5 ms·

This is just an extremely poorly informed rant. It's premised on a zero-sum view of economics, where any change in distribution is necessarily a loss for some a

This is just an extremely poorly informed rant. It's premised on a zero-sum view of economics, where any change in distribution is necessarily a loss for some and a gain for others. And a view that the shape of the distribution, rather than its height, is the only factor in quality of life. These are both profoundly misguided. In the last several decades QoL has improved dramatically, as has the amount of disposable income available to every household: the distribution is higher. And the main reason for increasing inequality in the distribution, is the rate of investment returns... ie., different rates of gain -- not money being "stolen".

marginalia_nu 5y ago
How would you counter someone who argues that given hedonic adaptation, they'll be roughly as happy regardless of QoL as long as their base needs are met.
- rosndo 5y ago
  Research has largely shown this theory to be false. Recent one: https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/money-matters-to-happiness-perhaps-more-than-previously-thought https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/money-matters-to-happiness-...
  - marginalia_nu 5y ago
    This does not agree with my experience of the world. Where is this research? --edit-- Ok, you edited in a link. Do you have like a metanalysis or something? Individual studies, especially in psychology with its myriad quality problems[1], are hard to take at face value without context. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/
    - rosndo 5y ago
      Probably the most recent one https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2016976118 https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2016976118 In my experience this is obviously true.
      - john_minsk 5y ago
        Here is my experience and why I believe some level of "optimal income" exists: A. You start your life at this level based on what life your family can afford. You can't control it, you can just adapt. You get used to it and that is your base level. You have some "needs" that were not possible at this level and this is your ambition level. B. Depending on a lot of factors you can go in any direction from level A. If you have a lot of motivation - you will work hard and if you are lucky - you will get to higher levels, if not - you can even degrade compared to the level your parents are in. Most of the things that you dreamed of as a child will not be at the billionaire level. Probably most things will be at the level C, which is slightly higher than what your parents had (depends on a lot of factors like your character etc.) C. This is the level where you probably fulfilled all your child dreams and wants. You can afford everything your parents could + something on top of it. This is usually the easiest level to get to - you can get here by exploiting tools of level B given to you by your parents + smart work from your side. While you fulfil your child dreams you start become smarter as well and some of the crazy child dreams, which seemed genius (buy 100 Lego boxes and build the most epic Star Wars fleet among my friends) now seem irrelevant and is not worth the resources. If you haven't reached level C - additional resources will bring you happiness doesn't matter if this level is at 75000 or 1M. If you reached it you have a decision to make. D. Next level after C. It is much more harder and riskier to reach it. You might need to sacrifice your family, time and life to reach it. But all your basic wants and needs are met. So now you face a few great options: 1. You can keep increasing your needs and now your level C becomes your level B and D becomes your new level C. This comes with the risk to lose your ground at the level C and get back to Level B or lower. You become unhappy again before you reach your new level C. 2. You can stop raising your needs, give it some time and/or hard work and cement your position at level C. Diversify, deleverage, lower risk profile etc. This works toward your feeling of security, which increases happiness, but not to the extent of new needs. 3. You can do #1+#2 and reach level #2 faster with higher risk. As you can see at the level D you are looking for a mindset change. Before that you had a clear goal of "why do I need more money", but when you are at the level D you have to come up with new goals. This is the most exciting place to be in my mind. See Anton Kreil's "Build and Own Your Own Infrastructure" - this talk changed my perspective on my personal financial goals.
      - 5y ago
    - rosndo 5y ago
      The study I linked references many prior studies. I agree with you regarding the quality problems of psychology, but this is unfortunately what we have to work with. What do you think is the gold standard study supporting hedonic adaptation over large populations? At least the studies referenced on Wikipedia don’t seem to be particularly supportive of the idea. I suspect that this is a comforting idea that people like to believe, but not actually something supported by data.
      - marginalia_nu 5y ago
        I'm not sure subjective experience is something that can be empirically studied in a meaningful way. The fact that you are asking someone how they feel makes them feel different to how they would have felt if you didn't ask, and how you pose the question impacts the answer as well. This is effect is so profound it's used in therapy. A therapist may have you note how you feel at points during the day, and the act of doing so changes how you feel. This combination of observer effect and suggestion is really hard to avoid even if you try, it's very easy to manufacture results based on how you phrase the question.
  - RyanHamilton 5y ago
    >>given hedonic adaptation, they'll be roughly as happy >>Research has largely shown this theory to be false. The research you link does NOT show that, it looks at a link between log(income) to happiness level. 1. It says nothing about hedonic adaptation as it does not take into account how long the person has been receiving that income. How their happiness shifted over time relative to income. 2. It does find a link between log(income) and happiness. If anything, given that happiness likely relies on multiple factors, and that the relationship is log, i.e. diminishing returns. It suggests a weakening link as income increases.
- roenxi 5y ago
  Happiness isn't the be all and end all. Even if that is true we should take actions that make life objectively better - doing things that increase lifespans, health, leisure, safety, etc.
  - marginalia_nu 5y ago
    Why should we objectively improve life when life is subjectively experienced?
    - roenxi 5y ago
      Why shouldn't we? If we start by assuming that happiness naturally tends to some constant level, then the obvious thing to do is use something other than happiness not make decisions. Material outcomes are easy to coordinate around.
      - marginalia_nu 5y ago
        Right, but shouldn't society cater to the humans that live in it, rather than demonstrably incorrect mathematical models of the same humans?
- mjburgess 5y ago
  I think the only people who get angry at the shape of the distribution are those who get angry at the shape of the distribution. In other words, envy towards "the better off" is not a general feature of human experience. It is of some, but not all. One of the cultural triumphs of the west has been, somehow who knows, to mitigate envy (ie., hostility towards those who have more). So that most people today think "I'm grateful that I can do xyz, who cares that Musk can do o,p,q". People who write articles like this are the people "on the (envy) treadmill", and this isnt a cheap attack: they really are suffering! For them, it is a daily stress to see others have more. Society should do more to understand how this comes about, and what can be done to ameliorate this issue. It seems most acute in the "almost rich", i'm guessing because the condition of being rich seems available, but they cant get it. Whereas poorer people don't even think its an option. Given the amount of such possible "elites" we are producing today, who will never be elite, this is a politically unstable situation.
  - andrepd 5y ago
    Income inequality has risen dramatically since the onset of modern neoliberal financialised capitalism. Even though workers produce more, their wages have been stagnant or receding in real terms for the last 40-50 years. Nearly all of the gains have went only to a very small percentage of people. Even though value is created by all, it's appropriated by less and less people, in a more and more skewed distribution. And your argument is "yall just jealous lol"? People just want what's theirs. When the wealthiest country in world history has 1 in 6 children living in poverty, I really think you ought to look at yourself in the mirror when you talk about "envy".
  - pharmakom 5y ago
    It’s not about me (relatively wealthy denizen of HN) but people choosing between food and rent. It bothers me that some people are in this situation whilst others have so much wealth that they never have to work a day, if they choose to. I don’t mind some inequality, but I think don’t think we should tolerate such a low floor when the ceiling is so high.
    - mjburgess 5y ago
kesor 5y ago
The main point is the productivity/production has been shifted elsewhere. Once upon a time if you wanted to be wealthy, you had to produce physical stuff. Today you just find somewhere else in the world where people are forced to produce for pennies and you make them produce cheap crap for you, while the west does a lot less production than its potential and mostly just reaps the benefits. But the problem is not that production was mostly removed as the enabler to buy stuff. The real huge problem in the last 45 years is that the constraints on financing were removed. Once upon a time in order to buy cheap labor from another country, you had to pay with something physical, probably something you actually produced. Today you can just punch a key on your keyboard and give them extra numbers that are backed by nothing really, there is no need to produce anymore. When the only constraint on production is to find more fools to produce for you, eventually you run out of fools.
- Broken_Hippo 5y ago
  "The main point is the productivity/production has been shifted elsewhere. Once upon a time if you wanted to be wealthy, you had to produce physical stuff. Today you just find somewhere else in the world where people are forced to produce for pennies and you make them produce cheap crap for you, while the west does a lot less production than its potential and mostly just reaps the benefits." This just isn't true. People were wealthy slave owners and got rich because you had forced labor. You didn't even have to pay them pennies. We have a long history of unpaid labor, globally, and the fact that we still have low-and-unpaid labor shouldn't be a surprise (even if we find it wrong now). Lawyers have been somewhat well-to-do for some generations now, alongside other things you had to go off to college for, and I'm not sure they produced anything either. Perhaps not in the US, but churches were freaking wealthy at one time too, and I can't really think of things they consistently produced either. Same for royals: They didn't directly produce anything.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Taking away someone else’s best option rarely leaves that person better off (especially in the short-run)

marginalia_nu 5y ago

How would you counter someone who argues that given hedonic adaptation, they'll be roughly as happy regardless of QoL as long as their base needs are met.

rosndo 5y ago
Research has largely shown this theory to be false. Recent one: https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/money-matters-to-happiness-perhaps-more-than-previously-thought https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/money-matters-to-happiness-...
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  This does not agree with my experience of the world. Where is this research? --edit-- Ok, you edited in a link. Do you have like a metanalysis or something? Individual studies, especially in psychology with its myriad quality problems[1], are hard to take at face value without context. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/
  - rosndo 5y ago
    Probably the most recent one https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2016976118 https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2016976118 In my experience this is obviously true.
    - john_minsk 5y ago
      Here is my experience and why I believe some level of "optimal income" exists: A. You start your life at this level based on what life your family can afford. You can't control it, you can just adapt. You get used to it and that is your base level. You have some "needs" that were not possible at this level and this is your ambition level. B. Depending on a lot of factors you can go in any direction from level A. If you have a lot of motivation - you will work hard and if you are lucky - you will get to higher levels, if not - you can even degrade compared to the level your parents are in. Most of the things that you dreamed of as a child will not be at the billionaire level. Probably most things will be at the level C, which is slightly higher than what your parents had (depends on a lot of factors like your character etc.) C. This is the level where you probably fulfilled all your child dreams and wants. You can afford everything your parents could + something on top of it. This is usually the easiest level to get to - you can get here by exploiting tools of level B given to you by your parents + smart work from your side. While you fulfil your child dreams you start become smarter as well and some of the crazy child dreams, which seemed genius (buy 100 Lego boxes and build the most epic Star Wars fleet among my friends) now seem irrelevant and is not worth the resources. If you haven't reached level C - additional resources will bring you happiness doesn't matter if this level is at 75000 or 1M. If you reached it you have a decision to make. D. Next level after C. It is much more harder and riskier to reach it. You might need to sacrifice your family, time and life to reach it. But all your basic wants and needs are met. So now you face a few great options: 1. You can keep increasing your needs and now your level C becomes your level B and D becomes your new level C. This comes with the risk to lose your ground at the level C and get back to Level B or lower. You become unhappy again before you reach your new level C. 2. You can stop raising your needs, give it some time and/or hard work and cement your position at level C. Diversify, deleverage, lower risk profile etc. This works toward your feeling of security, which increases happiness, but not to the extent of new needs. 3. You can do #1+#2 and reach level #2 faster with higher risk. As you can see at the level D you are looking for a mindset change. Before that you had a clear goal of "why do I need more money", but when you are at the level D you have to come up with new goals. This is the most exciting place to be in my mind. See Anton Kreil's "Build and Own Your Own Infrastructure" - this talk changed my perspective on my personal financial goals.
    - 5y ago
  - rosndo 5y ago
    The study I linked references many prior studies. I agree with you regarding the quality problems of psychology, but this is unfortunately what we have to work with. What do you think is the gold standard study supporting hedonic adaptation over large populations? At least the studies referenced on Wikipedia don’t seem to be particularly supportive of the idea. I suspect that this is a comforting idea that people like to believe, but not actually something supported by data.
    - marginalia_nu 5y ago
      I'm not sure subjective experience is something that can be empirically studied in a meaningful way. The fact that you are asking someone how they feel makes them feel different to how they would have felt if you didn't ask, and how you pose the question impacts the answer as well. This is effect is so profound it's used in therapy. A therapist may have you note how you feel at points during the day, and the act of doing so changes how you feel. This combination of observer effect and suggestion is really hard to avoid even if you try, it's very easy to manufacture results based on how you phrase the question.
- RyanHamilton 5y ago
  >>given hedonic adaptation, they'll be roughly as happy >>Research has largely shown this theory to be false. The research you link does NOT show that, it looks at a link between log(income) to happiness level. 1. It says nothing about hedonic adaptation as it does not take into account how long the person has been receiving that income. How their happiness shifted over time relative to income. 2. It does find a link between log(income) and happiness. If anything, given that happiness likely relies on multiple factors, and that the relationship is log, i.e. diminishing returns. It suggests a weakening link as income increases.
roenxi 5y ago
Happiness isn't the be all and end all. Even if that is true we should take actions that make life objectively better - doing things that increase lifespans, health, leisure, safety, etc.
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  Why should we objectively improve life when life is subjectively experienced?
  - roenxi 5y ago
    Why shouldn't we? If we start by assuming that happiness naturally tends to some constant level, then the obvious thing to do is use something other than happiness not make decisions. Material outcomes are easy to coordinate around.
    - marginalia_nu 5y ago
      Right, but shouldn't society cater to the humans that live in it, rather than demonstrably incorrect mathematical models of the same humans?
mjburgess 5y ago
I think the only people who get angry at the shape of the distribution are those who get angry at the shape of the distribution. In other words, envy towards "the better off" is not a general feature of human experience. It is of some, but not all. One of the cultural triumphs of the west has been, somehow who knows, to mitigate envy (ie., hostility towards those who have more). So that most people today think "I'm grateful that I can do xyz, who cares that Musk can do o,p,q". People who write articles like this are the people "on the (envy) treadmill", and this isnt a cheap attack: they really are suffering! For them, it is a daily stress to see others have more. Society should do more to understand how this comes about, and what can be done to ameliorate this issue. It seems most acute in the "almost rich", i'm guessing because the condition of being rich seems available, but they cant get it. Whereas poorer people don't even think its an option. Given the amount of such possible "elites" we are producing today, who will never be elite, this is a politically unstable situation.
- andrepd 5y ago
  Income inequality has risen dramatically since the onset of modern neoliberal financialised capitalism. Even though workers produce more, their wages have been stagnant or receding in real terms for the last 40-50 years. Nearly all of the gains have went only to a very small percentage of people. Even though value is created by all, it's appropriated by less and less people, in a more and more skewed distribution. And your argument is "yall just jealous lol"? People just want what's theirs. When the wealthiest country in world history has 1 in 6 children living in poverty, I really think you ought to look at yourself in the mirror when you talk about "envy".
- pharmakom 5y ago
  It’s not about me (relatively wealthy denizen of HN) but people choosing between food and rent. It bothers me that some people are in this situation whilst others have so much wealth that they never have to work a day, if they choose to. I don’t mind some inequality, but I think don’t think we should tolerate such a low floor when the ceiling is so high.
  - mjburgess 5y ago

kesor 5y ago

The main point is the productivity/production has been shifted elsewhere. Once upon a time if you wanted to be wealthy, you had to produce physical stuff. Today you just find somewhere else in the world where people are forced to produce for pennies and you make them produce cheap crap for you, while the west does a lot less production than its potential and mostly just reaps the benefits. But the problem is not that production was mostly removed as the enabler to buy stuff. The real huge problem in the last 45 years is that the constraints on financing were removed. Once upon a time in order to buy cheap labor from another country, you had to pay with something physical, probably something you actually produced. Today you can just punch a key on your keyboard and give them extra numbers that are backed by nothing really, there is no need to produce anymore. When the only constraint on production is to find more fools to produce for you, eventually you run out of fools.

Broken_Hippo 5y ago
"The main point is the productivity/production has been shifted elsewhere. Once upon a time if you wanted to be wealthy, you had to produce physical stuff. Today you just find somewhere else in the world where people are forced to produce for pennies and you make them produce cheap crap for you, while the west does a lot less production than its potential and mostly just reaps the benefits." This just isn't true. People were wealthy slave owners and got rich because you had forced labor. You didn't even have to pay them pennies. We have a long history of unpaid labor, globally, and the fact that we still have low-and-unpaid labor shouldn't be a surprise (even if we find it wrong now). Lawyers have been somewhat well-to-do for some generations now, alongside other things you had to go off to college for, and I'm not sure they produced anything either. Perhaps not in the US, but churches were freaking wealthy at one time too, and I can't really think of things they consistently produced either. Same for royals: They didn't directly produce anything.
sokoloff 5y ago
Taking away someone else’s best option rarely leaves that person better off (especially in the short-run)