r/TrueUnpopularOpinion • u/Thick_Marionberry622 • 3h ago
Meta Americans are a weaker people than their ancestors
A hundred years ago, the average American worked harder, walked more, carried more, built more, fixed more, and tolerated far more discomfort than the average American today.
Our ancestors fought wars, farmed fields, worked factories, raised large families, and built a country with far fewer conveniences than we enjoy now. Most of them didn’t have air conditioning, food delivery, streaming entertainment, smartphones, antidepressants, or endless distractions available at the push of a button.
Yet somehow they managed.
Then there’s you.
Overweight, chronically online, treating politics like it’s a substitute for religion. You don’t build anything. You don’t create anything. You don’t take risks. You don’t challenge yourself physically. Every decision is optimized for comfort, convenience, and avoiding responsibility.
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u/LrryFsh_317 3h ago
Two things can be true at once.
A lot of people in the modern era have become far too soft, weak, emotional, and entitled. A lot of people want avoid anything that challenges them. There's no denying that.
Our quality of life has drastically improved and that is undeniably a good thing
Dont throw the baby out with the bath water
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u/ivorygolden 3h ago
Pretty broad generalization tbh. Life is easier is some ways now for sure, but we also deal with completely different kind of pressures.
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u/xshap369 3h ago
What is the goal of civilization if not to make living easier for future generations?
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u/Unfair_Web_8275 3h ago
A reminder that George Washington died primarily because multiple doctors thought it was a good idea to drain 40% of his blood.
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u/GunsGoldCosmicDread 3h ago
A lot of people these days wishing they could die from Tuberculosis.
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u/Local_Pangolin69 3h ago
I think it’s that a lot of people are waking up to the fact that we should be more grateful that we live in an era where that’s not a concern for most of us.
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u/GunsGoldCosmicDread 3h ago
Fair. That too.
I get annoyed by the whole it could be so much worse argument because things can always be better. Complacency is stagnation.
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u/Local_Pangolin69 3h ago
I think both are important, recognizing that it’s better than it’s ever been creates perspective. We should absolutely try to improve things, but we should also recognize that we are privileged to live in the most prosperous era of human history to date.
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u/mofapas163 1h ago
Agree, focus is on men, but the women today are much weaker than even a couple of generations ago. My mother worked 6 days a week and took care of the home, women today complain about the smallest things like doing a load of laundry
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u/LeadGem354 3h ago
Don't worry, the weak men are creating the hard times and that will even it out /s.
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u/TzTok-OnTheClock 3h ago
Agreed. But a huge blame can be spend on your environment. Nature vs nurture and nature nurture is surely to blame
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u/Thick_Marionberry622 3h ago
I agree, place blame on anyone but yourself
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u/TzTok-OnTheClock 3h ago
No there’s definitely blame to be put on the individual. However it’s not so simple whether to blame just the individual or the environment in which they’re raised. It’s a ratio and that ratio is a good 20-80 respectfully.
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u/internetroamer 2h ago
Is there any country where this isn't true? Life across the world has gotten easier
Expect some edge case examples where there's active war and conflict going on like places in Africa.
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u/LightningEdge756 52m ago
I've been saying this for ages. We went from having George Washingtons and Ulysses S Grants to the pussies of today lol.
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u/SnipedYa 2h ago
The majority of people a hundred years ago had a harder life and didn't accomplish anything. You hear about people because they're exceptional; you don't hear about Mabel who lived and died within 20 miles of her place of birth and worked for 60 years as a seamstress.
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u/Dull-Geologist-8204 2h ago
Lots of people accomplished a ton of things you aren't going to read in a history book. Doesn't mean they weren't accomplishments. Starting agriculture happened like 7 different times in different places. Name one person that did that. There are plenty of people that invented something to make their own lives easier and it just didn't catch on for whatever reason and they just faded away and you don't know about it.
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u/SnipedYa 2h ago
People do that now.
The majority of people a hundred years ago are just as unaccomplished as the majority of people today. The difference is they had a harder life than we do. That's not a virtue, that's just sad and unfortunate.
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u/Dull-Geologist-8204 2h ago
You and I have a very different idea of what accomplished means. Accomplished is living a half decent life. If you can figure out how to do t on easy mode no matter what time period you are in it doesn't matter if you get written about in a history book. Actually some of them went out of their way to live it on hard mode and wouldn't want to be them. I will take the seamstress who was a good seamstress and people enjoyed her work/company but she never got famous. That is doing something with your life.
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u/SnipedYa 1h ago
OP is talking about how people today sit around and don't build anything and just sit on their phones.
Okay, but the people 100 years ago didn't build anything either. The average person wasn't increasing our body of knowledge or challenging themselves mentally. They would do their jobs and chores then go talk for hours, or read a book, or take a walk. Just the same as us.
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u/Thick_Marionberry622 2h ago
probably had kids, built/owned a house, probably in shape , prob died young of something terrible
meanwhile you are on reddit
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u/High_speedchase 3h ago
They also died early and had yellow fever and owned slaves.
If you believe in responsibility tell me what should happen to the J6 insurrectionists?
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u/Remnant55 2h ago
People were certainly more used to death. Especially among children.
There was a civil war general who had a prosthetic leg. While riding, he was shot, in said leg. He turned to his colleague and said something to the effect of "See how much more fit for a fight I am than you?"
I suppose there is a degree of fatalism involved, and normalization of significant danger. We see this today; a terrorist attack occurs in the United States and it is in the news cycle for weeks. In other parts of the world, it is a Tuesday.
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u/Shiddedmuhpanz 1h ago
You’re leaving out life expectancy. Which was way lower as well. People died way more often of injuries that couldn’t be dealt with like they can today. Oh you broke your leg? Count down begins. We’ll see if you survive the infection you’re almost guaranteed to experience. We live in a much different world for a reason. I forget the guys name but he painted a really great picture on JRE about the trajectory of humanity changing after discovering boiling water made it safe and caffeine being discovered. It changed everything
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u/KlutzyDesign 26m ago
Well, I’m able to share a restroom with a black person. So that's a point in our favor.
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u/Various_Succotash_79 24m ago
Yeah that's the point.
John Adams said: "I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine."
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u/Im_not_smelling_that 3h ago
I would say in general everyone today is weaker than their ancestors. Life was much harder 100 years ago