>> I don't think people then were 1/100th as happy as us on average.
I'm not so sure. Actual starvation, death due to lack of food, is extremely rare in the modern world. Far less than 0.1% of the human population actually starves to death today. But in Roman times it was not uncommon. It was a relatively normal occurrence for a region to starve should the weather not play ball. Add in all the various diseases and I'm open to the idea that the average Roman was far less happy than the average person today.
I'm a little cautious with posting this, I know it might sound terrible, but maybe suicide data might not be a good proxy for basic needs being met.
Maybe suicide has the precondition that you have enough basic security for the most basic needs to feel hopeless about the next level of needs.
After all, there are plenty of examples of people that had a lot of things and opportunities that elected to commit suicide. And maybe lack of struggle might be a prompter of this action.
Sure, updated my comment to reflect I meant proxy for happiness. I think "living in poor condition thousands of years ago" probably isn't a good baseline to judge happiness by, since I've known happy poor people and am a not-poor unhappy person.
Suicide rates are surprisingly bad proxies for both happiness and base needs; for example, Scandinavia is notoriously high ranking for suicide, among other big anomalies: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/15/depression-is-not-a-pro... Or closer to home:
> But American whites have higher rates of depression than blacks. There are the usual contradictory studies and arguments about how to adjust for which confounder, but I’m pretty sure this is something like a consensus position right now. More solidly, white Americans have much higher suicide rates than black Americans.
It doesn't, and the offered alternative is that they tend to be middling, which remains a huge exception considering they are generally considered to be the best countries for quality of life. It is thoroughly bizarre to have Scandinavia at the top or middle if you are claiming that suicide rates are an excellently sensitive barometer of happiness or fulfillment.
I'm not so sure. Actual starvation, death due to lack of food, is extremely rare in the modern world. Far less than 0.1% of the human population actually starves to death today. But in Roman times it was not uncommon. It was a relatively normal occurrence for a region to starve should the weather not play ball. Add in all the various diseases and I'm open to the idea that the average Roman was far less happy than the average person today.