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I really like this point of view, but it is important to point out that the bar for happiness in life and relationships (as a proxy for "reproduction) is way be

I really like this point of view, but it is important to point out that the bar for happiness in life and relationships (as a proxy for "reproduction) is way below our aspirations. You aren't really trying to be like Instagram influenceres because of your "selfish gene". Your "selfish gene" would do better directing you toward fundamentalist communities where reproductive rates are higher. No, you are being influenced by media, which convinces you that things are a proxy for happiness and good relationships. It's the materialism that fuels our economic progress so I am not against it. But if you think you are in a rat race for money and success, it's because of human nature, not genetic survival.

mgolawala 6y ago
Hasn't Human nature itself been crafted by evolutionary forces? It is conceivable that our ancestors that were more laid back and content were more likely to be out competed by those who were hungry for power and prestige. In fact, as an example, isn't there some often quoted statistic about half a percentage of all living humans having descended from Genghis Khan?
- georgeecollins 6y ago
  Human nature may be crafted by evolutionary forces, but that doesn't mean that human behavious do is always in service of biological evolution. The idea about people coming from Genghis Khan is unrepresentative in a couple ways. First, that a large number of people have a common ancestor does not mean that the common ancestor was in fact Genghis Khan. It could have been someone else associated with the Mongol conquest. Second, six hundred years from now you or I may have a lot of ancestors, assuming you have kids (I already do). There is nothing remarkable about that.
  - bausano_michael 6y ago
    More on this topic in a recent HN submission and its associated discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24686904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24686904
  - mgolawala 6y ago
    Fair point. I see what you are saying. I was focusing on the innate human nature side of things, but I have to agree, the behavior that actually manifests through conspicuous consumption is being heavily influenced by media and advertising.
- hinkley 6y ago
  I had a libertarian coworker who didn't understand why people didn't just vote with their feet on all of this stuff. The closest I got to explaining it to him is that Advertising as a profession in the US is the successor to WWII psychological warfare. People are being paid to use your instincts and your worst impulses against you. All day. Every day. It started out weaponized, and now it's industrialized. To opt out requires a level of enlightenment (literally and figuratively) that few invest in, and some doubt they could achieve even if it were a priority. We have black hat hackers attacking our brains, and only occasionally do the white hat hackers get any sort of publicity, and some of those have less substance but are more approachable than the real experts. These people are almost always standing on the shoulders of giants, and thus their work feels derivative (eg, Marie Kondo), which is off-putting to people. Their style-over-substance makes them in effect hyper-palatable people, which is a form of cognitive dissonance with the message.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
war1025 6y ago
> No, you are being influenced by media, which convinces you that things are a proxy for happiness and good relationships The Fight Club line has always really resonated with me: "We work jobs we hate to buy shit we don't need" Live below your means. Tune out from all the consumerism. Suddenly you find that you have enough savings built up that you could support yourself for multiple years without working. Now you are no longer willing to put up with as much at work. Oddly, this builds a sort of respect from people and they bother you less. Now you have excellent work life balance and more than you could ever want. And really the key to it all is just not wanting so much. (Also try to keep the freak-accident / illness destroying your life type stuff out your mind.)
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  This works without kids. If you have kids, then typically you desire to give them the best available options, and that then means living in higher priced neighborhoods with higher achieving student populations. And then your kid befriends another kid whose parents are doctors/lawyers/engineers/business owners, and they want to don vacation or camp with them and you need to pony up a few hundred or thousand dollars and so on and so forth.
  - war1025 6y ago
    > This is fine, until you have kids I have three. If anything they have more options, they just have less concrete things.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      Perhaps, but the common wisdom is to buy the "cheapest house in the best neighborhood", or "its who you know, not what you know" or "you are the friends you keep". Maybe those aren't true, maybe they're true up to a certain point, but in my experience, people will stretch their budget to put their kids in the better schools, and the rat race starts there. This might not be an issue if you're already a dual professional household earning $200k+ or something where you're deciding between $600k vs $1M houses, but more for whether or not a $80k income family should stretch and buy a $400k house or stick to a $300k house. (numbers aren't accurate, just trying to show that there exists a tier of society that does have to make those tough choices between living comfortably within their means and offering their kids a meaningfully higher probability of future advancement). I used to meet people in the NYC area who commuted 1+ hour each way everyday to work 8AM to 6PM at least, they were all doing it so their kids go to the best school district they could afford. I felt sad for them since it basically meant very little time with the kids during the weekdays, no gym, no visiting friends/family, cooking, but they all did it.
majormajor 6y ago
Would advertising be so effective if we weren't bored? A deficit of things we "have" to do have made boredom a common thing in modern life instead of a rarity reserved for monks or nobility. And so so many of these things we do are seeking stimulation and novelty, not reproductive success. You have to find other answers to the "what do you want to do" and "how will you mentally satisfy yourself" problems if you opt out. They won't solve themselves.
cambalache 6y ago
> Your "selfish gene" would do better directing you toward fundamentalist communities where reproductive rates are higher. That's not like the selfish gene theory work at all. In species where sex is involved, the "quality" of the genes of your partner is as much as important for the destiny of your genes as the fact you are reproducing. That's why sports stars and millionaires marry and have kids with beautiful models instead of getting pregnant 1000 plain Janes. It does not make so much sense since in modern society the survival rate is pretty high, but as the usually repeated mantra says ;"we humans are machines living in the current world with a 200k-year-old firmware "
ErikAugust 6y ago
Very likely you are being heavily influenced by the media when you consider the average American, for example, consumes eight hours of it a day: https://www.eaj.io/eight-hours-a-day/ https://www.eaj.io/eight-hours-a-day/ Sleep, Work, Consume Media...

mgolawala 6y ago

Hasn't Human nature itself been crafted by evolutionary forces? It is conceivable that our ancestors that were more laid back and content were more likely to be out competed by those who were hungry for power and prestige. In fact, as an example, isn't there some often quoted statistic about half a percentage of all living humans having descended from Genghis Khan?

georgeecollins 6y ago
Human nature may be crafted by evolutionary forces, but that doesn't mean that human behavious do is always in service of biological evolution. The idea about people coming from Genghis Khan is unrepresentative in a couple ways. First, that a large number of people have a common ancestor does not mean that the common ancestor was in fact Genghis Khan. It could have been someone else associated with the Mongol conquest. Second, six hundred years from now you or I may have a lot of ancestors, assuming you have kids (I already do). There is nothing remarkable about that.
- bausano_michael 6y ago
  More on this topic in a recent HN submission and its associated discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24686904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24686904
- mgolawala 6y ago
  Fair point. I see what you are saying. I was focusing on the innate human nature side of things, but I have to agree, the behavior that actually manifests through conspicuous consumption is being heavily influenced by media and advertising.
hinkley 6y ago
I had a libertarian coworker who didn't understand why people didn't just vote with their feet on all of this stuff. The closest I got to explaining it to him is that Advertising as a profession in the US is the successor to WWII psychological warfare. People are being paid to use your instincts and your worst impulses against you. All day. Every day. It started out weaponized, and now it's industrialized. To opt out requires a level of enlightenment (literally and figuratively) that few invest in, and some doubt they could achieve even if it were a priority. We have black hat hackers attacking our brains, and only occasionally do the white hat hackers get any sort of publicity, and some of those have less substance but are more approachable than the real experts. These people are almost always standing on the shoulders of giants, and thus their work feels derivative (eg, Marie Kondo), which is off-putting to people. Their style-over-substance makes them in effect hyper-palatable people, which is a form of cognitive dissonance with the message.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

war1025 6y ago

> No, you are being influenced by media, which convinces you that things are a proxy for happiness and good relationships The Fight Club line has always really resonated with me: "We work jobs we hate to buy shit we don't need" Live below your means. Tune out from all the consumerism. Suddenly you find that you have enough savings built up that you could support yourself for multiple years without working. Now you are no longer willing to put up with as much at work. Oddly, this builds a sort of respect from people and they bother you less. Now you have excellent work life balance and more than you could ever want. And really the key to it all is just not wanting so much. (Also try to keep the freak-accident / illness destroying your life type stuff out your mind.)

lotsofpulp 6y ago
This works without kids. If you have kids, then typically you desire to give them the best available options, and that then means living in higher priced neighborhoods with higher achieving student populations. And then your kid befriends another kid whose parents are doctors/lawyers/engineers/business owners, and they want to don vacation or camp with them and you need to pony up a few hundred or thousand dollars and so on and so forth.
- war1025 6y ago
  > This is fine, until you have kids I have three. If anything they have more options, they just have less concrete things.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    Perhaps, but the common wisdom is to buy the "cheapest house in the best neighborhood", or "its who you know, not what you know" or "you are the friends you keep". Maybe those aren't true, maybe they're true up to a certain point, but in my experience, people will stretch their budget to put their kids in the better schools, and the rat race starts there. This might not be an issue if you're already a dual professional household earning $200k+ or something where you're deciding between $600k vs $1M houses, but more for whether or not a $80k income family should stretch and buy a $400k house or stick to a $300k house. (numbers aren't accurate, just trying to show that there exists a tier of society that does have to make those tough choices between living comfortably within their means and offering their kids a meaningfully higher probability of future advancement). I used to meet people in the NYC area who commuted 1+ hour each way everyday to work 8AM to 6PM at least, they were all doing it so their kids go to the best school district they could afford. I felt sad for them since it basically meant very little time with the kids during the weekdays, no gym, no visiting friends/family, cooking, but they all did it.

majormajor 6y ago

Would advertising be so effective if we weren't bored? A deficit of things we "have" to do have made boredom a common thing in modern life instead of a rarity reserved for monks or nobility. And so so many of these things we do are seeking stimulation and novelty, not reproductive success. You have to find other answers to the "what do you want to do" and "how will you mentally satisfy yourself" problems if you opt out. They won't solve themselves.

cambalache 6y ago

> Your "selfish gene" would do better directing you toward fundamentalist communities where reproductive rates are higher. That's not like the selfish gene theory work at all. In species where sex is involved, the "quality" of the genes of your partner is as much as important for the destiny of your genes as the fact you are reproducing. That's why sports stars and millionaires marry and have kids with beautiful models instead of getting pregnant 1000 plain Janes. It does not make so much sense since in modern society the survival rate is pretty high, but as the usually repeated mantra says ;"we humans are machines living in the current world with a 200k-year-old firmware "

ErikAugust 6y ago

Very likely you are being heavily influenced by the media when you consider the average American, for example, consumes eight hours of it a day: https://www.eaj.io/eight-hours-a-day/ https://www.eaj.io/eight-hours-a-day/ Sleep, Work, Consume Media...