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> In the long run, creating more understanding of the physical world is probably more universally valuable to human flourishing than the far more parochial 'mak

> In the long run, creating more understanding of the physical world is probably more universally valuable to human flourishing than the far more parochial 'make money number go up' Citation needed. Moreover, dedicating resources to finance can be seen as dedicating resources to better dedicate resources. (I upvoted the article since it's interesting stuff)

WhisperingShiba 5y ago
I think the money number go up thing is not working, and I'm sure study of the physical world is part of the solution, but the biggest gains for our society seem to be in the way we structure our lifes. I think the coming decades, the study of eudaimonia will be key to our advancement as a species. I asserted that using money as a mechanism for gradient ascent is not working. I will walk you through my thinking, since this is an off beat claim. 1) Not all human needs are related to resources. Money cannot buy dignity, or love, and in-fact can generate the opposite of these qualities in one's life. 2) Most 1st World Humans have everything they need, materially, and more 3) Suicide is the ultimate statement of 'I am not having a good time' 4) Wealth is not hugely overwhelmingly correlated with lower suicide rates, with some of the wealthiest countries clocking in the highest rates of suicide. Source: List of countries by suicide rate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate#data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... (Sort by all descending) 5) I believe some other element or spirit is being maximized in happy countries, which also leads to wealth. 6) We should try to maximize a certain social spirit, which then maximizes wealth, instead of trying to directly maximize wealth. 7) GDP is a strange metric, which doesn't directly map to abundance. Yet, socially, we try to maximize it. I think this metric is victim to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law Thoughts?
- convolvatron 5y ago
  i think you're absolutely right. one issue here is kind of 'streetlight' problem. money gets you a crude, and perhaps a counterproductive way of measuring value. but what other metric are you going to use? not an anti-communist, but so far central planning has shown itself to be equally ripe for corruption.
  - WhisperingShiba 5y ago
    I'm not ready to pose a solution (to the problem, of 'what metric do we follow?'), but I agree, central planning is gross. Its likely that there is no numerical method that is going to map to human happiness, and perhaps that's a good thing. I believe that balancing our minds and our heart's influence on our decision is how we should proceed.
- DanBC 5y ago
  > Source: List of countries by suicide rate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... (Sort by all descending) > Thoughts? My thought is please don't do this. You get no useful information. Wikipedia strips out all the necessary context. The source that Wikipedia uses explicitly tells you that comparing rates across countries is difficult and fraught with problems. Heck, comparing rates across a single country - the US - is tricky because they've only just developed a unified definition of "suicide". https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide > Globally, the availability and quality of data on suicide and suicide attempts is poor. Only some 80 Member States have good-quality vital registration data that can be used directly to estimate suicide rates. This problem of poor-quality mortality data is not unique to suicide, but given the sensitivity of suicide – and the illegality of suicidal behaviour in some countries – it is likely that under-reporting and misclassification are greater problems for suicide than for most other causes of death.
  - WhisperingShiba 5y ago
    Ok, so besides my use of data which is very difficult to collect and verify, do you disagree with my statements of money failing to map to love and dignity?
    - barry-cotter 5y ago
      GDP per capita maps excellently to dignity. The richer we get the less grinding, soul sucking poverty there is. The fewer children die of easily preventable diseases. The longer people live. The less people work jobs they hate just because they need sustenance. The more people work jobs they like. The more of their life people spend retired or just not working "in education". Insofar as wealth makes life less nasty and brutish it probably makes life more loving but money buys a lot of dignity.
      - WhisperingShiba 5y ago
        Point taken, and I agree... somewhat based on how you framed it. I believe that we have long gone past the point where people are questioning whether their needs are going to get met (in the United States, which is all I know well). I assert that around the 1990s money started to disconnect with utility generation. Instead of the work week reducing in hours, with the advent of telecommunication, we start getting always-on-call jobs, yet people are paid basically the same. Productivity goes parabolic; median wages stay the same. You have to admit that there is something fishy about this, right? I think we basically have found a method to optimize towards a local maximum in productivity, but we are missing the strategies which lead us to a global maximum. And I think this method of optimization towards the maximum is basically serfdom.
Animats 5y ago
In the long run, creating more understanding of the physical world is probably more universally valuable to human flourishing than the far more parochial 'make money number go up' The Economist once commented that the last subatomic particle to have commercial value was the neutron, discovered in 1932.

WhisperingShiba 5y ago

I think the money number go up thing is not working, and I'm sure study of the physical world is part of the solution, but the biggest gains for our society seem to be in the way we structure our lifes. I think the coming decades, the study of eudaimonia will be key to our advancement as a species. I asserted that using money as a mechanism for gradient ascent is not working. I will walk you through my thinking, since this is an off beat claim. 1) Not all human needs are related to resources. Money cannot buy dignity, or love, and in-fact can generate the opposite of these qualities in one's life. 2) Most 1st World Humans have everything they need, materially, and more 3) Suicide is the ultimate statement of 'I am not having a good time' 4) Wealth is not hugely overwhelmingly correlated with lower suicide rates, with some of the wealthiest countries clocking in the highest rates of suicide. Source: List of countries by suicide rate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate#data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... (Sort by all descending) 5) I believe some other element or spirit is being maximized in happy countries, which also leads to wealth. 6) We should try to maximize a certain social spirit, which then maximizes wealth, instead of trying to directly maximize wealth. 7) GDP is a strange metric, which doesn't directly map to abundance. Yet, socially, we try to maximize it. I think this metric is victim to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law Thoughts?

convolvatron 5y ago
i think you're absolutely right. one issue here is kind of 'streetlight' problem. money gets you a crude, and perhaps a counterproductive way of measuring value. but what other metric are you going to use? not an anti-communist, but so far central planning has shown itself to be equally ripe for corruption.
- WhisperingShiba 5y ago
  I'm not ready to pose a solution (to the problem, of 'what metric do we follow?'), but I agree, central planning is gross. Its likely that there is no numerical method that is going to map to human happiness, and perhaps that's a good thing. I believe that balancing our minds and our heart's influence on our decision is how we should proceed.
DanBC 5y ago
> Source: List of countries by suicide rate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... (Sort by all descending) > Thoughts? My thought is please don't do this. You get no useful information. Wikipedia strips out all the necessary context. The source that Wikipedia uses explicitly tells you that comparing rates across countries is difficult and fraught with problems. Heck, comparing rates across a single country - the US - is tricky because they've only just developed a unified definition of "suicide". https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide > Globally, the availability and quality of data on suicide and suicide attempts is poor. Only some 80 Member States have good-quality vital registration data that can be used directly to estimate suicide rates. This problem of poor-quality mortality data is not unique to suicide, but given the sensitivity of suicide – and the illegality of suicidal behaviour in some countries – it is likely that under-reporting and misclassification are greater problems for suicide than for most other causes of death.
- WhisperingShiba 5y ago
  Ok, so besides my use of data which is very difficult to collect and verify, do you disagree with my statements of money failing to map to love and dignity?
  - barry-cotter 5y ago
    GDP per capita maps excellently to dignity. The richer we get the less grinding, soul sucking poverty there is. The fewer children die of easily preventable diseases. The longer people live. The less people work jobs they hate just because they need sustenance. The more people work jobs they like. The more of their life people spend retired or just not working "in education". Insofar as wealth makes life less nasty and brutish it probably makes life more loving but money buys a lot of dignity.
    - WhisperingShiba 5y ago
      Point taken, and I agree... somewhat based on how you framed it. I believe that we have long gone past the point where people are questioning whether their needs are going to get met (in the United States, which is all I know well). I assert that around the 1990s money started to disconnect with utility generation. Instead of the work week reducing in hours, with the advent of telecommunication, we start getting always-on-call jobs, yet people are paid basically the same. Productivity goes parabolic; median wages stay the same. You have to admit that there is something fishy about this, right? I think we basically have found a method to optimize towards a local maximum in productivity, but we are missing the strategies which lead us to a global maximum. And I think this method of optimization towards the maximum is basically serfdom.

Animats 5y ago

In the long run, creating more understanding of the physical world is probably more universally valuable to human flourishing than the far more parochial 'make money number go up' The Economist once commented that the last subatomic particle to have commercial value was the neutron, discovered in 1932.