No disrespect and no offence meant, but I'll never understand all these privileged people who have a lot of money, and subsequently free time, and still feel this way about their lives.
How come it's always poor, lower/mid class people who don't have enough money that always complain about not being able to do things (hobbies, interests, desires...) and always the rich, upper class people who complain that they don't have an interest in anything since they can have everything :-/
As a social conservative, I disagree with this. Opportunity and will to make use of opportunity are two separate things and usually originate separately. Our will to make use of opportunity may come from necessity, social obligation, or some other developed desire. But this will is NOT innate.
I believe this reality is one reason that diminishing social obligation, to both learn and to teach, to apprentice then master, is important to maintain. I believe this reality is why many progressive policies fall flat.
I'd go further and say that the reason any aristocracy has ever survived for more than a generation is because at the core of all its elaborate culture is a machine built to aggressively indoctrinate its next generation to be extremely moderate and conscious of its use of privileges.
There is a progressive ideological strain that banks its legitimacy on the belief that poverty can be one day eliminated, while traditional varieties of aristocrats believe that concentrated privileged is an inherent part of nature that needs to be managed. A "pure" progressive ideology would rise or fall with its apparent success -- it's also possible to imagine also an impure progressive ideology is a barbershop pole of which the real aristocrats are the ones working to maintain the illusion, stringing everyone else along.
That's how I see it anyway, not that I know what's really going on.
Where I disagree with you is that I don't think this maintenance of a will to use opportunity and social obligation is worth more than the suffering of the people who are coerced by our maintenance of this necessity, or who fail to meet the demands placed on them and experience the consequences of that failure.
Yes, were we stranded together from Shackleton's Endurance hauling sledges, or adrift at sea rowing a lifeboat, or subsistence farming to eke out survival on a desert island, and everyone had to pull their weight or we'd all die, I'd pull my fair weight and I'd advocate for the expulsion of anyone who didn't pull theirs and in so doing imperil the entire group.
No, we are not stranded together in this way on Spaceship Earth. We have enormously greater wealth and resources than we require to sustain our existence. No longer does 90% of society need to devote themselves to farming wheat at 7 bushels per acre to provide bread for a himself and a small fraction in excess that with 40 of his neighbors' farms can support handful of non-farmers for his community like a blacksmith, a miller, a tailor, and a feudal lord. A single tractor can seed, fertilize, or harvest dozens of acres per hour, and achieve yields exceeding 70 bushels per acre. We merely have to distribute the value more equitably, even if the amount of that value is halved, quartered, or decimated by people opting out of the will to work.
I'm not sure why you believe progressives think otherwise.
The thing is, progressives believe that the people at the bottom of the society have circumstances so restricting that they are shoved to harmful choices, while people at the top of the society have, essentially, no constraint.
If you believe in challenges that nudge everyone to participate in a healthy way in the society, then, certainly, you also must want these issues to be fixed?
That is what is like with all life situations. They are mystery until they happen to you. You don't know what cancer is like or the death of a loved one is like until those things happen to you, and you don't know what the boredom of abundance is like until you have it either.
On the latter, the important thing to get is that much more of what motivates us survival driven than most people realize. When survival is sort of guaranteed, a lot of motivation can dry up along with a lot of the juice of life.
Oh well, that's probably because I don't have enough money (and time) to do all the things I want to do :-)
There is a simple and obvious solution to this "abundance boredom": remove the abundance. There. Done. Put all your money in charity or, if that's too altruistic of you, lock it away in investments where you can't get at it easily and force yourself to live off of the national median income (~$38k individual, $70k household in the us).
The thing about being poorer is that you can't do the opposite, so it is quite understandable that no one in a poorer position has any sympathy.
I used to be poor and then I stopped being poor. Long story. Not rich rich, but honestly wilder than any realistic expectations back home.
Here’s what I noticed happens somewhere around the 180k to 250k salary range – you lose the fire in your belly. All the important things are taken care of, you’re easily saving enough money to retire early, nothing really presents a challenge. Oh you wanna go on vacation? Yeah just go. The money will sort itself out. Oh you want to buy a thing you like? Yeah, just buy it. There is no anticipation and excitement about the things that used to be a big treat yo self moment. It’s just easy.
Sure you’re not buying fancy cars and big houses or whatever … but do you really even want to? Really? Those things add nothing substantial to your life. The hedonic treadmill is no lasting fun. Everything you actually need is trivial to obtain.
So for those of us who learned that life is a grind from a young age, life loses some of the luster when the grind becomes unnecessary. Time to look elsewhere for fulfillment.
Fascinating. That may explain why my privileged-from-birth coworkers feel so differently about things than I do.
I also find life without the grind to be dull. It's like an MMO with a finished economy, no leveling up process, everyone just sitting around chatting? LOL. Take me to the new server, plz
When I joined my second job in tech, it was a massive bump in almost every way, and immediately I noticed the people around me were drastically different than the colleagues I had in the previous place, a frivolous tiny start up. The new people had almost no appreciation for money; they moved about like nothing could really go wrong; and while they weren't mean, they were somewhat spoiled and detached from reality.
I remember thinking to myself that no matter how much I make, I don't want to be like them in terms of character.
I know people who were born into wealthy families and hearing their silly complaints about how some miniature detail is not 100% in their otherwise perfect and seemingly challenge-free lives was almost physically painful.
However, it made me realize something too. Being happy and having substance does not directly correlate to how much money you have. Evidently, a lot of very rich people aren't particularly happy, and in this article, the author also found no meaning anywhere until they lost their job.
It's the ability to appreciate whatever you have, your assets, your health, and strive to be a better person, have some goals to aspire to. When I catch myself getting upset about something completely meaningless, I try to remember this.
There is a correlation. There's an ideal income level that correlates with increased overall happiness. Less than that, or more than that, and people will be less happy.
But I agree with your larger point. I've lived destitute, among others who were in grinding poverty, and I've lived privileged, among others with plenty of available money.
I've never noticed that one group is really any happier than the other. Some of the happiest people I've met lived lives that most would think would be miserable, and some of the most miserable people I've met lived lives that most would consider golden.
Happiness is about what's going on inside your mind, not so much about what's going on outside of it.
You could look at this as spoiled, or you could see it as someone who has an eye for detail. I don't know the tone they used, but I can imagine this was more like a Seinfeldesque observation of life thana legitimate gripe.
People with money can definitely live fulfilling and challenging lives. Arnold Schwarzenegger famously said that he works out in part because a tremendous physique cannot be bought, you must work for it every day, so it's a sign of character. You could say the same about musical or sports skill, handcrafted items, or the love of your friends and family.
I tend to look at it like this: humans have a certain base capacity for worrying - for noticing and suffering problems - that's independent of their situations and the nature of problems themselves. Solving problems and improving our lives doesn't reduce worrying, as much as changes the nature of it.
The poor person sees the rich person complaining, and thinks to themselves those are all "first world problems", really nothing to be worked up about. But should said poor person work their way up and become wealthy, they may discover they're suddenly preoccupied by those same problems they used to dismiss as irrelevant.
There's also something to be said for being in vs. out of a certain situations. As a young adult, there ware many weird things I saw older adults worry about - or perhaps make choices based on (what I thought were) weird ethical priorities. Couple years later, with a spouse and two small kids, I find myself worrying about those same weird things, and making similar ethical choices, which suddenly feel entirely justified once you're responsible for and worrying about the physical and mental well-being of a small human under your care.
But yes, on top of that, there's also "having an eye for detail", varying degree of tolerance for minor annoyances, etc. - whole range, up to and including OCD.
It is kind of a half-truth.
A physique can definitely be bought with steroid therapy, free time to exercise as much as you want, great nutrition and being born to parents with good genetics who are loving and caring (height and good body proportions are a proxy for strength)
But compared to say, buying a fancy car or house (other status items), a physique will require comparatively more effort.
At this point, do people even know what tropes Seinfeld is based on?
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunn...
I think generally we have the same values. Honesty, transparency, integrity, expediency, travel, etc. However what we don't share is priority of them. To the author's point, do you value having pets more than you value freedom to travel? Reasonable people could disagree. And there is compromise to be had, but if you're not careful you can get the worst of both worlds by trying to split the difference.
Integrity can be "compromised", be it physical integrity (the structural support of the building was compromised and so it collapsed) or moral integrity (their values were compromised and they did a bad thing).
But compromise can also be a concession in pursuit of a value. My wife and I want to go see a movie. I want to see a horror and she wants to see a romcom. So we compromise and see something that was not a first choice for either of us but that we're both happy with since the superior value being sought was spending time together. The specific movie was a secondary value.
In this second context case I disagree that compromise CREATES value, but after I read the blog I realized that the author didn't even mean what the title literally says. The author is saying that it is difficult for someone to have NO values (in a literal sense this would have to be a very depressed individual who is contemplating suicide since they do not even value their own life). But that some people move through life mindlessly and aimlessly, oblivious to what they value. So much so that they do not consciously value anything. And so once such an individual is "forced" to make compromises then the recognition of values is then forced. I suppose the author's thesis is that forcing a recognition of values could lead to the adoption of values previously unconsidered.
Utopia is no place. Reality is limited. Choose wisely.
Q: 'Does the idea that "given that all decisions are a form of action, and that votes, when made conscientiously, represent our values, then every choice is a reaffirmation of our values" sound nothing like existentialism?'
A: 'The idea that you proposed does indeed align with some aspects of existentialist philosophy, which emphasizes the individual, the subjective, and the importance of personal freedom and choice.
Existentialism posits that life has no inherent meaning, and it's up to each individual to create their own purpose or essence. This philosophy emphasizes the act of decision-making and the consequences that come with it. In this light, your statement that "all decisions are a form of action" and that these choices reflect our values is consistent with the existentialist view that we create meaning through our actions and choices.
Moreover, the existentialist emphasis on authenticity—living in accordance with one's true self and values—also resonates with the idea that conscientious voting is a reaffirmation of our values.'
Company/personal values that don't involve a trade-off are not values
Strategies that don't involve a trade-off are not strategies
A good test is to ask yourself - if this statement was inverted, would it still be plausible?
For example, "hire the best" doesn't make much sense as a value, because it doesn't describe a trade off and the opposite doesn't make sense as a value. Move fast and break things is a reasonable value. Just as move slow and aim for perfection is a reasonable value.
And "build great products by spending more time on R&D than everyone else" is closer to a reasonable strategy, because it can be semi-inverted ("build great products by spending minimal time on R&D but launching as many as possible to see what works") and because it involves a trade-off.
At any rate, I strongly agree with the idea. Values and strategies that don't have a trade-off are not really picking a side and therefore can't help us in times of indecision.
- - - -
Imagine a mundane task of medium importance, e.g. brushing your teeth or doing the dishes.
Now imagine something comes up that interrupts that task, and it's important enough to make you stop doing the previous task and attend to the new thing.
Repeat previous step.
- - - -
I'm skipping over all the details, of course, but the point is that if you do it right you wind up with a ranked or graded list of values, motives for action.
[EDIT]: Ok, the exercise is working now. I take it back.
Our values dictate our choices. Compromises (and limited-choice situations) test our values.
From a deontological perspective, compromise destroys values.
From a consequentialist perspective, compromise doesn't have any effect on the values as the consequence is the higher value.
From a virtue ethics' perspective, values are character traits virtually decoupled from habits and other choices.
Testing values strengthens them. People dig into their positions when they are challenged. That's why it's so hard to convince anybody to anything. When values are not challenged they fade.
Even if you have all the money you wish you still have the same crap jelly in the box on top of your neck that will make you suffer and same ugly mug in front of it that will make people run away. You barely solved anything.
Not to mention you might want at some point to co-live with some other unfortunate soul and finding a lasting match is a challenge that rarely ever anyone succeeds at and money there can be as much of an obstacle as it is an asset.
Not sure that really changes his point; only that sometimes there is a C when you are looking at choices A & B.
You don't have values if you don't live intentionally, and the majority of people make decisions on a very short timescale, and without truly considering opportunity costs.
Even among those that live within an adopted moral framwork (e.g. religion, stoicism, etc), I haven't found people to be particularly well thought out.
or... scratch that. software is just reflection of life...
Life is made of decisions.
Anything else is not life, but mere existing.
