to think that modern life is utter shite

[OfCourse]

EVERYTHING is expensive; food, cars, houses, utilities, travel for work and the service is crap.

ANY GOVERNMENT PROVIDED SERVICE IS FUCKED; education, NHS, social welfare, police.

None of the above are in any particular order. Is it me? Am I just having a bad day?

SELL ME MODERN LIFE

Rampant consumerism means we aren't content with what we have.

Stress and naval gazing is a first world problem.

Is that like boat-spotting?

My yacht is bigger than your yacht ner

Compared to what? Serfdom? .... Yeah ... I'd rather have a car. YABU.

God no yabu.

Modern life is so much better than when I grew up.

Showers daily ffs! Not living in a fug of fag smoke. Better and cheaper food. The net, everyone has phones. You can travel

Even the weather is better.

Disclaimer. I grew up in 1970s Glasgow.

The Internet.

Contraception.

Power showers.

I often look at my life (admittedly a fairly advantaged one) and think how lucky we are to be living now, and here in the UK, where:

• antibiotics save so many lives (but we do need new ones).
• the NHS saves lives without asking you to pay and despite its struggles and flaws is bloody brilliant really.
• The contraceptive pill exists giving women control over their bodies.
• Women have the vote and a reasonable amount of equality, though not perfect.
• All are educated, even though social equality and access to further education could certainly improve.
• we can access so much information
• there are rules and regulations which, whilst sometimes annoying, tend to mean that the buildings we work in don't collapse on our heads.
• children and vulnerable people have some degree of protection from harm, even though it doesn't always work
• we have a free press that challenges and investigates
• we have rights to religious freedom, political freedom,
• crime is generally fairly low (ok, so there are rough areas but it's not South Africa)
• people have the right to marry people of different cultures, religions, class and race, or the same sex
• clean water - we are so incredibly lucky to have clean safe water
• vaccinations

Brilliant post Grunt, I totally agree.

Re the NHS, I'm aware of the problems, but they saved my son's life and extended my Dad's by 10 years so I'll be forever grateful.

Psychologically i think there is more pressure nowadays.

But that's probably only because most of us don't have the pressure of wondering where our next meal will come from and how close to literal starvation we are. I should have thought that physical needs like that will take up most of your stress quota.

As a previous poster has said the modern standard of living of the middle classes in some middle eastern and far eastern countries is often amazing, particularly if you are an ex pat. This is often because the poor in these and other countries are often really poor and have to give their lives to service the better off socially and even sexually. Because labour is so cheap they also support the better off financially. Whole sections of these societies can be abused through these massive inequalities. Thank goodness we no longer live in a society with problems on this scale.

Life can be really hard for many in Thailand, The Philippines, parts of South America and almost the whole of Africa.

Are there any countries in the world where on balance modern life is better that in the UK?

My sister would have died from cancer in her early 20s even as little as 10/15 years ago if modern medicine hadn't moved on at such a rate. My DD and I would have died in childbirth and so my DS would not have been here.

I can live with the negatives of progress due to this.

The media doesn't make life seem pleasant - the constant shock horror headlines. The website for your email account, constant in your face bitching about celebrities. 24/7 news (90% of it bad).

Previous generations had newspapers and some stuff on the tv news but it mostly involved UK news because the footage of horror from everywhere else wasn't there.

Constantly picking at anything and everything any politician says, almost always critical. I've never heard anyone say Oh, the Labour party/Cons/ Liberals have come up with a good idea! Constant doom and gloom about the unemployed, NHS, GPs, etc etc etc

If all that went away and you just looked at your day to day life, are you happy, are your DCs, is your home comfortable? Maybe things would look rosier.

in this country we flush our toilets with water that is fresh enough to drink.

50% of the world's population does not have water coming out of a tap, or easy access to water that is fresh enough to drink (and stay healthy)

Modern life, for us, is great.

Really in the scheme of things modern life is great. You may be having a bad day but it's a hundred times better than it could be in certain parts of Africa and Asia.

YANBU - we live in a country where all the luxuries mentioned above are becoming increasingly out of reach for growing numbers of people. Postcode lotteries mean medicine, education etc are preferentially decided which is great if your can afford the house in the street that buys you the access, but if you are not and you are unlucky enough to contract a disease that your local health authority does not agree to fund the treatment of and you are fucked.

Food banks on the up, social mobility at an all-time low ... hello Charles Dickens, haven't we been here before and didn't we decide it was all too inhuman to stomach the first time around?

The one thing I would say that is really shit about modern life is images of sexualisation of women and porn everywhere....you can't get away from it...TV, Internet, music, adverts.

Modern life is shit, okay we've got washing machine's, dryer', shower's and inside toilet's, but what's happened to family life? When i was growing up the family ate at the table together, no 24hr tv everyone was in bed at a decent time, there was no social media for kids to be bullied, some are even committing suicide over it, every one just want's, want's want's, modern life is shit, to much pressure .

This is a zombie thread from 2014!

Some things are ok but mostly things are pretty bad especially if your having to deal with the NHS or social services.
Not the people's fault that work there but just the system being broken.