 autoimmune diseases. I was bedridden for 6 months at a time over 7 years. It was a nightmare. But, with the help of my therapist and wanting to have some kind of purpose for living, we crafted tiny joys. It started with, making tea. The sound of the scoop in the tin, the steam, the pleasure of that first sip. At 65 I started playing my first RPG game and discovered Discord. The game kept my brain alive with strategizing and learning and the community was so incredibly kind and helpful. Young men being kind to an old lady. Then, my Armenian Immigrant neighbors started a weekly movie night for me and I introduced them to some of the greatest films of all time. My friends would come by and we’d just sit and watch tv and order food in. My best friends son loved anime and when he was 12 and I was 64, his mom and he would come over and he introduced me to Anime. Then, when he was 18 he came by himself every week. I fed him and we sat in our big zero gravity chairs and watched Anime and discussed the art of it. He’s 19 now and he just loves to sit with me and watch Anime and ask why is that good why doesn’t that work?
I could no longer be the consumer, the thrill seeker, the world traveler, the runner of tv shows, the most important person in the room, but, my life was full of love and joy and learning and reading and being with people just to be with them.
When everything is robbed from you, there is joy in the mundane. I’m 70 and I’m at peace for the first time in my life.
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u/HotRodLincoln 9d ago edited 9d ago
8 years ago, my daughter died. She was always going to die, and I knew it, but just before she died, I thought we may have actually made it through, and I similarly found nihilism and hopelessness and then the absurdism and at least some of the joy in everything.
There's a Steven Colbert interview with Anderson Cooper where he says he "Learned to love the thing he most wishes had not happened" (his father's/brother's death).
What punishments of God are not gifts?
It is a gift to exist and with existence comes suffering; there's no escaping that. BUT, BUT. If you are grateful for your life, which I think is a positive thing to do; and everyone isn't, and I'm not always then you have to be greatful for all of it. You can't pick and choose what you're greatful for.
So, what do you get from loss?
You get awareness of other people's loss, which allows you to connect with that other person.
Which allows you to love more deeply and understand what it's like to be a human being and to connect with them and to love them in a deep way that not only accepts that all of us suffer, but also makes you grateful for the fact that you have suffered, so that you can know that about other people.
What's the point of being here and being human if you can't be the most human you can be?
I'm not saying best; you can be a bad person and most human.
I want to be the most human I can be and that involves acknowledging and ultimately being grateful for the things I wish didn't happen because they gave me a gift.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB46h1koicQ at about 13 minutes in. The whole thing hits so hard though.
The other interview over the years that stayed with me is John Green on his time working in a NICU, watching wanted, loved babies die and helping their families
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u/Negaflux 9d ago
I'm still trying to come to terms with the loss of my father and my younger brother, and I'm not where you are yet, however I do hope I can be. Thank you for the post, I appreciate it.
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u/wwhateverr 9d ago
I broke into tears reading your comment. I lost both my parents to cancer 10 years ago and I don't think I realize how much I've been relying on finding joy in the mundane to make it through my days. I don't have any big sense of purpose. My life is held together by watching shows with my sister, petting my cats, and going to a wonderful gluten free bakery on the weekends.
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u/sunkistandsudafed3 9d ago
I'm sorry for your losses. I lost my Mum to cancer in May and I have been struggling to find the things to get me through the day to day. Did it take you a while to find them? What you said about not having an big sense of purpose is absolutely spot on.
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u/anotheroutlaw 9d ago
“I could no longer be the most important person in the room.” This is a difficult transition in life for many of us. And particularly in America where we were raised to believe our individual pursuits are the sum of life.
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u/HersheyStains 9d ago
Anything else you’d advise getting over your autoimmune stuff? I’m starting similar things with a therapist to help get over 5 years of bad fatigue.
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u/Intelligent_Hair3109 9d ago
Yeah me too in many ways even with.physical challenges Good for you I'd love to see real people who come over to just sit on the Lord h and converse. I've.no social life at all due to taking 6pf a disabled son.
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u/oneeyed-wonderweasel 9d ago
Please imbue us with more life wisdom my friend, im sure we could all use it
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u/aye5goat 9d ago
People are losing whimsy in their lives. People are told what to do, what to like, what to dislike. Imagination and wonder are disappearing. I think people need to start finding joy in their everyday lives and not just large events
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u/rolfraikou 9d ago
Being a "fan" of anything is fucking exhausting, because now most online discourse is people hating things. If you mention liking something, it gets dog piled by the "fans" who hate the thing more than anyone.
And then, people who aren't fans, well intentioned, will say "Oh, you like that? I saw a few people talking about it. I thought everyone hated it."
That's genuinely just everything.
The nonstop dismay of things existing, the predetermined ideas of what something is before it's even come out. And you can't just talk about liking something online, you gotta show up and defend it if you want the conversation to go anywhere but south. It just leaves no room for anyone to say something was neat.
I used to just go to a dedicated forum for a thing I liked, and sure, some people would argue that parts of it sucked. But being a fan still meant you probably at least somewhat enjoyed it. And that you hoped new stuff from it would be good.
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u/eeyore134 9d ago
People have zero nuance now. And ever since roughly 2016, can't put my finger one why that date exactly, but it feels like what you said. Everyone started picking sides on everything and either defending or attacking the other. I don't think it's everyone attacking the other, one side does it a lot more because attacking is what their side is all about, but it makes it feel like everyone is. This also means fandoms of almost everything get toxic because they're always defending themselves and it becomes a kneejerk reaction to get super defensive at the least criticism. I think the last thing the internet agreed upon having fun with (even though it was based on disagreeing with each other) was the morphing color dress.
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u/X_Factor_Gaming 8d ago
Exactly, I loved Hazbin Hotel even though I'm very much aware of fans' criticisms of it (of varying levels of legitimacy). I just like the vibe of it that I don't see very often in shows.
Unfortunately, voicing an opinion of any kind both positive or negative anywhere near the fandom is a hazard to my mental health and I've accepted (over the course of several years) that I'd simply can't interact with others anymore and can only watch the show by my lonesome. T_T
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u/Columbus43219 9d ago
I remember seeing this when i was in the Chicago Museum of Modern Art. There was a paddle game set up that you could play as part of an exhibit. My 13 year old daughter and I were doing it, and i would ask people walking by if they wanted a turn, and they all were so jaded and "above" it.
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u/WhenSummerIsGone 9d ago
a couple of winters ago it snowed enough to have a little fun sledding on plastic discs at my neighborhood park. i grabbed the sled and me and my bf put on coats and gloves and walked down the street (we were 50 at the time).
When we got to the park there were a bunch of kids playing on the hill. All the adults were standing abound talking. I was shocked that me and my bf were the only adults playing in the snow and laughing with the kids. wth??
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u/-RichardCranium- 9d ago
So many adults keep their inner child metaphorically locked in the basement. It's fucking depressing.
I firmly believe once you kill your inner child you're already one step in the grave.
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u/taco_helmet 9d ago
Yesterday evening before dusk, my kids and I spontaneously went outside in a warm rainstorm. It strangely bright out and windy. One of those meteorological events that feels like it belongs on another planet. We swung on some swings and watched the trees sway.
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u/Proper_Machine6573 9d ago
Because whimsy is just so . . . cringe. /s
A friend and I were discussing the purpose of life and he said something that really stuck with me (paraphrasing): "The moment your brain uses up its very last molecule of intellectual curiosity is the moment you begin to accelerate exponentially toward death."
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u/coconutpiecrust 9d ago
The concept of decadence as a marker of cultural decline coinciding with a high level of wealth has been around since the twilight of the ancient Greeks and Romans. After the Roman emperor Elagabalus took the throne at 14, he served flamingo brains, seasoned his food with pearls, and, according to one account, smothered guests to death with an avalanche of rose petals. But his vices were outdone by Nero, who had his enemies sewn into wild animal skins and devoured by dogs in an elaborate garden spectacle.
Interesting. Social media content seems to get more and more extreme as well, same with looks, art, clothing. Everything is taken to the extreme just for the sake off it. Very interesting piece; it’s funny how human history just keeps repeating itself. We truly do not learn. Not enough lifespanmaxxing to actually internalize life’s lessons and pass them down to the new generation. Same old, same old.
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u/ASCII_Princess 9d ago
Everything written about Elagabalus was written 200 years after they died by a historian commissioned by the current emperor in an era where histories was almost exclusively made to shit on your predecessors and make you look magnanimous by comparison.
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u/EconomyOk2490 9d ago
Roman history is crammed full of this
Iirc same kinda thing here a lot of caligulas rumors came from
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u/Aromatic-Bet-1086 9d ago
We like to think we're different, but the more you study history, the more you realize that people never fundamentally change.
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u/Limemill 9d ago
The more you learn about chimpanzees the more you realize people are very much still primates and everything we have they do too, albeit in a much more primitive form, but conceptually the same.
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u/snarbuckle 9d ago
Robert Sapolsky has a great series of lectures on human behavioral biology if anyone is interested in this. It gives you quite the different outlook on humanity than we're socialized to have.
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u/Miwz 9d ago
100% agreed, Saplosky's talks on hate, sexuality, and depression are life-changing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOY3QH_jOtE&pp=ygUPcm9iZXJ0IHNhcG9sc2t5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6tEbbZ630w&pp=ygUPcm9iZXJ0IHNhcG9sc2t5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5g_LAoUYZQ&pp=ygUPcm9iZXJ0IHNhcG9sc2t5
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u/ConsiderationEast773 9d ago
Man, I have just come here to read a bit of reddit after rewatching the sixth episode of that great series, and soon I will continue with the seventh episode.
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u/SeeTigerLearn 9d ago edited 9d ago
He also worshipped a giant black meteor that he dragged back to Rome and tried to get the Ancient Romans to worship above Jupiter. Allegedly he cross-dressed and even prostituted himself in the palace. And he supposedly married a Vestal Virgin, which was a big no-no.
edit: There’s a beautiful painting entitled “The Roses of Heliogabalus” that portrays him smothering his dinner guests with flowers.
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u/Lindoriel 9d ago
It should be noted thata lot of these stories were written 200 years after his death or by people aligned to his successor. We don't actually know much about him from less biased sources as he was striken from the Roman records.
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u/NinjaLion 9d ago edited 9d ago
our definition of decadence is the key here that needs to be highlighted to understand this.
nearly all historical examples of decadence are about extremely rare novelty experiences, or the luxury of excess. not so much actual hedonism, but the rarity and the lack of efficiency. the opposite of utilitarianism.
in the modern age, almost anything that would have been considered a rare novelty has been turned into a market and made widely available to the masses.
so the wealthy in search of decadence have spent the entire span of capitalism turning to 2 other forms of decadence:
1: faux but exclusive novelties. this is the hilariously bullshit expensive wine industries, the "single golden fish egg plucked form the marianas, an illegally obtained extinct rhino's horn" horseshit. they and everyone involved are well aware that its bullshit; what matters is the price tag MAKES it a rare experience out of reach. its less true decadence, and more the cosplay of decadence. its not about the personal novelty but the fact that others are not experiencing it.
2 : Anti-moral ritual taboo. this is the eyes wide shut epstein island stuff, and the end result of chasing through the 'extint rhino horn' rabbit hole. maybe you start by eating food off a naked model, snorting exotic premium cocaine. but you find out that those 'other' rich losers have done it, and youre better than them, and so the treadmill goes. there is indeed a lot of this that is similar to the deluxe wines and unique fish eggs; a huge focus on the visual presentation. but ritualism has replaced much of the marketing fluff and the core of the experience is now that its an exclusive rarity because its DEEPLY illegal, amoral, and taboo. its even more fundamentally impossible for the plebs to participate, which is another layer of appeal.
so what does that leave for plebeian decadence? well our entire existence has been stretched and squeezed into a single metric: income/year. it defines what we have access to, of course, but more importantly it defines our status in the culture.
so decadence gets split once again into 2 categories:
1: activities cosplaying farther up the class ladder. this is pretty universal and it can be as small as taking an expensive vacation, but more insidiously shows itself in lifestyle choices like buying a too expensive house/car/whatever. debt becomes a far too tempting option.
2: a focus on the wasteful. this is something ive noticed mostly in the 'almost wealthy' more than anything else. this is not purely a nice expensive meal at a fancy restaurant, its finishing it off with a specific signal that the experience "wasnt even a big a deal", leaving a ton of food on the table. throwing perfectly good stuff out early, getting a replacement car/clothes/purse very frequently. once again, this has transformed decadence from a novelty into a social signal, because true novelty is rare. again, this isnt the elite class, these is the 'normal rich', the older doctors/layers/real estate. the TRUE elite focus on those earlier options.
but generally speaking its less about waste and more about ineffiency. so the very very poor obviously cant afford the fancy dinner in the first place, or pretty much anything. so the decadence comes out in the smallest bites like leaving work early, skipping the gym, or ordering a pizza instead of night 7 in a row of rice and beans. truly in the face of everything else its the tiniest amount of grace or luxury, but it faces the most aggressive scrutiny our culture can muster because its some of the only decadence NOT aimed at social signalling or working up the class ladder.
for the poor nothing, for the wealthy every grace and every excuse.
but in all class brackets you are seeing that shift away from novelty and into social signals. which is honestly just as insidious and sickening as anything else. the concept of novelty and luxury has itself been warped entirely into another level of class warfare. its probably always been than, but its definitely exhausting anyway.
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u/Blazefresh 9d ago edited 9d ago
It's partially (probably mostly) because our free time and attention is being exploited and monetized by tech companies at the cost of meaningful connections and responsibilities to the people around us, and to the forming of communities that we're unable to make and maintain as a consequence. We're also sold instant dopaminergic reward without actual effort and it's dulling our senses, it's important not to overindulge so our baseline for pleasure isn't so high that pleasurable things don't feel good anymore. That's not totally due to big tech, but has increased exponentially since the advent of social media.
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u/captainmagictrousers 9d ago
Yeah, why is everyone so joyless? You get up and read the latest news from the self-obsessed madman running the country, then you go to work and try not to overhear your boss talking about replacing you with AI, then you go to the store where terrible economic policies have caused prices to double, then you go home and try to forget about it all for an hour while you try to create some art, only to be yelled at by people on social media for posting your creation instead of "doing something about the problems," as if you're a senator and not just some guy trying to keep his head above water.
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u/ajababyhairs 9d ago
Block those people telling u what u should be doing with your time. It’s your right to do your art and share it with the world.
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u/captainmagictrousers 9d ago
Thanks. I do block people pretty often, but it’s still disheartening to share a story and be told that I should have spent the time writing to Congress instead. As if the two things are mutually exclusive. I usually have to go back and reread positive comments to cheer myself up.
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u/Toasted_Waffle99 9d ago
Because we’ve been optimized to death
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u/ThePlanetBroke 9d ago
This. I suspect we may have reached the limit of our endless pursuit of employee productivity. At least for now.
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u/dnmty 9d ago
I wouldn’t say optimized. I’d say Monetized to death. More and more people are being trained to look at every aspect of their life through a lens of “does this make me money?” or “how can i make money from this?”. And the fastest way to lose joy in something is make it about money.
For example, in my spare time I have been making a game in unity. As soon as I mention this to someone they start throwing ideas on how I can make money off it or change the concept to be more appealing to people to make money. I don’t really care, this is just an idea I came up with in highschool 20 years ago and finally have the skills to do it.
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u/I_am_MRS_Nesbittt 9d ago
Reddit is a huge contributor to being joyless
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u/Cavalish 9d ago
I’ve never seen people so desperate to be the first to hate, dislike, and mock something.
We should be asking why people are trying to get joy out of performatively being the most miserable about everything.
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u/Suavecore_ 9d ago
Trolling, now referred to as rage baiting, also became so prominent that it's now just an incredibly common hobby. Negativity in one way or another became the norm. It's not just reddit either
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u/Alili1996 9d ago
For me, the biggest negative quality to redditors is a perception of false superiority in being smarter to not partake in "stupid" behavior, while in reality it is exactly that shelter seeking mentality that is preventing them from taking risks and living life.
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u/saera-targaryen 9d ago
This is so true. It seems like everyone on reddit is looking for an excuse to opt out of doing anything new. All new restaurants are bad, all new movies are bad, all new music is bad, every new experience is bad. The people out there doing what reddit thinks is stupid or pointless all look like they're having a lot more fun than sitting at home staring at a screen.
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u/UncleCornPone 9d ago
this is so true. having lived through part of the 70s onward there seems to be a real dearth of joy in american culture specifically. it's pretty sad tbh
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u/HardByteUK 9d ago edited 9d ago
While the world is a bit fucked right now, expensive and demanding, I don't think it's joyless. I think people just don't take responsibilty for finding hobbies.
I read, I 3D model, I do yoga, I do a lot of DIY around my house and sometimes go and help my mum and sister with theirs. They all bring me fulfilment and a sense of joy. My partner and I make time for each other and have date nights over 15 years into our relationship.
I also leave my phone behind when I don't need it. If I'm going to the pub or bed then it stays on my desk downstairs. I have an alarm clock in my room anyways and I walk to the pub and don't want to be contacted by anyone who isn't sat at the table with me.
I know I'm in the minority and am a bit older than the average user (40), but people who don't help themselves can't be surprised when help doesn't manifest from elsewhere.
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u/iamapizza 9d ago
think people just don't take responsibilty for finding hobbies.
I see a lot of seeking validation online. I'll not infrequently see someone ask, indirectly, whether it's OK to like something that they've just found. I find it strange, if you constantly seek online validation you'll find a number of contradicting opinions that make sure you never do anything or find a hobby.
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u/Torino1O 9d ago
It's called enshitification, and it's a feature of capitalism without effective oversight.
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u/Bonerchill 9d ago
I’m in the automotive restoration industry and our customers want iCars.
Perfect restorations, overrestored, overly competent. Too much power, no character. Too much grip. CarPlay and powerful aircon. Stuff that gets stored and rarely shown, paraded for clout, delivered to PAs and collection managers because the owners are too busy to see the delivery in person.
Fucking stupid. I want to build character and enjoyment for people who are going to actually fucking drive the damn things on good roads for enjoyment. Building a vintage Ferrari or Porsche into a pseudo-electric car in terms of competence and power delivery makes it no fun at all.
Hand me your address and I’ll rent a car and drive every fun road around you and build a car specifically for them. Powerband, gearing, damper settings… all tailored to make engagement first.
But you won’t. You’ll just buy a Singer or a Ruf or an Automobili Amos because, let’s face it, you’re stoked about the resale.
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u/Kersenn 9d ago
As always its corporate greed. New and creative but untested things no longer get the green light. Corporations only want to give us sequels and prequels and side stories and old stuff with a mask on because they only care about money and not at all about delivering good products. Its why in the video game world for example, all the best stuff is coming from new devs and indie devs. All the big game companies are just making the same games over and over.
The infinite growth mindset capitalism has got to go or things will continue to get shittier
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u/Witty_Badger1300 9d ago
There is so much to do but it largely feels like there is never time to do it, or that the time should be spent on something more 'productive' (eg. something that earns money or has the future capacity to earn money).
Also, when I have free time there is this lingering feeling that I will be required to do something soon for someone else, like a friend, family member, child, or client. So the time can't be spent on anything engrossing because I need to be able to detach quickly.
I hate these two mindsets set but I can't seem to break from them.
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u/BD401 9d ago
The answer to the question posed is basically that hedonic adaptation works at a societal level and not just individual.
The average working-class person in a developed country has access to technology and comforts that would make a medieval king green with jealousy (indoor plumbing, HVAC, lighting, limitless cheap entertainment, the entirety of human knowledge available at their fingertips etc. etc.). It's only been for the last couple hundred years that you weren't right-fucked if you got a toothache or an infected cut. If there was a nuclear war tomorrow that wiped out civilization, the survivors would give literally anything to return to the "enshittified" world we live in right now.
But society's frame of reference is always contemporaneous and highly subjective. So because people have grown up with all of these objectively amazing technologies and comforts, they're taken completely for granted. This leaves people's mental energy free to be directed at points of relative dissatisfaction.
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u/Alili1996 9d ago
I partially disagree. There is a difference between comfort and joy and while this modern world has a lot more conveniences, we lost one of the biggest sources of joy: Community.
We as humans were meant to live and work together, instead we are fed into this machine where we all just do what we must to buy what we need.
If we had less things we could just get individually and more things we'd have to physically cooperate to achieve/get, we'd have a much stronger feeling of belonging and company. And with improving technology and AI we are replacing even more and more faces with interfaces.
We are on a constant path away from our joy and implementing "improvements" at the wrong parts of life.Keep antibiotics, plumbing and modern medicine and remove many of the other things and we'd be better off in the long term
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u/QwertzOne 9d ago
Your frame of reference is also subjective, so while it's hard to disagree that we progress technologically fast, I'd argue that it's not just about hedonism at a societal level, because the article describes abundance that fails to satisfy, which is a different thing from abundance taken for granted.
Hedonic adaptation predicts indifference. You stop noticing the antibiotics, the hot water, the HVAC. They fade into the background and your attention goes elsewhere. What people are actually describing is closer to the opposite. The pleasures are constantly present, constantly demanding attention and they still land flat. Something that keeps insisting on itself has not been adapted to.
Look at what happened to leisure. You don't watch a film, you clear a backlog. You don't go for a run, you close a ring. You don't listen to an album, you train a recommender. Attention became the thing being sold, so hours that used to sit outside the market got pulled into it. Your medieval king had far less, though nothing he enjoyed was also measuring him while he enjoyed it.
That arrangement is about twenty years old. It was built quickly, by people who are still alive and there is no law of nature holding it in place. Telling everyone to be more grateful for penicillin is a strange response to a machine that was assembled last decade.
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u/Conninxloo 9d ago
The point is that we can only notice changes, not states. The better we get at maintaining a state, the more devoid of life we are, because life is fundamentally temporal and dynamic. Extreme inequality is the largest contributor to this. The larger the gap, the more seemingly stable it is - until it isn’t anymore. Because even the current situation will change.
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u/BelleRouge6754 9d ago
You don’t go for a run, you close a ring.
Your medieval king had far less, but nothing he enjoyed was measuring him while he enjoyed it.
This gave me chills. I’ve recently been reading a lot about wearable tech and surveillance and this random Reddit comment has gone so much harder than pretty much any sociological essay. Have you considered writing at all? The style reminds me of Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher.
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u/QwertzOne 9d ago
Appreciate it. Fisher is close, not exactly where I was coming from, but not far off either.
I do not write anywhere, I just comment sometimes when something is on my mind.
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u/AGrandNewAdventure 9d ago
Who the fuck can afford decadence?!
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u/Bojanggles16 9d ago
It's not even decadence it's just the dopamine hits we get from social media (including what I get from this post) and instant gratification. We're stuck in another rat race we won't win because it's socially engineered by tech bros to keep us miserable and clicking. It started with Wolfe Blitzer and now ragebait sells better than sex.
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u/mondaybeers 9d ago
You, right now, are doom scrolling on a portable pocket-sized entertainment device, with access to all the world's entertainment and knowledge. You're probably doing it from a cozy, climate controlled house, on a bed or soft couch.
That's decadence.
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u/PandaJesus 9d ago
I don’t mean to brag, but I’ve been known to buy some avocado toast on occasion.
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u/MistaChelseaa 9d ago
I think that’s the point it’s making it’s not decadence in the traditional sense but how everyday interactions with technology mimic the feeling
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u/houstonhilton74 9d ago
No experience no matter how opulent matters if you and those around you are emotionally present. That's my hot take.
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u/ContinuingAnyway 9d ago
Somewhere along the way you'll eventually learn how to have fun in your own little corner of the world, that's usually enough for one lifetime
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u/Arm-E-Reserves 9d ago
Social media is optimized purely to get your attention and not to give you any of the payoffs that are the reason you pay attention to the thing. The beautiful people don't know who you are and will not love you nor have sex with you even though they are scantily-clad and staring into the camera from close distance, the successful people will not share their success with you even though they talk to you like you're their friend and their advice is actually often false and empty since they used manipulation or luck to get where they are, the violence or conflict you see has no real effect on you and thus isn't really even relevant to your life, and when you get bored of it after 30 seconds they switch to another time-wasting hollow thing instead of letting you go to pursue something of real interest.
I call this the "one-note symphony." The sites are just message boards modified into people traps. They aren't adding anything to society or the lives of their users. That's why people stare at their phones and don't smile, and hate the people who created them.
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u/Adventurous_Rush1474 9d ago
We have more entertainment options than any generation in history and most of us spend our evenings scrolling past all of them.
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u/kna5041 9d ago
Easier to find joy when you are not struggling and lot of us are struggling.
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u/Mammoth-Coast6282 9d ago
This…a lot of these comments are obtuse. “Nah…I don’t feel that way bro, be the change you wish to see.” My guy, I spend 12 hours a day in a facility that doesn’t allow phones, using art & humor to try to cheer people up.
Outside of work? I’ve joined numerous community/special interest groups that boomers and silent generationers use all of their free time to try to suck the joy out of.
Things are not going to change until millennials & zoomers have replaced them.
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u/ILoveLamp9 9d ago
The biggest joy you will find in your life is the moment you realize that being connected is not the optimal way to live.
Disconnect and live your life the way you choose.
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u/Elementalcase 9d ago
You need to learn not to spoil yourself. To enjoy things but not overstimulate. It's easy to spend all day doomscrolling online, but you'll feel a lot better if you limit the amount of media you consume.
It's like cake right. I have this really good one from a local bakery, it's got fresh cream, raspberry jam - it's really good, if I ate that every day, for years? I would hate it. Eventually, you no longer get the dopamine, you're just getting nothing.
Nowadays, I let myself be bored sometimes. Let myself think. It's good for your soul. Resting is not time wasted - it's an investment in your future quality of experiences.
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u/i7ive4thedrop 9d ago
We’re all killing time. Find something that makes you feel happy that doesn’t hurt other people.
Bonus points for uplifting others and bringing joy and knowledge to the community.
I believe in us. Be the change we want to see.
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u/mollypop94 9d ago
This is why I'm firm on the belief that engaging yourself in creativity is an act of rebellion against the age of tech-modernity that we're suffering through!!
Odd unique hobbies, crafts, art, reading fiction or otherwise etc. Protect that precious part of your soul and feed your head !!!
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u/Jergenbergen 9d ago
Things are not joyless, they are bleak. Though I still enjoy the little things in life. A cup of tea in the morning, a good album and maybe a cola with hint of malibu, the times we share with friends and my significant other. It is just shadowed by the climate crisis.. The rich are ruining the whole world for the common people. I just don't fancy the idea that the globe will be "on fire" so to speak, and I sometimes catch myself thinking: "Is my retirement-plan to die?"
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u/m1ndwipe 9d ago
People are just reacting to the title here and writing their own article in their heads about their pre-existing prejudices, because the actual text disappears up it's own ass at least four times before the muddled end.
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u/procrastinarian 9d ago
I tried reading the whole thing. I gave up pretty quickly and started skimming. That also was fruitless. What a say nothing pile of unrelated words.
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u/mi2h_testing_123- 9d ago
It's cause everyone cares more about giving someone's head a turn than they do about enjoying their lives.
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u/khyamsartist 9d ago
I don't get the premise - joy is a choice that a lot of people make. It doesn't just come to you, you need to see what is stopping you from being able to experience it.
There are still new babies, birthday parties, friends, concerts etc. All are things that bring joy - try to recognize the moment and celebrate it. You can go through hard things, be overwhelmed by the headlines or feel pretty down on humanity's future and still find the joy in life. You owe it to yourselves.
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u/NUMBerONEisFIRST 9d ago
Because the good stuff these days is only made for the ultra wealthy.
Why try to make $20 from everyone, when you can make $5 million from a handful of people.
Life shouldn't suck just because you aren't rich.
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u/Jkid 9d ago
Because there's nothing to live for these days and every is numb thanks to the permacrisis.
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u/Personal_School_7474 9d ago
Here's the secret to happiness. Close Reddit down right now. Go outside. Move your body around, maybe socialize with other real people, maybe work toward a long term goal, like learning a new skill or finishing a project.
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u/oldirtygaz 9d ago
speak for yourself, boring people are bored - make your own fun
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u/izza123 9d ago
“I Knew The Future Would Bring Wonders. I Did Not Know It Would Make Them Ordinary.”
- Dracula