3 ms·
The clip is comical in tone so the premises are inexact but it touches on something very important. As we watched the evening news the other day, my flatmate sa
by Tycho 17y ago
The clip is comical in tone so the premises are inexact but it touches on something very important. As we watched the evening news the other day, my flatmate said 'what a terrible world we live in.' Since the news had just reported several abductions and murders, this may seem like a reasonable assertion. But my flatmate's problem is he never appreciates the good of modern society. He simply does not consider all the good things that happened today when he forms the equation. And this goes for a lot of people. All the benefits of technology, etc, are somehow not REAL benefits to us because some corporation is making profit, therefore everyone else must be sustaining some sort of net loss and there's no point feeling good about it.
I'm not suggesting everyone should be permanently ecstatic - everyone's happiness is at root based on achievement of goals they set (or don't set) for themselves, and will fluctuate accordingly, and normalize to the social context. But equally there is no reason to hold a constantly pessimistic and critical world-view.
- vog 17y agoIn Germany there is a saying: Man erkennt Wohlstand nicht daran, dass die Leute weniger jammern, sondern daran, auf welchem Niveau sie jammern. (You don't recognize wealth by less complaining people, but by the level on which they are complaining.)
- Tycho 17y agoI like that. Here's one I just thought up: Envy is not poverty. Would you say that is analogous?
- vog 17y agoI think there is a connection, but there are important differences. First, envy is a different issue than complaining. People are complaining every day, which is mostly a good thing, because it encourages improvement and self-critism. Think of inventors or human rights fighters. However, envy is almost always a bad thing that shouldn't happen too often. It causes anti-social behaviour and thus must be fighted against. Second, poverty is not the opposite of wealth, it's the other extreme. Also, wealth means more than just material wealth, and this extended meaning is essential to the saying I cited above. In contrast, poverty means material poverty, which is kind of misleading in the context above.