Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#141

Post by hueving » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 7:37 AM UTC

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #123

roenxi wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gp actually answered that with "especially if you want to live like it is the 1940s". There is a quiet denial about how luxurious modern living is. People just flat-out underestimate how much work it takes to keep the infrastructure of the modern world in place and humming - traditional infrastructure, IT grids, distribution of goods and services (particularly maintaining an enormous fleet of wheeled vehicles). I kno…

Ah yes. The poor are poor because of poor morals, instead of you, who is of good moral standing. The poor are poor due to lack of money. This is caused by increasing costs of healthcare, education and houses, you know those basic things needed to live. And by a capitalistic class taking about 95% of all gains from productivity increases. Saying millions of people are poor because because of bad morals is disgusting a…

Ugh, poor money management skills have nothing to do with morals. It's fine to say someone has poor money management skills just like it's fine to say someone has poor C++ coding skills.

Creating a budget and sticking to it requires behavioral changes that take time to sink in.

It's extremely unlikely that you make the perfect amount of money to cover your exact needs that result in you being broke. It's much more likely that people adapt to a system of spending all money that comes in on whatever 'priority item' pops into their mind because they lack the skill and/or discipline of budgeting. This is evident in higher income people as well that suffer from lifestyle creep.

Again, this has nothing to do with morals. It's just a statement about the appalling lack of financial education in the vast majority of the US population.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#142

Post by coldtea » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 7:41 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #78

slv77 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Households today spend more on cell phones and communication but also spend less on fine china, dress clothes and food. When you net out all the pluses and minuses households today spend much more on housing, healthcare, daycare, transportation (two cars, for two jobs) and education. When you look closely the two bed, two bath detached home it’s likely in a school district that is underperforming and while the home m…

gp actually answered that with "especially if you want to live like it is the 1940s". There is a quiet denial about how luxurious modern living is. People just flat-out underestimate how much work it takes to keep the infrastructure of the modern world in place and humming - traditional infrastructure, IT grids, distribution of goods and services (particularly maintaining an enormous fleet of wheeled vehicles). I kno…

>There is a quiet denial about how luxurious modern living is

There's also a big denial about how luxurious 1940s living was compared to 1840s or the palaeolithic ages...

...and that's just as well, because it's not really relevant. Living standards and necessities are determined socially, in comparison with what others of the same era have (and expect people to have), not with comparison to the past.

Someone that lives in nice large cave in Malibu with rocks for furniture and self-made pottery, and a stock of food he has hunted himself, would be considered well-off in the cavemen era, but homeless today.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#143

Post by brainwad » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 7:44 AM UTC

ngngngng wrote: post #125

war1025 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an interview I listened to once by a lady that grew up in the early 20th century. One of the things she said was, "I never dreamed I would be rich enough to own a car, or poor enough that I couldn't afford a servant" Labor has become vastly more expensive than it traditionally was, while physical goods have gotten much cheaper. (Housing excluded, obviously)

How is this the case while the average wage has not even kept up with inflation?

Firstly, wages grew much more rapidly until 1970. Secondly, even since then in the US wages have not fallen in real terms, they have just been level with inflation.

The phenomenon where labour gets more costly despite no gains in productivity because on average society has become wealthier is called Baumol's cost disease (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease). While a servant is not much more efficient than they were 100 years ago, they cost a lot more because there is now better alternative uses for their labour that bid up their price.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#144

Post by coldtea » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 7:45 AM UTC

laurieg wrote: post #140

roenxi wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gp actually answered that with "especially if you want to live like it is the 1940s". There is a quiet denial about how luxurious modern living is. People just flat-out underestimate how much work it takes to keep the infrastructure of the modern world in place and humming - traditional infrastructure, IT grids, distribution of goods and services (particularly maintaining an enormous fleet of wheeled vehicles). I kno…

> There is a quiet denial about how luxurious modern living is. Absolutely! I genuinely marvel every time I go into a supermarket. I can buy a huge variety of delicious foods from all the corners of the globe. 200 years ago a king couldn't eat this well. Also, I have literal robots doing my housework! A robot cleans the floor. A robot cleans the dishes. A robot cleans my clothes. It's nice to take a step back and app…

>200 years ago a king couldn't eat this well

A kind 200 years ago couldn't eat this variety.

But they could eat very much better -- all free-range, well made, top quality cuts (not hastily made, lower tier BS, with all kinds of additives to increase self-life or make it appear more appealing in the shelves), made fresh on their own premises or bought from the best artisans.

And of course all prepared at their whim by their army of personal chefs, and served by an army of servers.

And they had all the time they liked to enjoy those things, with friends and family, not having to gulp them down between 60-hour work weeks...

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#145

Post by coldtea » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 7:50 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #97

slv77 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Households today spend more on cell phones and communication but also spend less on fine china, dress clothes and food. When you net out all the pluses and minuses households today spend much more on housing, healthcare, daycare, transportation (two cars, for two jobs) and education. When you look closely the two bed, two bath detached home it’s likely in a school district that is underperforming and while the home m…

If you maintain a 1920s lifestyle today, you probably could work just a few hours a week. Thing is, nobody wants that kind of a lifestyle.

Thing is, it doesn't make sense to want that lifestyle. It's not an option anymore, the same way living in a cave is not an option.

It would place you in pariah status, for one -- and a lifestyle is not just to putting food in the table or a roof above your head, it also includes making you eligible for a partner, able to raise kids to do OK in society, and so on.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#146

Post by DoctorOetker » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 7:53 AM UTC

war1025 wrote: post #113

ams6110 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever compare a 1940s middle-class house to a middle-class house of today? They're tiny. They probably have one bathroom. The bedrooms will be small. The garage, if there is one, is probably not attached to the house. The household probably had one car. Maybe had a phone, maybe not. Such a lifestyle could still be afforded buy a single income earner if they would really live the way a 1940s family lived.

My dad (born 1957) grew up in a tiny farmhouse, 6th of 8 kids, and had an outhouse until I believe 8th grade. Meaning my oldest couple aunts and uncles moved out before they had indoor plumbing. Admittedly, they were pretty poor, but most people couldn't even imagine living in those conditions anymore. At the time it wasn't unusual.

If knowledge and intelligence keep progressing while nothing is done about housing, I can imagine the educated poor resorting to ever more extreme "out of the box" solutions:

Why do we live in houses? Partially to meet certain basic necessities:

- shelter from adverse temperature (too hot or too cold outside), adverse weather (rain, snow, wind): outside walls and roof

- a place to wash, a mirror to inspect yourself, a toilet: bathroom

- a place to sleep: bedroom

- a place to eat: a table and chairs

- a place for work: a desk and a chair

- privacy: a lock on the door to prevent theft, or violence

- a place for leisure or inviting guests: living room

Out of poverty leisure is likely to be sacrificed, but it may be possible to live a much cheaper life if these functionalities can be compactly (and probably inadequately) substituted. What features can be portably arranged into a suit? Imagine a kind of space suit -not intended for actual space- with smart temperature control say inspired on a rete mirabile [0] to exchange mass (say import oxygen and export carbon dioxide, while conserving heat), humidity etc, depending on outside and inside measurements. This would probably necessitate a cheap helmet to keep the conditioned air inside (during adverse outside conditionns). It should be weather proof too. It should require little clean-up, or alternatively the suit should be lightweight enough so an it can be carried or washed while the extra is worn. A big problem for homeless people is theft and violence. So the suit should have intelligent motion detectors, and possibly communicate to other high-tech low-lifes to share news of danger, in order to allow sleep. Sanitation will probably be commercialized cubicles of bathrooms. Similarily workspace will probably be measured in desks (with a selectable height limit for your stuff) and archives, and these will be stored as trays by an automated system, such that you can enter one of the vacant rooms, login, select one of your desks or boxes, after which your tray/desk is loaded in front of you, exactly as you left the contents on the desk the previous time. You rent the room at some price per hour, but also each desk or volume of boxes at their respective rates for storage.

[0] Rete mirabile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rete_mirabile

But I believe we will fix the housing issue in a more fundamentalist way.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#147

Post by em500 » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 8:08 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #142

roenxi wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gp actually answered that with "especially if you want to live like it is the 1940s". There is a quiet denial about how luxurious modern living is. People just flat-out underestimate how much work it takes to keep the infrastructure of the modern world in place and humming - traditional infrastructure, IT grids, distribution of goods and services (particularly maintaining an enormous fleet of wheeled vehicles). I kno…

> There is a quiet denial about how luxurious modern living is There's also a big denial about how luxurious 1940s living was compared to 1840s or the palaeolithic ages... ...and that's just as well, because it's not really relevant. Living standards and necessities are determined socially, in comparison with what others of the same era have (and expect people to have), not with comparison to the past. Someone that l…

> Living standards and necessities are determined socially, in comparison with what others of the same era have (and expect people to have), not with comparison to the past.

By this definition aggregate living standards can never improve (nor decline) over time.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#148

Post by Kurtz79 » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 8:10 AM UTC

eric_h wrote: post #110

randomdata wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where would you factor it in then? "Disposable income is total personal income minus personal current taxes" [1] Where else would the money come from? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_and_discretionary_i...

Huh. I'd always considered the definition of disposable income as the income that I would literally consider to be disposable, e.g. the money left over after I've covered everything I need (including housing, clothing, food and taxes) that I could set on fire and not change my current condition. Per the wikipedia article of disposable income, I could afford a Ferrari (on a payment plan), but I would generally say I d…

In common speech, your definition of "disposable income" is perfectly acceptable.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disposable%20inco...

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/disposab...

Note that the Oxford Dictionary uses GP's definition, probably to distinguish themselves from Cambridge :)

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/disposable_inco...

It's probably a case of a word used incorrectly, but so often that ends up assuming a different meaning.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#149

Post by wutbrodo » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 8:12 AM UTC

slv77 wrote: post #63

randomdata wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the 40s and 50s a middle class household could get by just fine (and the house be bought) by a single income earner. Has that really changed? A manufacturing business in my area is currently hiring everyone who shows up to an interview. They pay they are offering isn't wonderful (at least if you concept of money has been warped by the IT industry), but you should expect to make around $40,000 per year to start.…

Households today spend more on cell phones and communication but also spend less on fine china, dress clothes and food. When you net out all the pluses and minuses households today spend much more on housing, healthcare, daycare, transportation (two cars, for two jobs) and education. When you look closely the two bed, two bath detached home it’s likely in a school district that is underperforming and while the home m…

> while the home may be slightly larger than those in the past it’s 30+ years old.

Pardon my naiveté, but is this a common bar? I didn't grow up poor and I'm _definitely_ not poor now, but I don't think I've ever lived in a house that was less than 30 years old. I didn't even realize that was desirable; my impression was that the stereotype of new construction is "classless, soulless cookie-cutter Levittown" (not saying that I agree with this notion, just that it was my understanding of how the property market treats housing).

Am I mistaken here? Or is this perhaps different between cities vs more rural areas, or suburbs? I've only ever lived in big cities.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#150

Post by em500 » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 8:19 AM UTC

eric_h wrote: post #110

randomdata wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where would you factor it in then? "Disposable income is total personal income minus personal current taxes" [1] Where else would the money come from? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_and_discretionary_i...

Huh. I'd always considered the definition of disposable income as the income that I would literally consider to be disposable, e.g. the money left over after I've covered everything I need (including housing, clothing, food and taxes) that I could set on fire and not change my current condition. Per the wikipedia article of disposable income, I could afford a Ferrari (on a payment plan), but I would generally say I d…

These are standard economic terminology, not definitions made up by the article writer or wikipedia.. They're can be found in probably every introductory economics textbook from the past half century.