3 ms·

The hundreds of hours of dieting, going to the gym, and putting on make-up (or flexing, for men) increase happiness by a colossal 7%. nope nope nope exercisin

The hundreds of hours of dieting, going to the gym, and putting on make-up (or flexing, for men) increase happiness by a colossal 7%. nope nope nope exercising does much more than make you look jacked at the club. It makes your brain release endorphins for immediate mood improvement, and also improves thinking, sleep, and overall well being. The happiest I've felt in my life is when exercising regularly. Actually exercising and diet are probably _the most_ influential on our chemistry which in turn influences mood and happiness. also not sure why all these things were lumped in together and how they could possibly calculate the 7% increase considering there is such a wide range of diets and exercise plans. Seems hyperbolic

and-can 11y ago
And even then, is 7% supposed to be a little or a lot? They say "hundreds of hours of dieting & exercising" but really that only affects an hour a day, maybe? I'd say that if I could spend 1 hour a day and get a 7% gain in happiness, it probably is worth it. And perhaps there are other activities that require 1 hour that result in a 7% increase. Say: reading, socializing, writing. Then you've got 4 hours a day and get a 1.07^4 = 1.31 or 31% increase in happiness. Isn't that GOOD? I'd say that's AWESOME.
- metaphorm 11y ago
  I find that actual metric here to be the most dubious part of the whole argument. I can easily understand making qualitative claims about happiness and maybe even some of the arguments presented by the author are good ones, on a qualitative basis. But trying to quantify this is just so bogus. What do they think they're even measuring? They're just making statistical claims about questionaire results as far as I can tell. The author doesn't qualify that nearly enough. He is treating this like there's some kind of discrete quanta of happiness. "My current happy level is 7.453 kiloJoys" or something like that. Its just weird.
- SonicSoul 11y ago
  well the article seems to imply that 7% is low: "by the colossal 7%" and there is this: But that same survey found that those with a low level of education were 47% more likely to be the happiest than those with a high level of education.13 so low level of education makes almost 7x more impact than diet + exercising combined. something is seriously wrong with this happiness calculus
  - aianus 11y ago
    > so low level of education makes almost 7x more impact than diet + exercising combined. something is seriously wrong with this happiness calculus "Ignorance is bliss" is a pretty old idiom; who's to say it's not rooted in some truth?
  - daodedickinson 11y ago
    Check out The True Beleiver by Eric Hoffer or Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich for some explanations for this long observed effect. Schooling trained myself and my best friends to expect to be able to use what we learned, even though there were no roles in society for us. We are national merit finalists, calculus users, programmers, 99th percentile GRE scorers... one friend is nearly homeless. Another bags groceries. The best off has a programming job only because his father was higher up in the company. I spray herbicides and pesticides and feed cattle and do whatever I am asked and more at our family veterinary clinic and on our family farm. I am extremely lucky. But I feel intensely guilty that I am not using anything I learned at university. No one owes me anything. But I sacrificed and suffered so much for academic success, debating championships, math team and programming victories, and it has never paid me back with a livelihood and now I am emotionally and energetically burnt out before ever landing an entry-level programming job. I can do all the Cracking the Coding Interview questions. I've never ran into anything in CS I couldn't understand. I'm just very emotionally fragile when it comes to interviews due to being on the autism spectrum and feeling so abjectified. If I had not been so successful in school I would not feel so terribly guilty about my failure at life. I would like a romantic relationship and a family. But I would feel guilty and to ashamed starting one without a career to provide for at least private schooling or more likely homeschooling for my kids. But I am unable to escape my social bankruptcy or move out of my parent's basement. Life seems to complicated and I feel so far behind in non-school skills I feel trapped. I feel I will never gain the prestige to feel desirable enough to make friends much less a wife. I come up with software ideas but I get so depressed at the likelihood of their failure that I feel guilty working on them (and yet guilty not working on them). Education causes higher expectations. Needing more people at university for social reasons has made them so easy that they no longer discipline people enough for success. More importantly, there simply aren't enough role slots people trained to expect those roles. Please give me counsel if you can. I want a mentor or someone to apprentice with so badly. My parents love me but they are very dysfunctional. They have no friends either. I had a genius uncle who got top marks in school, made all sorts of interesting gadgets, could solve a Rubik's cube in seconds... he ended up a derelict and I am so worried I will end up like him even though it might be a self-fulfilling fear... I think he is too. He wanted to see a game I made but I've never gotten one polished to the point I felt I could share it. My closest friends are all failing to launch, too, so I have no role models. And I am down to three people from undergrad that I can still talk to (through infrequent texting). I want to be able to spend real time with someone who has things figured out about a bit so that my mirror neurons might hurt me rather than harm me.
nvader 11y ago
I was having an internal tug-of-war about whether to visit the gym when I read this comment. Although I knew this already, this just gave the activation energy to get out of my chair and out the door. Thanks!
- SonicSoul 11y ago
  enjoy your +7% of happiness!
conceit 11y ago
> jacked Do you mean jagged, as in jagged edge? That is how new words are born, people accept it as if words wouldn't have to mean anything.
- MatthewMcDonald 11y ago
  In this context, jacked is synonymous with muscular. "I grunt when I get my swell on at the gym. That's 'cause everyone should see how jacked and tan I am."
  - cesarbs 11y ago
    I love your dictionary-like sample sentence :)
    - MatthewMcDonald 11y ago
      Ha, it's not mine - it's from a YouTube video called My New Haircut (NSFW)
      - conceit 11y ago
        And still it once ment jagged, your sentence doesn't prove jack-shit
        MatthewMcDonald 11y ago
        My sentence is simply an example of the word 'jacked' being used in a way that is synonymous with muscular. 'Jacked' is sometimes used with this meaning, regardless of your approval. Slang is often ephemeral, I would try not to get upset when it changes.
        conceit 10y ago
        > regardless of your approval I have only given disapproval so far. Your personal approval on the other hand is pretty important to yourself. By the line of your argument, you do draw approval from others', so mine is slightly important, too, as evidenced by your attentive answers. I might just have been wrong, which is still more agreeable than accepting two concurrent opinions.

and-can 11y ago

And even then, is 7% supposed to be a little or a lot? They say "hundreds of hours of dieting & exercising" but really that only affects an hour a day, maybe? I'd say that if I could spend 1 hour a day and get a 7% gain in happiness, it probably is worth it. And perhaps there are other activities that require 1 hour that result in a 7% increase. Say: reading, socializing, writing. Then you've got 4 hours a day and get a 1.07^4 = 1.31 or 31% increase in happiness. Isn't that GOOD? I'd say that's AWESOME.

metaphorm 11y ago
I find that actual metric here to be the most dubious part of the whole argument. I can easily understand making qualitative claims about happiness and maybe even some of the arguments presented by the author are good ones, on a qualitative basis. But trying to quantify this is just so bogus. What do they think they're even measuring? They're just making statistical claims about questionaire results as far as I can tell. The author doesn't qualify that nearly enough. He is treating this like there's some kind of discrete quanta of happiness. "My current happy level is 7.453 kiloJoys" or something like that. Its just weird.
SonicSoul 11y ago
well the article seems to imply that 7% is low: "by the colossal 7%" and there is this: But that same survey found that those with a low level of education were 47% more likely to be the happiest than those with a high level of education.13 so low level of education makes almost 7x more impact than diet + exercising combined. something is seriously wrong with this happiness calculus
- aianus 11y ago
  > so low level of education makes almost 7x more impact than diet + exercising combined. something is seriously wrong with this happiness calculus "Ignorance is bliss" is a pretty old idiom; who's to say it's not rooted in some truth?
- daodedickinson 11y ago
  Check out The True Beleiver by Eric Hoffer or Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich for some explanations for this long observed effect. Schooling trained myself and my best friends to expect to be able to use what we learned, even though there were no roles in society for us. We are national merit finalists, calculus users, programmers, 99th percentile GRE scorers... one friend is nearly homeless. Another bags groceries. The best off has a programming job only because his father was higher up in the company. I spray herbicides and pesticides and feed cattle and do whatever I am asked and more at our family veterinary clinic and on our family farm. I am extremely lucky. But I feel intensely guilty that I am not using anything I learned at university. No one owes me anything. But I sacrificed and suffered so much for academic success, debating championships, math team and programming victories, and it has never paid me back with a livelihood and now I am emotionally and energetically burnt out before ever landing an entry-level programming job. I can do all the Cracking the Coding Interview questions. I've never ran into anything in CS I couldn't understand. I'm just very emotionally fragile when it comes to interviews due to being on the autism spectrum and feeling so abjectified. If I had not been so successful in school I would not feel so terribly guilty about my failure at life. I would like a romantic relationship and a family. But I would feel guilty and to ashamed starting one without a career to provide for at least private schooling or more likely homeschooling for my kids. But I am unable to escape my social bankruptcy or move out of my parent's basement. Life seems to complicated and I feel so far behind in non-school skills I feel trapped. I feel I will never gain the prestige to feel desirable enough to make friends much less a wife. I come up with software ideas but I get so depressed at the likelihood of their failure that I feel guilty working on them (and yet guilty not working on them). Education causes higher expectations. Needing more people at university for social reasons has made them so easy that they no longer discipline people enough for success. More importantly, there simply aren't enough role slots people trained to expect those roles. Please give me counsel if you can. I want a mentor or someone to apprentice with so badly. My parents love me but they are very dysfunctional. They have no friends either. I had a genius uncle who got top marks in school, made all sorts of interesting gadgets, could solve a Rubik's cube in seconds... he ended up a derelict and I am so worried I will end up like him even though it might be a self-fulfilling fear... I think he is too. He wanted to see a game I made but I've never gotten one polished to the point I felt I could share it. My closest friends are all failing to launch, too, so I have no role models. And I am down to three people from undergrad that I can still talk to (through infrequent texting). I want to be able to spend real time with someone who has things figured out about a bit so that my mirror neurons might hurt me rather than harm me.

nvader 11y ago

I was having an internal tug-of-war about whether to visit the gym when I read this comment. Although I knew this already, this just gave the activation energy to get out of my chair and out the door. Thanks!

SonicSoul 11y ago
enjoy your +7% of happiness!

conceit 11y ago

> jacked Do you mean jagged, as in jagged edge? That is how new words are born, people accept it as if words wouldn't have to mean anything.

MatthewMcDonald 11y ago
In this context, jacked is synonymous with muscular. "I grunt when I get my swell on at the gym. That's 'cause everyone should see how jacked and tan I am."
- cesarbs 11y ago
  I love your dictionary-like sample sentence :)
  - MatthewMcDonald 11y ago
    Ha, it's not mine - it's from a YouTube video called My New Haircut (NSFW)
    - conceit 11y ago
      And still it once ment jagged, your sentence doesn't prove jack-shit
      - MatthewMcDonald 11y ago
        My sentence is simply an example of the word 'jacked' being used in a way that is synonymous with muscular. 'Jacked' is sometimes used with this meaning, regardless of your approval. Slang is often ephemeral, I would try not to get upset when it changes.
        conceit 10y ago
        > regardless of your approval I have only given disapproval so far. Your personal approval on the other hand is pretty important to yourself. By the line of your argument, you do draw approval from others', so mine is slightly important, too, as evidenced by your attentive answers. I might just have been wrong, which is still more agreeable than accepting two concurrent opinions.