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> Note that this has been proven to make people any happier. Requests for citation are a little gauche, but if you tell me something is proven without any evid

> Note that this has been proven to make people any happier. Requests for citation are a little gauche, but if you tell me something is proven without any evidence you're kind of forcing my hand here. The rest of your comment could probably do with more rigor as well. Can you quantify exactly how many more households have dual earners now? Likewise do you have any numbers pertaining to lease versus purchase statistics between 1970 and 2018?

jfengel 8y ago
I think that there's a typo, and it meant to say "not that this has been proven..." Still not a documented assertion, but it's kind of a negative statement that's hard to prove one way or the other. It's believable that we've simply become hedonically accustomed to gadgets that made us happy to get, and would be unhappy to lose, without actually contributing to an overall increase in happiness -- but that's hard to quantify. I'm sure people have tried, and such attempts should be cited, but it doesn't seem unlikely.
gerbilly 8y ago
Sorry, I had an unfortunate typo in my comment which inverted the intended meaning. I was trying to say: Not that [gadgets] has been proven to make people any happier. And the support I would be inclined to give for that is the: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill By the late 1950s most households had washing machines and gas or electric stoves furnaces and water heaters (the old versions of these were coal or wood fired and required refilling) and most of the drudgery was eliminated from household chores. This did, in my opinion, increased quality of life significantly. However, I'm not sure much was gained in terms of happiness from going from Black and White TVs to 4K televisions with PVRs. Pretty much the same entertainment value could be gotten from a back and white TV as with a hi def set. You could watch the hockey game on either, and the experience was basically the same. As for my claims about real wages not having risen since 1970, other commenters have done a better job of defending that claim. (mbell for example)

jfengel 8y ago

I think that there's a typo, and it meant to say "not that this has been proven..." Still not a documented assertion, but it's kind of a negative statement that's hard to prove one way or the other. It's believable that we've simply become hedonically accustomed to gadgets that made us happy to get, and would be unhappy to lose, without actually contributing to an overall increase in happiness -- but that's hard to quantify. I'm sure people have tried, and such attempts should be cited, but it doesn't seem unlikely.

gerbilly 8y ago

Sorry, I had an unfortunate typo in my comment which inverted the intended meaning. I was trying to say: Not that [gadgets] has been proven to make people any happier. And the support I would be inclined to give for that is the: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill By the late 1950s most households had washing machines and gas or electric stoves furnaces and water heaters (the old versions of these were coal or wood fired and required refilling) and most of the drudgery was eliminated from household chores. This did, in my opinion, increased quality of life significantly. However, I'm not sure much was gained in terms of happiness from going from Black and White TVs to 4K televisions with PVRs. Pretty much the same entertainment value could be gotten from a back and white TV as with a hi def set. You could watch the hockey game on either, and the experience was basically the same. As for my claims about real wages not having risen since 1970, other commenters have done a better job of defending that claim. (mbell for example)