I often contemplate what it is that leads to a "good life". I am very fortunate in so many ways, yet I allow myself to feel envy, call circumstances unfair because I didn't get what I want, or forget to be grateful. I see my kids growing up not knowing what struggling really feels like and realize that I don't have a true perspective of being without. I'm not saying that I would rather experience the feeling of hunger when you haven't eaten in days or the fear of not having access to medical services if my children or I were sick or injured. It seems that often times people don't "wake up" to an understanding of what truly matters, what really makes a good life, until they have faced tragedy. I don't want to wait for that. Instead, like the article states, I hope to be more considerate of the circumstances others have and are experiencing, thankful for opportunities and pitfalls of each day, and open to other perspectives; and I hope to pass that along to my children.
I've read several articles / books on this topic lately. In short: it's not only you that's contemplating on the "good life", plenty is being researched and written about.
Our genes make it hard for us to be consistently content and happy. It seems like evolution may have given the slightly paranoid / always needing more genes an advantage for obvious reasons. One research even showed lottery prize winners aren't any happier 1 year after winning than average. So we're very good in experiencing contentment for short bursts and then it's back to our normal mental mode.
So a lot of it is genetic. Some you may be able to control with different techniques. Different things work for different people.
"There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of living. " - The Count of Monte Cristo justifying having basically tortured his friend and driven him to suicide.
I've read a lot about community, or the sense of being part of a community, as being the most important factor in human happiness. Winning the lottery doesn't automatically put you into any community and I would argue it actually has the potential of separating you from a lot of your current peers.
The book has some pretty controversial opinions, but _Sex at Dawn_ has a lot of good insight about how important community and sharing are to a social species such as humans and how we might have lost that strong sense of community with the advent of agriculture and consequent abundance.
"So we're very good in experiencing contentment for short bursts and then it's back to our normal mental mode." That is exactly what I've observed and experienced. Well said!
At first I was freaked out by this revelation.
But after thinking about it kinda takes the stress out of a lot of things. Doesn't matter that much how much you earn / what you work on / where you live. You get used pretty fast to all those things.
So always be suspicious of yourself when you're over-analysing big life decisions. If you're trying to optimise happiness a lot of those decisions won't make much of a difference.
How children are parented makes more difference than anything else. Having 'good' parents vs. 'bad' determines not just what is needed to have a good life, but in many cases, whether one even has the emotional capacity for feeling good for an ongoing period.
Current thought about parenting (environmental effects) vs parents (trait heritability) is that one's parents has more a role than how one is parented.
- a loved and loving partner, a sane and fulfilling sexuality
- enough income to not have any substantial worries about the future
- absence of other justifiable existential worries and anxiety about the future such as cataclysms, threats, oppressive social, political and work environments, political instability, etc.
- a decent amount of recognition in work or private life (one of them suffices, both are optimal)
- good mental and physical health
Beneficial is also frequent contact to about 3-4 close friends.
That's what I've gathered from what I've heard on the Net during the past 20 years or so. If any of the above is missing, the life will not really be good.
Because this seems like a list of "pick some, but not all"... I'd say that 99.99 percent of humanity has not hit all of these goals ever in the history of humanity. If this is the minimally required list, then depression is way, way underdistributed.
It certainly wasn't meant sarcastically. I agree with you and others that maybe only ticking off some of these points might suffice to some persons to feel overall satisfied, and that it's what they believe/how they feel what counts, not whether these criteria are objectively fulfilled.
There might also be a semantic issue here. For me as a philosopher, leading a good life is not the same as leading an acceptable, overall satisfying, or mostly good life. The way I understand "good life" sets the bar relatively high.
Should have added that if a person is sufficiently in denial about negative externalities and risks, black swan events, etc it would be possible to achieve the feeling of accomplished that list, even without having in fact accomplished it... Just as good?
Also, one might have all those things but be fully occupied by the very realistic fear of loosing any one of them at any moment, cancelling most of the happiness.
And here I am, a single-by-choice hermit, with enough money to get by from a below-average-salary-for-my-position job, and no real achievements to be recognized for (which doesn't bother me, since I don't care what others think of me), and no real worries until I have something to worry about and deal with it then. And yet I feel perfectly content with my life in general, and happy 99% of the time.
If I was single with no dependents, I would also be happy with very little security. But with kids and a family, I now feel obliged to make sure I’m doing all I can to ensure their security, at least until they are adults.
With kids and a family, I wouldn't be happy. I was just illustrating the point that "minimally good" is subjective, as a response to OP attempting to objectively define "What is needed minimally?"
This seems like a pretty good list. I'm sure it's possible to debate the details, but it seems to hit the big points. What I think is interesting about it though is that aside from "enough income to not have any substantial worries about the future", none of these items can actually be provided by society / government. Government certainly can't provide a loving partner, fulfilling sexuality, good mental and physical health, or work/private life recognition. And as 2020 has seen with COVID, it also can't provide absence of existential worries due to cataclysms.
A government's environmental policy has an objective impact on every measure of mental and physical health.
Urban design, whether you're stuck two hours in traffic to get to work, whether you work 35 or 60 hours, whether you can take a walk in your neighborhood at night in peace...
The percent of the population that has a partner, is in the top half or third of the income percentile, who enjoy their work, and who have good physical and mental health must be 15-30%.
That seems like a strange use of the word minimal. Of the 40 people in my life I know close enough to know if they meet this definition only 4-8 meet it. And I'm probably close to the best age for finding all of these items, my mid 30s. Old enough for people to make money, and find a fulfilling career but before mental and physical health starts knocking out a bunch of people.
Using the definition of “minimal” you seem to be applying, I’d add children and family, and some sort of communal religion. Tons of people all over the world in places like Bangladesh who have few of the things on your list, but derive happiness and satisfaction from their family and their faith.
Things done in the name of religion are a net negative on my life. It's not the fault of all religious people, but the people doing it are hard to avoid if I get involved, even if I were inclined to try.
While that may be the case, 84% of the world identifies with an organized religion, and that number is growing (as the Christian population in China, the world’s largest putatively atheist country, grows rapidly). Religion is a bedrock for social organization nearly everywhere in the world. And actively religious people in nearly every country are much more likely to report being “very happy” compared to inactively religious or irreligious people: https://www.pewresearch.org/ft_19-01-31_wellbeing_activelyre...
None of the things in OP’s list are universals. Most people are happier if they have financial security, but some people find happiness in an ascetic and minimal lifestyle for example. And many poor people are very happy. The list therefore seems to reflect major factors that reflect happiness for the population in general. And, worldwide, participation in religion and having kids are to such factors. For much of the world that’s financially or politically insecure, they are two of the most important factors. Overlooking them completely is quite misanthropic.
Sorry, but there is plenty of happiness research that contradicts most of what you say. There are world-wide studies about it every year in nearly every country of the world. Just look up "World Happiness Report", for instance, but there are many more studies. You can barely find a topic with less empirical research in psychology, sociology, and economics.
You're right that religion and community also play a role in happiness. That should be in the list. However, the rest of what you say is just wrong, or at least very misleading. People in very poor countries are overall less happy or satisfied with their life (according to their own reports) than people in richer countries.
There is a basic level of welfare that anyone who wants to be happy needs to attain. If you don't have that, then there will be all kinds of worries, e.g. you're worried about losing your income when you get sick or how to get enough food for your children. In that case, you cannot be happy. The basic needs and any existential worries associated with them cannot be substituted with religion or anything else.
You’re thinking of happiness as a binary, but the surveys you list describe it as a scale. Most people in Bangladesh don’t meet many of the criteria in OP’s list, particularly income security. (They can feed themselves but that’s about it, and that’s not guaranteed.) So why do they rate themselves a 4.5 out of 10 on global surveys instead of 0? Because family and faith is an important source of happiness. Having kids and being able to feed them (which is a condition short of “income security” as postulated by OP, and is one that even most people in Bangladesh achieve) and participating in your religious community produces a certain baseline level of happiness. Those people would be happier if they also had income security and a fulfilling job. I agree with you on that. But their families and faith are a main source of what happiness they do have. Omitting those things from the list therefore overlooks a huge swath of the human condition.
(Like 90% of the people in the entire world would agree with the above statement and find the omission from the list above perplexing. During the Cold War, Sting actually had a song about how kids was one of the things Americans and Soviets can are on. The fact that people are downvoting it here is an indication of the outsized cultural influence of a set of views that are held by an extreme minority.)
You usually really like to use Scandinavian countries in your arguments but "somehow" you miss out on doing so now since they blatantly disproves your point in this argument.
I don’t see how it disproves anything: https://happiness-report.s3.amazonaws.com/2020/WHR20.pdf. The United States is among the top 20 happiest countries in the world, happier than France, Spain, or Italy. Seeing as how the US is always portrayed as a dystopian hellhole with no income security, no healthcare, etc., and certainly France, Spain, and Italy fare better on those metrics, that would imply that something, perhaps our religiosity, is doing a lot of work boosting our happiness rankings.
I think everyone's choices are based around money (wealthy or not). I think the crux of what you're getting at is that the opportunity cost of choices when you're not wealthy is inherently stressful. If the choice is between going out with friends and buying groceries, both options will cause stress due to lack of the other.
I'm at a point in my life where I can essentially go on autopilot when shopping for groceries and not worry about the cost. I still have to make other decisions based on money (do I take a vacation or upgrade my laptop?), but the side effect of those choices is NOT stress.
So there's some minimum income that everyone needs (and it's different between people) where they can "forget" about living expenses and still have a relatively stress-free life. I'd wager somewhere around 1.5x - 2x the cost of living.
> So there's some minimum income that everyone needs (and it's different between people) where they can "forget" about living expenses and still have a relatively stress-free life. I'd wager somewhere around 1.5x - 2x the cost of living.
I take into account volatility of future income in order to be stress free. Hence my goal was to own businesses where my labor wasn’t needed to keep the income flowing in case I get injured.
Dual income household where each person earns enough to cover expenses can serve a similar purpose.
There is a sad, almost Catch-22 in the typical U.S. city where you need a car to make money and need money to buy a car.
When I was unable to afford a car though I was able to find a (minimum wage) job and a place (well, room) to rent within a reasonable bicycle ride. (Yay, I did have a bicycle still from my high school days!) I did succeed though (was even able to begin college at a small community college — rode to my classes via bicycle).
The first thing I bought though after food, rent, tuition and books was a rust-bucket of a car so that I had more choices in employment. (Sucks that gas, repairs, insurance, and registration then ate even more of my paycheck, but that's another rant.)
To be sure, I still now experience discontent, anxiety, stress and other things in life even though money is no longer making my choices for me. But, yeah, money is not the one calling the shots.
It's easy to in fact look back on those impoverished times and feel like they were somehow less stressful, and I felt less anxiety and discontent then than I have in the decades following. I'm not sure if that's the big lie we tell ourselves or if instead it is correct: either because money then was such an overarching issue that all other issues had to "get in line", or because when life boiled down to work-school-rent there really were no other 2nd-order "Maslowian" needs that I could be bothered to trifle with.
Most of my choices, and certainly all of my major life choices (like where to live, what car to drive, what job to take) are still based around money.
Edit: good points in the responses. I don't worry about eating out, what to order, what brand of sundry to buy. I do try to optimize but as others have said, that's more of a desire than a requirement.
Having said that, I think the only people who truly never worry about money are children. I've heard stories about international students at universities whose parents buy them luxury car after luxury car when they crash them, that kind of thing. But I suspect it's pretty rare.
That's definitely true up until a pretty obscene level of wealth, but there's definitely a difference between basing all choices around money, and basing major choices around money.
For example, I no longer scour the grocery store for the cheapest available option for every item I select. I no longer have to spend months finding the best value for a pair of shoes, a piece of furniture, etc.
Basically, if I spend a couple hundred dollars too much on stuff one month, I'll hardly notice it. Whereas, when I was poor, that was the difference between making rent or not.
The poor stand in the paper products aisle calculating the relative value of one multi-pack of toilet paper versus another. While a person with money might look and decide one is too expensive, it's not an optimization problem. There's not pressure to get it right. The cost of a mistake is rounding error not a meal.
I remember being 8 knowing my parents were poor and rarely asking for anything I wanted because of it, even food. If I did ask, I felt guilty afterwards and would debate if I should have.
I played cautiously knowing that an injury could upend my family and my little sister’s future, and I didn’t partake in school sports or anything that could disturb my parents as they were already busy working 24/7 and it would have stressed them even more to have to pick me up or pay for equipment.
Imho every time you access the next step of the ladder you'll have a few months of happiness and fall right back to where you were.
Money is important if you either don't have enough to meet your basic needs or have so much that you don't have to worry about it 1 second in your life (99.9% of people won't reach that state). Every steps in between is the same with extra distractions that won't do much, if anything at all, for you overall happiness.
This isn't true. There's definitely a baseline of happiness, but my life turned around dramatically once I had basic control over my finances and I didn't have to worry anymore about my financial future, the baseline increased and isn't coming down.
Definitely this. There is having money, and there is being poor/broke.
Where you might not get to go to the doctor no matter how you feel daily, and you might have to walk to work because you can't afford a tire. I'm still happy to have hot water simply because I couldn't afford it for some years.
Life is so much less stressful when you have money leftover at the end of the month - enough to cover small emergencies and keep a $25 expense from ballooning into having electricity disconnected.
Granted, I think they've proven that after a certain point, money has diminishing effects on happiness, but I think it is mostly that you simply that it consumes your life less and less and gives you the means to think about other, more positive things than how to afford new shoes.
This is because there is the tendency to reduce stress by throwing money at the problem. Car unreliable? Got a raise? Buy a new car that won't break down at random. Now you are stuck in car payments for the next 5 - 7 years.
There's things other than lifestyle creep. For example, many families tend to increase their income as they get older. But the expenses also go up. Having one kid, vs 2 - 3 later on, or kid expenses when they are young vs. teenage years (where you now have to worry about increased car insurance, getting them vehicles, etc). And upgrading housing as the family grows. The effect is that your income constantly seems to be outpaced by increasing and recurring expenses.
So what happens is parents get into the mindset of doing without, so their kids can thrive. And when problems come up, they will sacrifice so that additional money can be thrown at fixing those problems. This doesn't let up until the kids are grown, and then you can sell the house and downsize. All of a sudden, your cars are paid off, the kids are doing good on their own (or you've disowned them), your housing costs is lower because you moved to a smaller house, which means utility bills are smaller too. This is now the point where people hit midlife crisis, they have surplus money and have pent up demand to "treat themselves" so go out and buy something expensive (sports car, motor home, boat, etc). And the tightened budget stress starts all over again.
I wish you well in attaining the good life to which you intend.
I also reflect that the most significant choices are those which are within one's locus of control, the awareness of that is foundational to a life of virtue and money never seems un-constraining even if objectively one controls more of it.
> The way to do that is simple: we should consider whether we would be content to live the lives that the least fortunate in our society actually live.
I like this framing a lot. It's sort of the aggregate societal-level Golden Rule. Would you be willing to play "Real-Life the MMO" if you didn't know which character you'd be dropped into?
However, there is an interesting wrinkle you can apply to it that I think explains many of the moral differences along the progressive-conservative spectrum that I see in the US today. Consider:
* Would you be content to live the life that the least fortunate in our society lives?
* Would you be content to live the life that the least fortunate in our society lives including the personal choices they have made?
In other words, how much are you willing to chalk up misfortune to personal responsibility versus random unfair vagaries of life? Would you still be willing to play "Real-Life the MMO" if you might be dropped into a level 20 character with an already established history and had to take their life from there?
The conservative American perspective stated hyperbolically is that all bad outcomes are a result of poor choices. Many even seem to imply a just-world hypothesis that random events like disease are the universe magically punishing people for moral failings. The equivalent hyperbolic progressive view is that no one ever deserves any bad outcome and that misery is always a result of systemic factors outside of the individual's control.
Somewhere in the middle is probably closer to the truth.
I expected to see at least some links to Stoicism. They do not exist, which is why the article does not answer the question in the title. My opinion is that Stoicism answers this question and in general it is one of the most useful directions of philosophy.
I'm confused, the article seems to be actually asking the question. "It varies" is brought up multiple times, but that doesen't exactly help outlining how we would be able to define minimally good life.
It also asks whether a reasonable, caring and free person would trade places with the worst off, which I'd find very unlikely. What you can realistically do about it is unknown.
But it does. The typical "it depends" applies perfectly to this question.
>The thought is that having some distance from each person’s experience will help us see whether that person really needs all the things they think they need.
What works for you, doesn't work for me, and the other way round. Apart from the basic NEEDS (some call it "four walls" - shelter, utilities, transportation, basic groceries) everything else is a WANT. And it is great to have wants. A friend wanted to buy a desk globe for herself. She offered to buy me one too. I responded with a big NO. Not that I would not appreciate the gesture, I know that I would not appreciate a big thing on my table, that I can't use for nothing.
On the other hand, a nice puzzle hanging on my wall is cool, and it takes no space, and I don't have to move it around to make one more puzzle :)
>would trade places with the worst off
During COVID I saw with my own eyes that you can go from 100-to-1 in 6 months if you haven't made sure you got emergency funds on the side, if you don't have a solid safe work, you don't have amassed consumer debt, etc. As a mental exercise it is good to think the scenario "what if I lose my job, and I can't get another one for X amount of months"? Dave Ramsey suggests emergency funds to be able to fully cover 3-6 months. Those 3-6 can be stretched to 6-12 if you decide to make major cuts in lifestyle (food, subscriptions, smaller house/flat, sell a car and start cycling, etc.)
It's just that "it depends" is not very satisfactory, it's the default answer to all questions.
All questions are fractal in nature, and unsolvable without a problem-domain. By defining the domain a thing can be answered, such as "how much force do i need to throw this ball over there?" Otherwise no definite answer can be provided, because the next galaxy over tips the scales just a bit, as does the infinitesimally small difference in the ball's structure, and so forth.
>During COVID I saw with my own eyes that you can go from 100-to-1 in 6 months if you haven't made sure you got emergency funds on the side
This is why I think a social aid/basic income system with free healthcare is a must. You can't choose to be healthy and not to have accidents. I think we must all provide a basic net for the things outside our control. Of course I'm biased, being a finn in covid times is a tremendous blessing
I read somewhere that the universal problem of existence is to survive with dignity, and mathematics being the language of the universe is uniquely poised to address the question.
As someone with ok health and a decent education to provide me work throughout the pandemic, I feel like the minimally good life is just life itself. It is enough to survive, and retain the will that you must choose to live. I've been very fortunate and very lucky, but it all feels so flimsy and discriminatory. I think the only "better" life one can work towards, is one in service of making it better for all of us.
I ate at the restaurant shown in the lead photo while in Trinidad Cuba in January 2020. It's amazing how long ago that seems now. Trinidad had an amazing ecosystem of shops that catered to the tourist industry and the proprietors of these shops could make a good living outside the government's more socialist system. One shop with amazing hand-made crocheted garments had four generations of the family creating goods. Talking with them reminded me of value of extended family which we've (at least to some degree) lost in the U.S. simply because of our ability to move long distances easily.
I learned a lot of lessons (even entrepreneurial lessons) while in Cuba and hope to publish a series of blog posts on them when the day job becomes less frenzied.
I suggest something similar. When we are constantly buying and requesting things we create work and stress for others. We become a high-maintenance humans. We contribute to the rush and tension we feel around us.
By consuming less and demanding less, we live a low maintenance life. Not minimally good, just low-maintenance. This along with looking for ways to serve our communities is the better way to go.
In combination, good mental health together with other people (as in relationships). You will struggle have one without the other. Following on, decent enough physical health to maintain the first two. Anything else is gravy, as they say.
The definition of minimally good life is “being able to survive without too much effort.” (Feeling happy has nothing to do with it. Notably, some people managed to have a “good life” while being prisoners, say, in a concentration camp).
It is easy to enumerate what is bad for ones life - much harder to define a good life, hence one is able to achieve "good life" by substracting all that is considered "bad life".
> what do members of a society owe to one another?
> we should consider whether we would be content to live the lives that the least fortunate in our society actually live
Stopped reading right there, because it's a complete non sequitur. People only owe one another what they have contractual obligations for; claiming that you owe to provide any kind of minimal standard of living for another person just because he also happens to live in the same society as you is completely absurd and deeply immoral.
Now, I agree that being charitable and thinking about others is moral, and that people who enjoy very comfortable lives without giving anything back to the community can be frowned upon. However, there is critically important distinction between doing something out of your own free will and our of obligation.
I always defend Nazis, who openly advocate for killing me and my family, right to free speech, and I would always defend the property rights of the heartless and greedy. Not because I want to condone this behaviour, but because no morality can be more important than personal freedoms.
There's a social contract among communities that has all but entirely collapsed. It's not about being charitable. It's the fact that when we collectively let our neighbors suffer instead of helping we are opening the flood gates to greater suffering for everyone.
Although I expect I share many of your concerns, there are two aspects of ideal libertarian world view which trouble me. The first is that the masses who are unable to provide a productive life for themselves continue to multiply, ultimately driving society to collapse. The second is that wealth will be concentrated in a tiny fraction of the population, who will then convince the masses that it’s unethical for the elite to be taxed. The elites will continue to perpetuate their wealth through generations, and the masses will never be able to achieve socioeconomic mobility.
Been seeing a lot of “Do as I say and not as I do” articles being pushed to the orange site. I wonder if all the SV capitalists would take up this offer of minimally good life.
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Could we not also blame men for competing for the attention of the most attractive women, who then in turn can demand more resources?
I do think we attack men for being shallow more often than we attack women for being materialistic. The latter doesn’t get as much attention or critique, eg wanting a bigger house or label fashion is often seen as aspirational and positive; wanting a more attractive partner is not seen in the same light.
Why do men who have a partner already feel obliged to continue capturing more and more resources?
Are these just instincts that exist independently? Would removing one remove the other? Are they even so strong as to bind us by them?
In reality I think these instincts don’t rule us. Choosing a partner is a combination of physical and mental attraction, as well as a function of social status. We can choose. Timshel.
> Why do men who have a partner already feel obliged to continue capturing more and more resources?
Great question. I think there are strong forces and dynamics that push us to earn more and "improve", constantly, regardless of whether we have a partner or not. It's kindof what a capitalistic society is built upon. If we didn't consume much gdp wouldn't grow right? If we didn't compete how would earnings increase?
It's coming from peers, parents, spouses and from the way society itself is structured.
I think it doesn't have tons to do with genes or evolutionary instincts though they may also explain some of it.
> Why do men who have a partner already feel obliged to continue capturing more and more resources?
Two reasons.
First, women are hypergamous and will always be looking for the best mate possible. When men become complacent, they lose their women. The battle isn't over when the first mate is attracted, it has only just begun.
Second, men are polygamous. Men still want to be attractive to other women as well as their own. There is essentially no limit to how many women a man can mate with.
These instincts do rule us, unfortunately. Although many like to think otherwise.
> These instincts do rule us, unfortunately. Although many like to think otherwise.
Let me see if I have this straight: selection processes have favored those with the ability to provide for their offspring because it ensures the survival of their lineage. Consequently women tend to consider competitive men who have high wealth and status more attractive, therefore it is the fault of women that men are so competitive?
In your reasoning, men do not have the agency to choose not to be competitive, women do have the agency to choose who they are attracted to, and natural selection pressures are blameless. That's a pretty arbitrary place to draw the line don't you think?
This is where you begin to introduce your own ideas rather than talk about mine. I didn't use that word and certainly didn't imply that anybody is at fault here. Sometimes things are just true. It doesn't mean anybody is to blame or that anybody is "better" than anybody else.
> the people with the power to change the never-ending hamster wheel situation are primarly women
Why have they singled out women here if not to place blame? Women are a product of selection pressures just as much as men are. Moreover, it isn't like women are not on the same hamster wheel as everyone else.
For a start, you can't "single out" half of the population. Women aren't a minority.
I disagree with anyone who wants to pin the blame on current individuals or groups for things which were caused by evolution. Check the comment I was replying to here.
I don't know where you got that idea from, but your impression of the entire female gender is flawed, stereotypical, and yes, wrong.
I'm male. My competitive streak and desire for material goods is in direct conflict with my wife's desires. Most people I know similarly refute your opinion by their goals, personalities, and life status.
> I don't know where you got that idea from, but your impression of the entire female gender is flawed, stereotypical, and yes, wrong.
OP is maybe exaggerating to make a point but there's a Seinfeld episode which I remember from many years ago, where Jerry says something like how a man can be really interested in what a woman does at her work, even though that woman might be a janitor, while the reverse is not true, no woman is interested in a man who's a janitor (I mean, she's not interested in his work).
And the statistics seem to support that, as more men are willing to marry women who are "beneath" them from a societal point of view (career and education) compared to women (i.e. women are less likely than man to marry members of the opposite sex who are placed "bellow" them).
> My competitive streak and desire for material goods is in direct conflict with my wife's desires.
I find it hard to believe that your wife would prefer you to be a materially/economically poor individual who doesn't strive vs your peers. To each her own, of course.
(I take no position on the GP's controversial theory. Just calling out that the implications of the parent's comment strike me as unintuitive.)
> I find it hard to believe that your wife would prefer you to be a materially/economically poor individual who doesn't strive vs your peers.
Really? You've never heard of somebody who'd rather their spouse work shorter hours and spend more time with them at home? Or spend more time with their family? Or travel more with them?
My hunch: His wife likely still wants him to be capable of material success and competition. She just doesn't want him to prioritize those endeavors past some particular threshold.
Said another way, one's spouse probably finds it attractive that one can get a new job if one loses the current one.
Marriages often go to hell when the husband is out of work and it becomes obvious that he either cannot or will not return to the workforce. That is, when a husband becomes a materially poor individual who does not strive vs his peers.
What's nasty? Expecting that people generally value economic capability and competitive ambition in their life partners?
And, true, I don't know your wife. That's why I said to each her own. Still, as a thought experiment, quit your job and watch TV for 24 months solid then tell me how it's going.
Whatever cognitive path you're on that's led you to conclude this, I advise you to swiftly veer away from it.
Blaming all the women isn't going to help with anything. People will just think, oh there's that weird sexist guy ranting on again. That's not going to get you anywhere useful.
Because the point is not really a logical statement, but an appeal to emotion, expecting a logical refutation to a non logical statement is absurd and TBH, kinda ignorant of all the kinds of valid discussion humans have all the time.
Do you really think is reasonable to demand a change of behavior in women instead of maybe demanding the same from men?
Do you really think men with a couple are no longer part of the competition drivel?
I must be confused. I didn't read his controversial opinion as a demand, I read it as an observation. It's as unreasonable to expect women to counter their nature as it would be to tell men to stop preferring youth and beauty.
> If women chose something different, perhaps humanity wouldn't be so rapacious of the earth.
You know, I care a little about the framing. It can be that women could choose something different, or maybe men can also choose to not be part of the rat race, maybe it can be both, or maybe as you mentioned, it’s an impossible scenario. I don’t know with what I’ve read about what we know (and mostly don’t know about human mind) and with humanity’s history I choose to be careful with what it’s human nature and what could change.
But anyway the statement is as it is, and assigns responsibility mostly to women, which can be an assumption that women have more agency than men, or just blaming the opposite sex; as common in incel ideology. Not really reasonable either way IMO.
It's just as common to blame "all the men" for women's never-ending insecurity about their own attractiveness. I'm not sure what incel ideology has to do with either.
You're completely mistaking me. Of course it's a symbiotic relationship. But if men choose not to be competitive, those men will just exclude themselves from procreation. The power is in women's hands to change it by being less avaricious. For example plenty of women have been conned by De Beers into thinking they need a diamond engagement ring worth x times monthly salary, else the prospective spouse isn't worth it. And plenty of them couldn't care less about the horrible circumstances behind their diamond. Let's not put either sex on a pedestal here.
Oh and thanks for your concern, but I'm doing just fine with my current cognitive path thanks. Mortgage, marriage, kids etc. all in hand.
While they may have the upper hand when it comes to selecting companions, they definitely don't have more power over men. One simply has to look at laws in cultures all over the world that suppress their rights. In societies where they don't have the right to choose their mates male competition still exists. In addition, what alternative are you even suggesting? That women choose defy their own well-being and mate with all men?
I think your controversial opinion is more correct than it is incorrect. I don't believe it's anything that an individual woman would notice consciously on a daily basis, but the idea that women are attracted to the ability of a man to provision for her and her children as a survival adaptation over time is clearly true. It's true of other mammals and primates, at least.
> Controversial opinion: the people with the power to change the never-ending hamster wheel situation are primarly women, in that it is women's selection of mates and desire for consumer goods etc. that drive male competition. If women chose something different, perhaps humanity wouldn't be so rapacious of the earth.
I think you are correct that the main driving force here is sex. Sex drives far more of the world than most people would admit to. It is the fundamental raison d'être that every sexual organism is born with.
But I think you are incorrect that women have the power to change it. You're talking about deep rooted instincts that have developed over billions of years. While many of us do learn to control our instincts to some extent, it's a bit much to expect the entire female population to control theirs. And even if you did control female hypergamy, you'd still have male polygamy to deal with. That's why the Bible targeted both (don't covert your neighbour's wife etc.)
Women care about money and education but it's not as if they're all the same. Some care a lot about humour, confidence, hell even artistic abilities. Yes some broke musician can appear very sexy to some women even if he isn't a great provider.
Some even care a lot about looks just like men. Women vary quite a lot by who they consider mating potential.
It's important not to confuse individuals with populations.
This is one of the biggest problems when talking about things like this. People make statements about populations and others refute them using observations about individuals. Of course individuals are different, but individuals have very limited control over society. We are not a bunch of unrelated individuals, we are a society. The top level comment is talking about society.
It seems clear to me that society is much more aggressive about controlling male-normative instincts, which are characterized as violent and isolationist. Consumption and financial mating, however, are encouraged and enforced by every level of our social hierarchy. These instincts could also be controlled.
Controlling male instincts is advantageous for everyone. Men are basically told to stop fighting each other and work together. In return they get the chance to have one wife and a decent way of life. It's a big win for most men. Women also benefit from the technology and societal improvements that come about as a result of not being at war all the time.
If you controlled female instincts what would you achieve? You tell women to date a poorer man. A less attractive man. A less intelligent man etc. What do they gain from this? Nothing. It's all sacrifice with no gain.
It comes down to positive enforcement versus negative enforcement. Positive enforcement is always more effective in the long run.
You haven’t met enough women that held out too long for the perfect man, and now clasp desperately to one they secretly despise. There are benefits to acceptance and satisfaction with less.
I'd argue the desire for consumer goods is very much equal for men and women, and is not inherently a bad thing. Some people are content when they have _things_, others seek thrill and experiences. Getting drunk on power is a trip worth striding for for many.
The hamster-wheel is not based on any single subset of desires, it's the sum of all of them
During westward expansion in the US the rush sometimes produced towns with few women. Life wasn't magically better or less stressful. It was actually the growing female influence that brought some balance and peace.
There's zero wilderness left in the UK, the less populated areas have virtually zero jobs, and the government is intent on increasing the population and destroying the countryside as a consequence. There is (deliberately?) no escape.
I see your point but you can't blame this entirely on women. Men themselves rank each other based on status / earnings. They may not do it to each other's faces but definitely there's a mental book-keeping on whose "doing well" , and accordingly many men will show more respect to people with high status.
Now of course not everyone's like that, and indeed this changes from culture to culture on how pronounced it is.
Also, the more capitalistic a society is and the weaker the social safety net, one can't really blame women for chasing savings and things. They and there offsprings can potentially end up in the street if circumstances go bad, so they need a partner that can take care of their material wellbeing.
You're wrong. It is possible to both accept uncomfortable truths and be happy. A fundamental part of Stoicism is not to trouble yourself with things out of your control. This frees your mind to be able to think about these things without being personally troubled by them.
I think that's a bit unfair.
I think that yes male dominance and competition has a lot to do with females. It's like that in nature and like that in humans as well.
You are interpreting what he said as being hostile to women while that may not be the case.
People, as any animals, aren't build "for" anything. Evolution doesn't have a brain or intentions, it's just a stochastic process that happens to prefer some traits over others in certain circumstances.
On the simplest level. Direct reproduction is far from the only way to propel your genes. You can never have kids, but lead your ethnic group to win a genocidal war against its neighbours, and will be much more successful at it.
With complex minds like those of human beings it can't even be reduced to just genetic survival. Memetic survival is often weighted just as much, if not more.
I assumed the gendered usage here was intended, since it's not a poem or a format where character count matters. Unfortunately it's ambiguous without further clarification.
I'm pretty sure he was using "men" in the generic since, similar to "humans". That said, looking at stats like suicide rate reveals that a literal reading may be more correct.
The "generic sense" of "men" to mean humans is sexist - blatantly so. It's also quickly becoming archaic, for this reason. Going out of your way to use it, instead of "people" or "humans" or "humanity", is now a statement.
The intersection of the set HAPPY and the set GOOD is not the null set. HAPPY is not necessarily a superset of GOOD, and GOOD is not necessarily a superset of HAPPY.
I think these appeals to humanism often fail to see the rational realities that underlie the moral questions. Morals and culture are just a simplification of principles which make a society competitive. The scope of possibilities is massive even within our own observation: totalitarianism, constitutionalism, fundamentalism, nationalism, anarchy. Competition among and enforcement within these societies has been, by far, the greatest modern historical risk for premature death. This article seems to be proposing a society where everybody is guaranteed a good life. Sounds great, but the bigger question is whether such a society is competitive against ones where individuals are driven to contribute through fear of failure. My guess is that, yes, it could be, but only under conditions where pro-social motivations are greater than the fear motive they replace. We know that this exists in our natural tribal state, but small homogeneous tribes were not competitive against massive hierarchical use of force. The brilliance of capitalism is that it provides an indirect fear/greed motive that requires little organization, mostly enforcement of property rights and taxation. It was writing, e.g. the domesday book, that enabled this, and the result gradually proved superior to feudal slavery. We have great technology today, maybe even a crisis of overproduction, or misallocation to negative social goods. Unfortunately, redistributive welfare has a definite social cost, and, ignoring the personal benefits, a terrible track record for motivating pro-social contribution, in some societies. In others it seems to do better. The moral heuristic that people should be taken care of at others’ expense, is only rationally valid within certain social organizations and cultural norms. An objection to this may be that the moral reasoning is superior by nature, and I believe this is massively flawed, simply because the cost of non-competitive morality, is death by social competition, which cannot be avoided. I do believe, maybe blindly, that there are conditions in which universal guarantees of a ‘good life’ increase a society’s competitiveness, but I do not certainly know what those conditions are, so without that, this moral pleading seems hopeful at best.
