So to understand the boomers, it's important to understand the nihilism and the hedonism

that comes from a catastrophic fall from moral grace.

Because the modern world is largely a technocratic semi-dictatorship hanging on to vestigial freedoms

by the skin of its teeth, it's hard to remember, or it's

hard to understand, not to remember, it's hard to understand the wild and not unjustified

optimism that the West was experiencing from the 18th to the early 20th century.

It's almost impossible for us to comprehend what was going on there.

So I'm going to tell you a little bit about all of this. I've done quite a lot of work on

19th century, 18th century history. So I'll try to keep it non-technical, of course, right?

We'll keep it digestible and hopefully a smidge entertaining.

But it is really important to know what was taken from us.

So, you know, almost all of human history was wretched, you know, tooth problems and illnesses

that couldn't be cured until the late 19th century, you were

safer not going to a doctor than going to a doctor.

Dentists only had pliers and that was about it.

And people had ailments and allergies and illnesses that they could do almost nothing about,

no antibiotics, one simple cut could get you infected and you could die, you know, relatively easily.

Children died all over the place in childbirths and people regularly went through wars, famines,

plagues, pestilences of just about every kind. And it was, it was uncomfortable. It was wretched.

You know, the sort of mind-body dichotomy where the mind of the soul

are yearning to break free from the prison of the failing flesh, well, that occurred. I mean, no glasses.

You get older and you can't see very well, and there are no glasses. Like, even things as simple

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