Historically speaking, did the average person get depressed?

Historically speaking, did the average person get depressed?

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acedia
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too busy working and trying to survive

This. If by average person you mean peasant, they had no time for contemplation and introspection to become depressed

Certainly the populations which switched from H&G to sedentary monograin farming. For the first time you had leaders who could wield a surplus (wheat) as a means to raise an army to participate in ever escalating raids of robbery and rape. It was a miserable age to be a beta. Your warlord probably impregnated your wife while your schuckish ass spent all day laboring with FUCKING COPPER.

As for modern populations, there are a number of factors.

1. Light light light - Suppression of melatonin is implicated in sleep disorders. Those florescent lights that seem to suck the joy out of you? That's suppression of melatonin at work.
2. The clash of atomization versus Dunbar's number. We are social calculators. The problem is that we naively consume streams which wreck our unprepared instincts. The "people of legend" are replaced with hollywood faces that producers mutate constantly. Mass narcissism was given an unfortunate outlet in the internet. You are great if you have belief x, y, and z and support the insanity of allies who believe in any number of horrific worldviews.

3. Terrible diet. For most people, a change in diet to high-fat and high-protein would be a miracle. The saitation signal actually reaches your brain. It's easier to eat underfed.

4. Electronic stimulation. You are the screen to other screens which have their own screens.

You are bombarded with stimuli that was impossible to imagine 25 years ago. Technology is moving faster than the ability of the average human to react and plan for it. Women have been ruined by social media. You can't have a fucking dinner without these fucking hags checking their phone.

What do you think?

If all your instincts tell you life shouldn't be this terrible, why don't you believe them?

No, they died of melancholy.

>life of farmwork making anyone "lithe"
>get beaten nearly to death for "stealing" branches from the master's land for firewood in the freezing winter
>soldiers come through your village, steal your shit, rape your wife
>if you have a great intellect, it's completely wasted because you're going to live your whole life within a five mile square doing back-breaking labor, and you're illiterate
>possibility of being lorded over by a retard, autist, or sadist
>get sick with easily-treated disease=bedridden for months

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acedia

I know this is a joke everyone's heard before, but the number of people with their faces glued to a phone walking about in daily life is really getting alarmingly absurd. They're like fucking zombies. Kids especially. I went grocery shopping this afternoon and got nearly bumped into 7 times by dumb shits not looking as they walk.

I swear to god you can't just walk in straight-ish lines anymore because so many people are not watching what they're doing.

When I go to work, I have to transfer through the main train station in my town and so many people have those goddamn wheelie-suitcases, no matter how small or light they are. The problem is they trail behind everyone 2 feet, and then you're trying navigate 30 people walking at different paces with their goddamn luggage dragging behind them as they turn left and right, stop suddenly, slow down, and meanwhile the same thing is coming at you, and the screen-zombies too.

FUCK.

/rant

everybody was happy back in the day. life was simple and pleasant

I'm pretty sure the inability to identify sarcasm is a sign of autism.

no, that's what the human sacrifice is for.

CBT.

>/rant
Why are there so many literal redditors on Veeky Forums?

because plebbit is shit and Veeky Forums is an autistic beacon of hope

>Veeky Forums is a beacon of hope
>let's import american urban normalfag culture into it because it's just that good

I miss turkposter

I think depression is a lot more prevalent today because of widespread social isolation and feelings of purposelessness.
Depression is still nothing new though. It was probably quite common in the past too.

No, they were surrounded by family, friend and manual labor.

Probably, but since they didn't live as long, they spent less time being depressed.

In the olden days, the appendicitis I had at age 6 would probably have killed me. But in the modern world, I survived, and have been depressed for years.

>those FUCKING suitcases on wheels
I hate tourists generally but Jesus those things were created by Satan purely to annoy me

Yes and no

Depression is a biological mechanism.
It exists in most mammals.

>Mammal is part of a large group
>Bad behaviors lead to all the other mammals in the group to antagonize it
>Mammal is ostracized from the group
>Gets depressed
>Literally self-destructs by biting itself, starving, or jumping off of cliffs.
>The group benefits by socially weeding out shitty individuals
>The group breeds and lives on; the relatives of said mammal carry the gene, thus it spreads via natural selection.

>Fastforward millions of years into the future
>Human is raised in a lonely environment
>He thinks there's something wrong with his brain chemistry
>He takes pills for it
>Feels better
>Continues being lonely and feeding the destructive system that makes people lonely dependent on drugs.

LSD has been proven to help people with depression.
You know why that is?
LSD has an ego-killing effect. Ego simply means "Self perception". When your self-perception dies, you no longer feel "ostracized" or "excommunicated"; your self perception resets, and the bias of past experience no longer matters for a bit, giving you a new fresh start and building up a healthy ego which would serve to help you and your depression.

People back then had a healthy self perception; rather than relying on technology or government to enforce/build relationships, they went out and actually built relationships on their own.

I've been on Veeky Forums longer than you I guarantee it. Eat shit, weeb.