"To crush your enemies; see them driven before you; and to hear the lamentation of the women"
What Is a Minimally Good Life?
31–40 of 162 posts
Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've read several articles / books on this topic lately. In short: it's not only you that's contemplating on the "good life", plenty is being researched and written about. Our genes make it hard for us to be consistently content and happy. It seems like evolution may have given the slightly paranoid / always needing more genes an advantage for obvious reasons. One research even showed lottery prize winners aren't any…
"So we're very good in experiencing contentment for short bursts and then it's back to our normal mental mode." That is exactly what I've observed and experienced. Well said!
At first I was freaked out by this revelation.
But after thinking about it kinda takes the stress out of a lot of things. Doesn't matter that much how much you earn / what you work on / where you live. You get used pretty fast to all those things.
So always be suspicious of yourself when you're over-analysing big life decisions. If you're trying to optimise happiness a lot of those decisions won't make much of a difference.
Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?
#33What is needed minimally?
- a loved and loving partner, a sane and fulfilling sexuality
- enough income to not have any substantial worries about the future
- absence of other justifiable existential worries and anxiety about the future such as cataclysms, threats, oppressive social, political and work environments, political instability, etc.
- a decent amount of recognition in work or private life (one of them suffices, both are optimal)
- good mental and physical health
Beneficial is also frequent contact to about 3-4 close friends.
That's what I've gathered from what I've heard on the Net during the past 20 years or so. If any of the above is missing, the life will not really be good.
Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?
#34I know that personally I really don't need much for my own happiness - the basics of survival, a very modest house, and being away from people and in nature would do it for me. The problem comes when these simple things are denied to me, and I am put in a society in which one is treated badly when one doesn't strive to keep up with the Joneses. Controversial opinion: the people with the power to change the never-endi…
Extremely controversial. Could we not also blame men for competing for the attention of the most attractive women, who then in turn can demand more resources? I do think we attack men for being shallow more often than we attack women for being materialistic. The latter doesn’t get as much attention or critique, eg wanting a bigger house or label fashion is often seen as aspirational and positive; wanting a more attra…
> Why do men who have a partner already feel obliged to continue capturing more and more resources?
Two reasons.
First, women are hypergamous and will always be looking for the best mate possible. When men become complacent, they lose their women. The battle isn't over when the first mate is attracted, it has only just begun.
Second, men are polygamous. Men still want to be attractive to other women as well as their own. There is essentially no limit to how many women a man can mate with.
These instincts do rule us, unfortunately. Although many like to think otherwise.
Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?
#35I know that personally I really don't need much for my own happiness - the basics of survival, a very modest house, and being away from people and in nature would do it for me. The problem comes when these simple things are denied to me, and I am put in a society in which one is treated badly when one doesn't strive to keep up with the Joneses. Controversial opinion: the people with the power to change the never-endi…
This sounds suspiciously like incel ideology. Whatever cognitive path you're on that's led you to conclude this, I advise you to swiftly veer away from it. Blaming all the women isn't going to help with anything. People will just think, oh there's that weird sexist guy ranting on again. That's not going to get you anywhere useful.
If his point is so easy to refute logically, you would have done so. Your entire comment is an ad hominem.
Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?
#36Men aren't built to be happy. Men are built to be effective.
In this sense, nothing and nobody is "built to be happy" yet here I am, a perfectly happy man.
I don't think there is much substance to be found here.
Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?
#37I know that personally I really don't need much for my own happiness - the basics of survival, a very modest house, and being away from people and in nature would do it for me. The problem comes when these simple things are denied to me, and I am put in a society in which one is treated badly when one doesn't strive to keep up with the Joneses. Controversial opinion: the people with the power to change the never-endi…
Son, you’re not going to get where you want to be until you resolve whatever lead you to find this thought important enough to write down in public.
I think that's a bit unfair.
I think that yes male dominance and competition has a lot to do with females. It's like that in nature and like that in humans as well.
You are interpreting what he said as being hostile to women while that may not be the case.
Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
People, as any animals, aren't build "for" anything. Evolution doesn't have a brain or intentions, it's just a stochastic process that happens to prefer some traits over others in certain circumstances.
Evolution as a dynamic does build things that are able to reproduce.
On the simplest level. Direct reproduction is far from the only way to propel your genes. You can never have kids, but lead your ethnic group to win a genocidal war against its neighbours, and will be much more successful at it.
Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?
#39I know that personally I really don't need much for my own happiness - the basics of survival, a very modest house, and being away from people and in nature would do it for me. The problem comes when these simple things are denied to me, and I am put in a society in which one is treated badly when one doesn't strive to keep up with the Joneses. Controversial opinion: the people with the power to change the never-endi…
I think your controversial opinion is more correct than it is incorrect. I don't believe it's anything that an individual woman would notice consciously on a daily basis, but the idea that women are attracted to the ability of a man to provision for her and her children as a survival adaptation over time is clearly true. It's true of other mammals and primates, at least.
Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?
#40I often contemplate what it is that leads to a "good life". I am very fortunate in so many ways, yet I allow myself to feel envy, call circumstances unfair because I didn't get what I want, or forget to be grateful. I see my kids growing up not knowing what struggling really feels like and realize that I don't have a true perspective of being without. I'm not saying that I would rather experience the feeling of hunge…
I've read several articles / books on this topic lately. In short: it's not only you that's contemplating on the "good life", plenty is being researched and written about. Our genes make it hard for us to be consistently content and happy. It seems like evolution may have given the slightly paranoid / always needing more genes an advantage for obvious reasons. One research even showed lottery prize winners aren't any…
"There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of living. " - The Count of Monte Cristo justifying having basically tortured his friend and driven him to suicide.