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Happiness is relative to expectation. Most people reading this will never feel extreme hunger and have all their material needs met forever, but they will prob

Happiness is relative to expectation. Most people reading this will never feel extreme hunger and have all their material needs met forever, but they will probably also go through things that to them, feel like miserable failures. You might even be forced to leave your cushy jobs and take an annual salary that is what 50 African laborers make in year. And it will possibly take years, maybe well over a decade, to live down how bad you feel about yourself.

colechristensen 7y ago
Zoom out from specific circumstances and it seems like human misery is fairly constant. Whether you're scrambling around the forest looking for berries and killing things to eat with pointy sticks or working an office job living in a suburb – I don't really think your emotional experience really changes all that much. I think your misery and delight are driven by the best and worst things in your life and it doesn't really matter all that much what your circumstances are. When things get better you find new things to be miserable about, when things get worse you stop caring about the little things and your misery is driven by the new worst thing. I don't see standard of living really driving all that much happiness. Maybe some, but much less than I think most people expect.
- paulmd 7y ago
  Spoken like someone who can't comprehend living hand to mouth. Happiness is definitely a hockey-stick shaped curve, going from 1M to 10M is not going to make you happier, but someone who is making $100k is going to be far far happier than someone making $20k. The difference between scrabbling to pay your bills and keep the heat on, vs actually having some savings and free money for recreation, is absolutely massive.
  - Aeolun 7y ago
    I’m not so certain about that actually, I’ve certainly seen people making $20k that had more free money and recreation time than some people making $100k. Especially as regards recreation time. To be fair, making $20k was almost always a choice in those cases.
    - kuzimoto 7y ago
      How were those people living? Are they single people in their mid 20s with no significant other or kids? Are they making enough to put some towards retirement? I guess if you're willing to sacrifice some things it could work. You're definitely not raising a family of 3-4 in a nicer neighborhood with that amount.
      - drblast 7y ago
        Not everyone considers it a sacrifice to not be married or have kids. For the people who do fewer than half of them are happy that way. We're all pretty bad at knowing what will make us happy in advance.
        kuzimoto 7y ago
        I'm not exactly saying not having a family is a sacrifice, but where you want to live. The cheapest apartment I could find in my area (before kids/marriage) was about $700 and that's a few cities away in a no-so-great area where cops were getting called to our neighbors every few days. I could go closer to downtown and be in a worse area. With kids, the cheaper areas have generally worse schools, parks, etc.
      - afcapel 7y ago
        The median annual household income worldwide is about 10k/year. 20k/year puts you in the 91st percentile globally for person income. So it's perfectly possible to live with that money, most people in the world do.
        kuzimoto 7y ago
        I figured we were talking mostly about US, so technically until you're a family of 3 you're not living in poverty, which seems pretty reasonable. It also probably greatly depends on where you live. Housing prices closer to major/wealthy cities are more expensive. Having an income of 20k/year in US puts you at like 16th percentile.
        7y ago
- Mirioron 7y ago
  I think this is also the reason why humans strive to do better. If we're never satisfied with what we have then the only solution is to do even better!
- IG_Semmelweiss 7y ago
  Not quite. The misery in human condition can be correlated to the number of problem(s) one is dealing with at any given time. Hunter gatherers dealy with a very distrete problem: no food. That may seem distressing, but its a straightforward problem to solve. You can see that misery is not the same, when the rate of suicide and addiction is vastly greater today than it is in primitive societies. And to make my point, I leave you with an ancient chinese proverb: No food. One problem. Have food. Many problems.
- cortesoft 7y ago
  > To draw an analogy: a man's suffering is similar to the behavior of a gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the "size" of human suffering is absolutely relative. - Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
- im3w1l 7y ago
  My standard counterargument to this is to look at animals. We know that treating animals better lead to happier animals. Poorly treated and well treated animals do not converge to the same happiness level. I think there are a few key things that drive happiness. Secure food and shelter. Short commute. Nature. Being able to walk away from toxic jobs and relationships.
  - pvaldes 7y ago
    > treating animals better lead to happier animals Treating animals fairly lead to happier animals. Transform your puppy in an spoiled human baby clothed in expensive ribbons or giving vegan food to your cat will not make it happier necessarily (not to mention the neutering clause in the small letter of the contract). Our definitions of better can difer from theirs.

colechristensen 7y ago

Zoom out from specific circumstances and it seems like human misery is fairly constant. Whether you're scrambling around the forest looking for berries and killing things to eat with pointy sticks or working an office job living in a suburb – I don't really think your emotional experience really changes all that much. I think your misery and delight are driven by the best and worst things in your life and it doesn't really matter all that much what your circumstances are. When things get better you find new things to be miserable about, when things get worse you stop caring about the little things and your misery is driven by the new worst thing. I don't see standard of living really driving all that much happiness. Maybe some, but much less than I think most people expect.

paulmd 7y ago
Spoken like someone who can't comprehend living hand to mouth. Happiness is definitely a hockey-stick shaped curve, going from 1M to 10M is not going to make you happier, but someone who is making $100k is going to be far far happier than someone making $20k. The difference between scrabbling to pay your bills and keep the heat on, vs actually having some savings and free money for recreation, is absolutely massive.
- Aeolun 7y ago
  I’m not so certain about that actually, I’ve certainly seen people making $20k that had more free money and recreation time than some people making $100k. Especially as regards recreation time. To be fair, making $20k was almost always a choice in those cases.
  - kuzimoto 7y ago
    How were those people living? Are they single people in their mid 20s with no significant other or kids? Are they making enough to put some towards retirement? I guess if you're willing to sacrifice some things it could work. You're definitely not raising a family of 3-4 in a nicer neighborhood with that amount.
    - drblast 7y ago
      Not everyone considers it a sacrifice to not be married or have kids. For the people who do fewer than half of them are happy that way. We're all pretty bad at knowing what will make us happy in advance.
      - kuzimoto 7y ago
        I'm not exactly saying not having a family is a sacrifice, but where you want to live. The cheapest apartment I could find in my area (before kids/marriage) was about $700 and that's a few cities away in a no-so-great area where cops were getting called to our neighbors every few days. I could go closer to downtown and be in a worse area. With kids, the cheaper areas have generally worse schools, parks, etc.
    - afcapel 7y ago
      The median annual household income worldwide is about 10k/year. 20k/year puts you in the 91st percentile globally for person income. So it's perfectly possible to live with that money, most people in the world do.
      - kuzimoto 7y ago
        I figured we were talking mostly about US, so technically until you're a family of 3 you're not living in poverty, which seems pretty reasonable. It also probably greatly depends on where you live. Housing prices closer to major/wealthy cities are more expensive. Having an income of 20k/year in US puts you at like 16th percentile.
      - 7y ago
Mirioron 7y ago
I think this is also the reason why humans strive to do better. If we're never satisfied with what we have then the only solution is to do even better!
IG_Semmelweiss 7y ago
Not quite. The misery in human condition can be correlated to the number of problem(s) one is dealing with at any given time. Hunter gatherers dealy with a very distrete problem: no food. That may seem distressing, but its a straightforward problem to solve. You can see that misery is not the same, when the rate of suicide and addiction is vastly greater today than it is in primitive societies. And to make my point, I leave you with an ancient chinese proverb: No food. One problem. Have food. Many problems.
cortesoft 7y ago
> To draw an analogy: a man's suffering is similar to the behavior of a gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the "size" of human suffering is absolutely relative. - Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
im3w1l 7y ago
My standard counterargument to this is to look at animals. We know that treating animals better lead to happier animals. Poorly treated and well treated animals do not converge to the same happiness level. I think there are a few key things that drive happiness. Secure food and shelter. Short commute. Nature. Being able to walk away from toxic jobs and relationships.
- pvaldes 7y ago
  > treating animals better lead to happier animals Treating animals fairly lead to happier animals. Transform your puppy in an spoiled human baby clothed in expensive ribbons or giving vegan food to your cat will not make it happier necessarily (not to mention the neutering clause in the small letter of the contract). Our definitions of better can difer from theirs.