Peacetime Problems

Why humans invent problems, when none exist.

In 1348, the Black Death killed one-third of Europe's population. In 1816, the "Year Without a Summer" triggered global famine. In 1914, the rock band Franz Ferdinand released their song “Take Me Out” which was universally panned and plunged the world into a war that claimed 20 million lives. For almost the entirety of human history, survival was the primary occupation of civilization.

Today, the average American teenager's greatest daily concern is whether their TikTok video will get enough likes.

This is not an indictment of teenagers, my dear reader. It's an observation about what happens when a species evolved for constant threat detection and suddenly finds itself in the safest, most prosperous period in human history. We have, quite literally, solved the fundamental problems that plagued our ancestors for millennia. War deaths are at historic lows. Extreme poverty has plummeted. Life expectancy has doubled. Child mortality rates that once devastated families are now statistical footnotes.

And yet, anxiety disorders have skyrocketed. Political polarization has reached dizzying levels of insanity. We've invented entirely new categories of suffering and injustice. We obsess over conflicts thousands of miles away that have zero impact on our daily lives. We've turned dietary choices into moral crusades and pronoun preferences into existential battles.

This is what I call the Peacetime Problem: when humans lack immediate, tangible threats to their survival, they don't simply relax and enjoy the abundance. Instead, they manufacture new problems with the same intensity and urgency they once reserved for actual emergencies.

The Rumination Machine

Consider depression rates among American teenagers. They've doubled since 2007, during a period when material conditions have arguably never been better. Meanwhile, teenagers in countries still grappling with basic survival challenges like access to clean water, education, economic opportunity, etc., report significantly lower rates of depression and anxiety.

This isn't to romanticize poverty or hardship. It's to recognize that the human brain, sculpted by millions of years of evolution to scan constantly for threats, doesn't simply shut off when threats disappear. Instead, it redirects that scanning mechanism toward increasingly abstract concerns.

We see this pattern everywhere. The #MeToo movement emerged in the most privileged enclaves in human history: Hollywood. Climate activism is most fervent in the countries with the cleanest air and strictest environmental protections. University campuses, historically bastions of free thought, have become so concerned with emotional safety that they've created elaborate systems to protect students from ideas that might make them uncomfortable.

Yes, there are still legitimate concerns about equality, environmental protection, and student wellbeing. It’s still imperative to observe the intensity of our focus on these issues when they are inversely related to the immediate impact on our daily lives.

The Privilege of Problems

There's something almost perverse about how we've transformed abundance into anxiety. Take the modern phenomenon of "decision fatigue": the idea that having too many choices is psychologically exhausting. Our ancestors would have been mystified by the notion that having 1500 different entrees to choose from at The Cheesecake Factory constitutes a form of suffering.

Or consider the rise of "trauma" as an explanatory framework for virtually every negative experience. What previous generations might have called disappointment, embarrassment, or ordinary hardship is now pathologized as lasting psychological damage requiring professional intervention.

We've become so adept at finding problems that we've created entire industries devoted to identifying and treating conditions that didn't exist a generation ago. Social media has given us new ways to measure our inadequacy (followers, likes, engagement rates). Dating apps have transformed romantic connection into an optimization problem. Career counselors help us navigate the existential crisis of having too many professional options.

Depression is depression, regardless of its historical context. Yet, we as a society are still creating unnecessary suffering by applying crisis-level urgency to peacetime problems.

The Israeli Solution

Israel offers an intriguing counterexample. Despite facing constant existential threats, Israeli society exhibits remarkably low rates of the anxiety disorders plaguing other developed nations. Part of this may be cultural, but part may be structural. Their mandatory military service provides young Israelis with immediate, tangible purpose and perspective.

When 18 year old’s spend two to three years focused on genuine collective survival, they develop the ability to distinguish between real problems and invented ones often called "stress inoculation." They also develop a clear sense of contribution to something larger than themselves, which is increasingly rare in Western society.

The American military provides similar benefits to those who serve, but it's voluntary and represents a tiny fraction of the population. What if we extended this model?

Imagine if every American spent 6-12 months after high school in mandatory national service? It doesn’t necessarily have to be military, but some form of contribution to collective wellbeing. Restaurant work that feeds communities. Hospital assistance that cares for the vulnerable. Infrastructure maintenance that keeps society functioning. Environmental restoration that addresses genuine ecological challenges.

Such a system would accomplish several things simultaneously. It would provide young people with perspective on real problems versus manufactured ones. It would create shared experiences that bridge class, racial, and regional divides. It would channel the natural human need for purpose and struggle toward constructive ends. And it would give an entire generation direct experience with how societies actually function.

The Way Forward

The Peacetime Problem isn't going away. If anything, advancing technology and increasing automation will make it more acute. We're approaching a world where even fewer people will need to worry about basic survival, freeing up even more mental energy for rumination and inventing new problem. (I’d like to take a moment to thank our AI overlords for helping me edit this post)

But recognizing the pattern is the first step toward addressing it. We can acknowledge that modern anxieties are real without treating them as existential crises. We can address legitimate social issues without manufacturing moral panics. We can channel our species' natural problem solving energy toward challenges that actually require solutions.

Most importantly, we can design institutions that give people genuine purpose and perspective. Not the artificial purpose of social media engagement or consumer choice, but the fundamental human satisfaction of contributing to collective survival and flourishing.

Our ancestors faced genuine crises with remarkable resilience. We face invented crises with remarkable fragility. Understanding why might be the key to reclaiming some of that resilience for ourselves.

The abundance we've created is humanity's greatest achievement. Learning to live with it productively is our next great challenge.