Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Hedonic Treadmill

happierhuman.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 135 posts

Re: The Hedonic Treadmill

#121

Post by icebraining »

d23 wrote: post #119
daodedickinson wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? It seems true for some of the decent definitions of "material standard of living" although certainly not all. What they really lack (relatively) is social power, kinship tie quality, and many other more important things than internet access, smart phones, and technology (all of which may correlate with depression.

Like what? Being able to eat a big mac? That's a stretch by nearly any definition.

Just for reference, 10ka means pre-agricultural Stone Age, ie, tiny hunter-gatherer communities living in small huts.

Re: The Hedonic Treadmill

#122

Post by icebraining »

ChrisDutrow wrote: post #69
neogodless wrote: post #6

"The material standard of living of a homeless person in modern-day Manhattan is several dozens of times higher than the wealthiest of kings ten thousand years ago." Can someone explain to me what their definition of "standard of living" is in this context? I get that they might have access to cleaner water, but surely easy access to food prepared for you and having a roof over your head in a snowstorm would sound re…

Yeah, I can't see how that could possibly be true. Kings would have had access to huge amounts of man power. People to build their castles and supply them with food. I suppose you could argue that the homeless person might have better access to healthcare. But I still think the author's statement is very false.

10ka ago there were no castles, only huts in which tiny communities of pre-agricultural hunter-gatherers lived.

Re: The Hedonic Treadmill

#123

Post by daodedickinson »

daodedickinson wrote: post #118
virgil_disgr4ce wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not personally familiar with the anthropological evidence, but I strongly, strongly doubt that 'constant verge of starvation' accurately characterizes even a small percentage of the past reality.

Famines were certainly common and devastating. I recommend Braudel's The Structures of Everyday Life: Civilization & Capitalism: 15th-18th Century: Volume 1: "Famine recurred to insistently for centuries on end that it became incorporated into man's biological regime and built into his daily life. Dearth and penury were continual, and familiar, even in Europe, despite its privileged position... It could not have been…

...10.6 grains for 1 planted!

And growth over the last century truly means we don't understand how drastically easier it is to grow food now. In Missouri, bushels per acre increased from about 10 in 1915 to about 55 in 2015! (src = http://crops.missouri.edu/audit/images/WheatYields_MO.jpg)

72 percent of the American workforce was in farming was 72 percent in 1820. (src = http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/20/us/farm-population-lowest-...) Now it seems to be between 1-2 percent.

Re: The Hedonic Treadmill

#124

Post by mekal »

shermablanca wrote: post #80
anotherhacker wrote: post #42

The author is flat out wrong. The Hedonic Treadmill has been disproven. Moreover, the author seems to be conflating the concept of the treadmill, with adaptation. The former denotes the subject returns to the original state. The latter recognizes that while we become accustomed to new things, we still improve in happiness. The author is also misquoting, or misunderstanding, Kahneman. Kahneman isn't talking at all abo…

> The material standard of living of a homeless person in modern-day Manhattan is several dozens of times higher than the wealthiest of kings ten thousand years ago. It was here that I stopped reading.

haha same here...i even said that to myself as i was hitting the back button.

Re: The Hedonic Treadmill

#125

Post by erroneousfunk »

sliverstorm wrote: post #48
gthtjtkt wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm equally confused. I wonder if he meant to say 10,000? My understanding of human history pretty much stops at what we all learned about Egypt in history class, and that time period was ~6,000 years ago IIRC. I have no concept whatsoever of what life was like before then. Were there even "kings" 10,000 years ago?

10,000 years ago suggests Mesopotamia. My weak history knowledge suggests that was the only thing closed to a civilization in that era.

Yes, Sumeria and Mesopotamia is basically the oldest recorded history we have, but this way predates what we know about that. The author is talking about what we know from archaeological evidence, not recorded history.

Re: The Hedonic Treadmill

#126

Post by metaphorm »

daodedickinson wrote: post #116
metaphorm wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that point needed to be deconstructed (by the author of the article) in a lot more detail. It strikes me as both obviously true in many ways but also obviously false in many other ways. It is obviously true that losing weight won't make you feel any better about being stuck in a shitty marriage, or a job you hate, or being estranged from your parents, or any number of other things that can cause deep-seated u…

It's common, though, for people to feel guilty about not working out enough even if they do it quite a bit (perhaps even more likely). That can lead to less happiness. The endorphins are great... but I feel there is still a hedonic treadmill effect there with that.

> It's common, though, for people to feel guilty about not working out enough even if they do it quite a bit

ha, I'll bet. almost anything where there's a notion of "leveling up" or some kind of progress over time can lead to this treadmill feeling.

in my case though, I mean, I'm at like once or twice a month at the gym. I'm pretty sure that's just objectively not enough, regardless of whatever treadmill effect is going on there.

Re: The Hedonic Treadmill

#127

Post by [deleted] »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #120
WalterSear wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insofar as we can never really know the internal state of anything, and yes, from chemistry, to particle physics to psychology. All we can know for sure is that a machine (we did create) spat out a bunch of numbers and a text book (written by people we don't know) said those numbers were 'correct'. (Moreover, we already know a lot more about the measurement of internal mental states than you appear to be aware: http:…

Measuring happiness with an MRI is the sort of folly I'm referring to. Scientific knowledge needs to be objective, happiness is subjective. To illustrate what I mean, imagine we could directly stimulate areas of the brain. If we stimulate the same areas of the brain across a group of people, do we expect the resulting experience to be exactly the same across the group?

[deleted]

Re: The Hedonic Treadmill

#128

Post by guyzero »

lazyant wrote: post #108
cubano wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my favorite little know facts about how much has really changed with medical treatment... Only 90 years ago, President Calvin Coolidge's 16 year old son died from a foot blister he got while playing lawn tennis on the White House grounds, something that would have probably been easily treated with an OTC anti-bacterial or a quick trip to the doctor nowadays. We hardly have the get "medieval" to see the radical…

Right. Just for contrast, Christopher Reeve (most famous "Superman"actor) died in 2004 of complications of a _bed sore_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Reeve

I think more to the point Christopher Reeve lived for 9 years as a quadriplegic.

Re: The Hedonic Treadmill

#129

Post by sanoli »

neogodless wrote: post #6

"The material standard of living of a homeless person in modern-day Manhattan is several dozens of times higher than the wealthiest of kings ten thousand years ago." Can someone explain to me what their definition of "standard of living" is in this context? I get that they might have access to cleaner water, but surely easy access to food prepared for you and having a roof over your head in a snowstorm would sound re…

10,000 years is too much to make a valid comparison. Do we even know how kings lived that far back?

Re: The Hedonic Treadmill

#130

Post by shostack »

rconti wrote: post #113
shostack wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moved to the Peninsula from Chicago a couple years ago after becoming increasingly fed up with and depressed by winter (despite trying to "medicate" with a full-spectrum lamp). Everyone I knew commented on how much happier I seemed. Sure some of that may have been job-related, but it is amazing how much I notice it every day, even a couple years later now. The most noticeable thing for me in my day-to-day is that I n…

Same, but from Seattle. Maybe it's just those of us who are broken, but I'm immensely happier when it's sunny. I'll grant you, I find reasons to be grumpy sometimes when it's nice out (too damn hot, no AC in the house, whatever), but overall I'm vastly happier. Anyone who knows me would say the same. The thrill of a really nice day is gone, but on balance my situation is improved. Not only that, but after a decade or…

I think that's what it comes down to. Sure we might get used to the sunshine and not have as great an emotional lift as when you first see it after months of bleak gray, but the constant positive impact in the day-to-day is by far and away the greater benefit.

That stress reduction and mood enhancement cascades into other aspects of your life such as your sleep, relationships, overall stress level, etc.

I'd make the move again any day of the week. If anything I regret not moving here sooner (largely due to housing prices).

Post reply on HN