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Yet another example, I think, of why people who have no experience with drugs or drug users should write like they understand what drives people to drug use. He

Yet another example, I think, of why people who have no experience with drugs or drug users should write like they understand what drives people to drug use. Hell, this sounds like it's written by a guy who's never used weed, let alone anything that has a serious effect on the brain. While it's true that people get addicted to placebos that stimulate artificial happiness, that's an issue that goes way deeper than fast food. We have to start asking us what counts as a placebo for happiness. Does listening to shitty pop music count as a bad way to achieve happiness? Even if it's just the worst godawful music and it doesn't encourage anything other than listening to it on repeat and buying albums? What if we're listening to more sophisticated music? Or listening only to Beethoven concerts? What about watching films? Reading books? Attending lectures? Having friends? Where does happiness start being earnest and stop being a disease? Like, I'm uncertain if he's saying "you shouldn't let eating make you happy if it will also make you unhealthy" or if he's saying "don't rely on anything to make you happy unless it's somehow a completely authentic reaction". The fact that he takes the swipe at "drugs" as a blanket category suggests he's less worried about drugs' side effects than he's worried about the possibility that people will rely on drugs for happiness, simply because they're an artificially induced stimulus. But everything's artificially induced in that case, really, or at least the line isn't clearly drawn. I feel it's worth saying: some of my favorite people use drugs to force their mind to think in ways it doesn't usually think, and then use their experiences to gain a deeper knowledge of themselves, which brings them what I'd call legitimate peace and happiness. I resent the suggestion that they're somehow cheating. I also resent the idea that this article had to talk about drugs at all, seeing as it's not exactly the most informed source of information.

cullenking 16y ago
Great point all around. The author also didn't take into account that poverty drives obesity arguably more than his happiness theory. Unhealthy food is much cheaper than healthier food - look at the menu of McDonalds vs the price of fresh vegetables, breads etc. You can mitigate this to a point with bulk foods, however that requires an initial investment which is often not possible for a poor family.
- derefr 16y ago
  You could argue that poverty drives unhappiness, which supports his original argument.
- dools 16y ago
  I'm interested to know where you live that this is true! The only reasons I can imagine poverty would lead to poor food choice is lack of education or lack of facilities to prepare meals (ie. those living in transient conditions). I come from Australia and can whole heartedly say that if you know the basics of food preparation and have access to a kitchen eating healthily is like a fifth of the cost of eating McDonalds!
  - jonathanwallace 16y ago
    Urban areas are noted for their lack of quality grocery stores: http://www.google.com/search?aq=0&oq=lack+of+grocery+stores&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=lack+of+grocery+stores+in+urban+areas http://www.google.com/search?aq=0&oq=lack+of+grocery+sto... When you factor in travel costs and time, the price inequality between cheap fast food and good quality food is exacerbated.
  - cullenking 16y ago
    Sorry for the late reply. I live in Portland Oregon, USA. Last time I checked, a person can eat at McDonalds for $1-2 per meal if they don't mind eating the same thing all the time. It's hard without buying bulk staples like rice, beans etc to buy and cook for a family for that cheap.
thesz 16y ago
>Does listening to shitty pop music count as a bad way to achieve happiness? My answer is definite "yes". When I ask taxi drivers why are they constantly listen to music, I often get an answer along the lines "but it too sad and lonely without it". They change their natural emotions to those from radio. PS The best answer I get is "without music, there are all kind of thoughts starting to pop in my head".
rkalla 16y ago
rory, you got so hung up on my reference to drug that you decided to ignore the point. The paragraph "Like, I'm uncertain if he's saying..." neither of those summaries were what I was saying. I re-read the article twice to see if I was mis-stating something that made it sound how you described it and I couldn't see it... let me know if I missed something. It sounded to me like you saw "drug use" and "bad" in the same article and personalized the entire thing into an attack against you and "your favorite people" -- that's not what the article is about. The article points out how people chase happiness with easily accessible things; sometimes unhealthy things. I was looking at human behavior regarding over-eating highly satiating foods to quickly and easily compensate for unhappiness as an indicator that if we readily provide mechanism for even higher happiness boosts (assuming there weren't the stigma there is now around drugs) a good majority of people would likely use it. No where in the article did I comment on recreational use. The entire article was about ABUSE. From your closing paragraph, it sounded like you were talking about people using Ayahuasca/Peyote/LSD/whatever to gain moments of total clarity and shut off the mind. I think there are likely huge, legit benefits to these types of practices, but that isn't what I was talking about. Just like I wasn't saying that anyone that eats fastfood should be ashamed of themselves and are lesser people. I wrote an article about people's tendency to abuse substances to make themselves feel happy in a fast-paced world where we can't all sit on mountain tops and think. In that world, I think it's CAN BE dangerous to a large majority of people to have easy access to destructive things that make them feel happy that they might abuse. Again, I am not denouncing "drug users" as lesser humans. You could replace the word "drugs" in the article with "fast food" or "compulsive shopping" or "illegal street racing" --- the point is still the same.
- rorymarinich 16y ago
  Hey, Riyad! Glad you dropped by! It's not that I disagree with the larger point you're making. It's that I'm not certain quite why you outlined it in the way you did. (Actually, probably it's just that you wrote it without thinking too hard about it, which is totally how I wrote my most-known posts, so I completely understand.) If your primary issue is that people will take easy alternatives to happiness if it means avoiding more difficult but more satisfying approaches, then write an article about that specifically rather than shoehorning it in as a topic, because that's a very complicated issue that requires some breathing room of its own. As it happens, your article sounds more like: "If the thing that makes you happy hurts you, then do something else to be happy!" Well, yeah, but that doesn't really provide a novel perspective on the issue, or offer a potential solution. It doesn't even really explore in-depth what "unhealthiness" truly means. Obesity is one of the simplest forms of unhealthiness; there are more subtly damaging things that I'd love to read about. I didn't think your whole article was about drug users; that was just the one part of your article that stood out to be as particularly wrongheaded. The rest of it didn't strike me as being interesting enough to warrant comment, if you don't mind my saying so. It's a run-of-the-mill commentary on people being unhappy who ought to be happy, problem's hard to solve, society enables unhappiness, people won't you stop being so fat.

cullenking 16y ago

Great point all around. The author also didn't take into account that poverty drives obesity arguably more than his happiness theory. Unhealthy food is much cheaper than healthier food - look at the menu of McDonalds vs the price of fresh vegetables, breads etc. You can mitigate this to a point with bulk foods, however that requires an initial investment which is often not possible for a poor family.

derefr 16y ago
You could argue that poverty drives unhappiness, which supports his original argument.
dools 16y ago
I'm interested to know where you live that this is true! The only reasons I can imagine poverty would lead to poor food choice is lack of education or lack of facilities to prepare meals (ie. those living in transient conditions). I come from Australia and can whole heartedly say that if you know the basics of food preparation and have access to a kitchen eating healthily is like a fifth of the cost of eating McDonalds!
- jonathanwallace 16y ago
  Urban areas are noted for their lack of quality grocery stores: http://www.google.com/search?aq=0&oq=lack+of+grocery+stores&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=lack+of+grocery+stores+in+urban+areas http://www.google.com/search?aq=0&oq=lack+of+grocery+sto... When you factor in travel costs and time, the price inequality between cheap fast food and good quality food is exacerbated.
- cullenking 16y ago
  Sorry for the late reply. I live in Portland Oregon, USA. Last time I checked, a person can eat at McDonalds for $1-2 per meal if they don't mind eating the same thing all the time. It's hard without buying bulk staples like rice, beans etc to buy and cook for a family for that cheap.

thesz 16y ago

>Does listening to shitty pop music count as a bad way to achieve happiness? My answer is definite "yes". When I ask taxi drivers why are they constantly listen to music, I often get an answer along the lines "but it too sad and lonely without it". They change their natural emotions to those from radio. PS The best answer I get is "without music, there are all kind of thoughts starting to pop in my head".

rkalla 16y ago

rory, you got so hung up on my reference to drug that you decided to ignore the point. The paragraph "Like, I'm uncertain if he's saying..." neither of those summaries were what I was saying. I re-read the article twice to see if I was mis-stating something that made it sound how you described it and I couldn't see it... let me know if I missed something. It sounded to me like you saw "drug use" and "bad" in the same article and personalized the entire thing into an attack against you and "your favorite people" -- that's not what the article is about. The article points out how people chase happiness with easily accessible things; sometimes unhealthy things. I was looking at human behavior regarding over-eating highly satiating foods to quickly and easily compensate for unhappiness as an indicator that if we readily provide mechanism for even higher happiness boosts (assuming there weren't the stigma there is now around drugs) a good majority of people would likely use it. No where in the article did I comment on recreational use. The entire article was about ABUSE. From your closing paragraph, it sounded like you were talking about people using Ayahuasca/Peyote/LSD/whatever to gain moments of total clarity and shut off the mind. I think there are likely huge, legit benefits to these types of practices, but that isn't what I was talking about. Just like I wasn't saying that anyone that eats fastfood should be ashamed of themselves and are lesser people. I wrote an article about people's tendency to abuse substances to make themselves feel happy in a fast-paced world where we can't all sit on mountain tops and think. In that world, I think it's CAN BE dangerous to a large majority of people to have easy access to destructive things that make them feel happy that they might abuse. Again, I am not denouncing "drug users" as lesser humans. You could replace the word "drugs" in the article with "fast food" or "compulsive shopping" or "illegal street racing" --- the point is still the same.

rorymarinich 16y ago
Hey, Riyad! Glad you dropped by! It's not that I disagree with the larger point you're making. It's that I'm not certain quite why you outlined it in the way you did. (Actually, probably it's just that you wrote it without thinking too hard about it, which is totally how I wrote my most-known posts, so I completely understand.) If your primary issue is that people will take easy alternatives to happiness if it means avoiding more difficult but more satisfying approaches, then write an article about that specifically rather than shoehorning it in as a topic, because that's a very complicated issue that requires some breathing room of its own. As it happens, your article sounds more like: "If the thing that makes you happy hurts you, then do something else to be happy!" Well, yeah, but that doesn't really provide a novel perspective on the issue, or offer a potential solution. It doesn't even really explore in-depth what "unhealthiness" truly means. Obesity is one of the simplest forms of unhealthiness; there are more subtly damaging things that I'd love to read about. I didn't think your whole article was about drug users; that was just the one part of your article that stood out to be as particularly wrongheaded. The rest of it didn't strike me as being interesting enough to warrant comment, if you don't mind my saying so. It's a run-of-the-mill commentary on people being unhappy who ought to be happy, problem's hard to solve, society enables unhappiness, people won't you stop being so fat.