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

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#241

Post by georgeecollins » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 5:59 PM UTC

giardini wrote: post #235

todd8 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in college in the 70s, so yeah, it was a fun time for me when I think back on it. Who wouldn’t want to hear Aerosmith live in a club with maybe 80 people there before their first album. But I walked to class cold and wet on many days. Gortex hadn’t been invented and I couldn’t afford a car. When I got my first real job I bought a car, but I carried a toolbox in the trunk. Cars broke down frequently and with no…

Sorry, your narrative timeline is simply incorrect. Perhaps b/c you did not live in the USA? Gore-tex was invented in 1969 but was hardly necessary. Wool has always worked extremely well and still does: polyester was pretty good except in northern USA. I lived in the south and wore predominantly cotton: Levi jeans and cotton t-shirts were our uniform in the summer; winter we bought a jacket and lived with it. In 1971…

> A car accident can kill you at 35 mph but they usually didn't (and usually don't). Cars are safer now and I appreciate that, but they weren't _that_ unsafe: people would not have driven them otherwise.

Cars were a lot less safe in 1971, that is a fact. No air bags, no anti-lock brakes, no traction control. Older cars didn't have seat belts, shoulder belts were rare, cars weren't built to crumple, steering columns would impale you, etc.

Fact, not anecdote: In 1971 there were 4.46 fatalities per million vehicle miles traveled (MVMT). In 2015 it was 1.18 fatalities per MVMT.

So yes, in fact cars were three times as dangerous as today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#242

Post by wozniacki » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 5:59 PM UTC

blanderman wrote: post #228

wozniacki wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the deficit of happiness can be better explained by one of Peter Thiel's most excellent reductionist observations: The countercultural in the '60s was the hippies. You know, we landed on the moon in July of 1969. Woodstock started three weeks later, and with the benefit of hindsight, that’s when progress ended, and the hippies took over the country. [1][2] Perhaps, for too long, the left has engulfed and held…

It's odd to me how the president from 1969 to 1977 and 1981 to 1993 was a republican, but the argument is that 'hippies' took over?

He's talking about the cultural left not the political one deployed to ensure voter turnout.

Perhaps this will add more context:

  Today’s aged hippies no longer understand that there
  is a difference between the election of a black 
  president and the creation of cheap solar energy; in 
  their minds, the movement towards greater civil rights
  parallels general progress everywhere. Because of these
  ideological conflations and commitments, the 1960s
  Progressive Left cannot ask whether things actually 
  might be getting worse. I wonder whether the endless
  fake cultural wars around identity politics are the 
  main reason we have been able to ignore the tech 
  slowdown for so long.[1]

[1] The End of the Future

https://www.nationalreview.com/2011/10/end-future-peter-thie...

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#243

Post by giardini » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 6:05 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #197

todd8 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in college in the 70s, so yeah, it was a fun time for me when I think back on it. Who wouldn’t want to hear Aerosmith live in a club with maybe 80 people there before their first album. But I walked to class cold and wet on many days. Gortex hadn’t been invented and I couldn’t afford a car. When I got my first real job I bought a car, but I carried a toolbox in the trunk. Cars broke down frequently and with no…

Ubiquitous discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice made it harder for many to be middle class like I was. When I hear my parents talk about growing up in the segregated south in the 50s, there is nothing about it that makes me think - "wow life was so much better back then".

The South in the 50s was definitely segregated, although the degree of prejudice varied. Whether white or black, life was likely not better than it is now.

But the OP was talking about the 70s and there is a world of difference. Once you get to the 70s the statement "wow life was so much better back then." becomes debatable for whites, at least.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#244

Post by deadmetheny » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 7:04 PM UTC

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #194

ams6110 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other thing people were more willing to do in the 1940s was move to where they could afford to live.

It was much easier to find places like that, though. The rust belt was booming then. There were more options. Now for the best opportunity you have to take a risk and live in the major cities with astronomical housing prices or long commutes.

It never ceases to amaze me that people seem to be under the impression that there's no good jobs anywhere that isn't the coast. Oh well, I guess we silly flyovers can just keep this affordable and comfortable living situation to ourselves.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#245

Post by blanderman » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 7:05 PM UTC

wozniacki wrote: post #242

blanderman wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's odd to me how the president from 1969 to 1977 and 1981 to 1993 was a republican, but the argument is that 'hippies' took over?

He's talking about the cultural left not the political one deployed to ensure voter turnout. Perhaps this will add more context: Today’s aged hippies no longer understand that there is a difference between the election of a black president and the creation of cheap solar energy; in their minds, the movement towards greater civil rights parallels general progress everywhere. Because of these ideological conflations an…

I just see a lot of very bold assertions without statistical references to back them up.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#246

Post by sctb » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 8:03 PM UTC

benkarst wrote: post #50

Why don't you spend 20 minutes reading my article that has a false premise? -NY Times

Could you please start posting substantive comments?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#247

Post by ntsplnkv2 » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 8:23 PM UTC

deadmetheny wrote: post #244

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was much easier to find places like that, though. The rust belt was booming then. There were more options. Now for the best opportunity you have to take a risk and live in the major cities with astronomical housing prices or long commutes.

It never ceases to amaze me that people seem to be under the impression that there's no good jobs anywhere that isn't the coast. Oh well, I guess we silly flyovers can just keep this affordable and comfortable living situation to ourselves.

You've missed my point, or perhaps I wasn't clear enough, from parent:

> The other thing people were more willing to do in the 1940s was move to where they could afford to live.

Where can you move today that offers affordable living and a good, steady job? Lets say you were on the expensive east coast and wanted a cheaper, more affordable place to live, with work. You'd consider Pittsburgh or Detroit, maybe. Both tick the boxes - affordable, plenty of good, union jobs, enough to own a home and build a family.

Does Pittsburgh fit that bill today? The answer is unequivocally no. Sure, housing prices are down compared nationally - but the last 10 years have seen a boon in housing prices here. Flipping is happening like crazy. Rents have increased. But wages have not - because cost of living adjustments punish employees in places like Pittsburgh.

I assume you're coming from a tech perspective. It's easy for that to skew your PoV. Think of it as the lay person. It's a much riskier prospect today.

Pittsburgh is one of the worst cities in the country for retaining recent college graduates (Pitt, CMU, Duquesne, etc). Why? The job market simply isn't large enough.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#248

Post by toasterlovin » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 9:02 PM UTC

groby_b wrote: post #124

toasterlovin wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which means that in an environment of abundance, the cost often exceeds the rewards. The problem is that environments of abundance basically do not exist, because the population of a species quickly grows to consume any excess. The situation that humans in the developed world face is novel. We are not evolved to deal with abundance because abundance has only ever occurred during the brief gap between when we invent…

Uh, yes, they do exist. The example of human cultures that comes to mind are Melanesians which IIRC had relative abundance of natural resources. In the animal kingdom, Bonobos are probably the prime example. And IIRC, in both cases the reaction to abundance wasn't overpopulation, but the development of a sharing trait. (Because it reduces the cost incurred by unnecessary competition) In the case of Melanesians, they…

I would love to read a link about the Melanesians if you have one.

The only way a population doesn't expand to consume available resources is if there is something else which is controlling population growth. For many species, that would be predation. But humans are an apex species, so that's not a factor.

Disease is another possibility. The bubonic plague kept European populations below the malthusian limit for a long time in Europe. But not long enough to really have an effect on our evolved traits. Generally speaking, it's difficult for disease to be a significant problem without agriculture and the population density that it allows. But the consensus is that people who lived in agricultural societies pretty much universally had poor diets (ie, they were living at the Malthusian limit).

The other major factor that would prevent human populations from reaching the Malthusian limit is violence. But violence is usually committed for the purpose of increasing or maintaining status. Either by killing competitors within the tribe or by stealing women and resources from other tribes.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#249

Post by giardini » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 9:33 PM UTC

georgeecollins wrote: post #241

giardini wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, your narrative timeline is simply incorrect. Perhaps b/c you did not live in the USA? Gore-tex was invented in 1969 but was hardly necessary. Wool has always worked extremely well and still does: polyester was pretty good except in northern USA. I lived in the south and wore predominantly cotton: Levi jeans and cotton t-shirts were our uniform in the summer; winter we bought a jacket and lived with it. In 1971…

> A car accident can kill you at 35 mph but they usually didn't (and usually don't). Cars are safer now and I appreciate that, but they weren't _that_ unsafe: people would not have driven them otherwise. Cars were a lot less safe in 1971, that is a fact. No air bags, no anti-lock brakes, no traction control. Older cars didn't have seat belts, shoulder belts were rare, cars weren't built to crumple, steering columns w…

1) What I stated was not anecdote: a car accident can kill you at 35 mph but they usually didn't (and don't).

2) I simply don't agree with your use of relative statistics, which reeks of alarmism. My doctors use such arguments in attempts to convince me to take statin drugs, which would at best extend my life for only a few days if I took them for 30 years. He always tells me that I'm "X times as likely to die from a heart attack" unless I take statins. I always remind him of the nature of his statistics, the side-effects of statins, and the non-present longevity payoff of taking them.

Once the number of fatalities per MVMT is below a certain value it ceases to be likely in the overall scheme of things and becomes unimportant.

Relative statistics ignore the prior probabilities - the fact that I'm unlikely to die driving in the first place. Yes, 4.46 deaths per MVMT is about 3 X 1.18, but both are low deaths per MVMT.

I may die from falling off a ladder or get eaten by a shark but neither is likely, nor am I now nor was I likely in the 70s to die in a car accident. Some other damn thing will most likely get me (that isn't anecdotal either).

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#250

Post by petermarks » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 9:52 PM UTC

Where is the explanation, let alone the data, to support the claim that happiness has not increased? There’s a compelling data driven chapter in Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now that makes the opposite argument. It also makes a compelling argument that people aren’t bothered by inequality in itself. It’s an amazing book that everyone should read and has genuinely changed my world view for the better.