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What Is a Minimally Good Life?

psyche.co

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Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#101

Post by joelbluminator »

ckosidows wrote: post #89
joelbluminator wrote: post #11

Earlier 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…

I've read a lot about community, or the sense of being part of a community, as being the most important factor in human happiness. Winning the lottery doesn't automatically put you into any community and I would argue it actually has the potential of separating you from a lot of your current peers. The book has some pretty controversial opinions, but _Sex at Dawn_ has a lot of good insight about how important communi…

Indeed, connection to other human beings is very important.

Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#102

Post by JamesBarney »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #33

What 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 suff…

The percent of the population that has a partner, is in the top half or third of the income percentile, who enjoy their work, and who have good physical and mental health must be 15-30%.

That seems like a strange use of the word minimal. Of the 40 people in my life I know close enough to know if they meet this definition only 4-8 meet it. And I'm probably close to the best age for finding all of these items, my mid 30s. Old enough for people to make money, and find a fulfilling career but before mental and physical health starts knocking out a bunch of people.

Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#103

Post by Koshkin »

The definition of minimally good life is “being able to survive without too much effort.” (Feeling happy has nothing to do with it. Notably, some people managed to have a “good life” while being prisoners, say, in a concentration camp).

Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#104

Post by lm28469 »

godzillafarts wrote: post #100

Been asking myself this question for a while, and have found the following reading to be very enlightening: - Letters from a Stoic, Seneca - On the Shortness of Life, Seneca - Walden, Henry David Thoreau - Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

I was going to post that, Letters from a Stoic, single best book I read. I already bought it 4 or 5 times and end up gifting it to friends/family.

Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#106

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #50

How children are parented makes more difference than anything else. Having 'good' parents vs. 'bad' determines not just what is needed to have a good life, but in many cases, whether one even has the emotional capacity for feeling good for an ongoing period.

Hmm. That sounds familiar. I guess we share a similar experience.

Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#107

Post by lm28469 »

afefers wrote: post #83

As someone very poor, for me good life means having money to the point where my choices are not based around it.

Imho every time you access the next step of the ladder you'll have a few months of happiness and fall right back to where you were.

Money is important if you either don't have enough to meet your basic needs or have so much that you don't have to worry about it 1 second in your life (99.9% of people won't reach that state). Every steps in between is the same with extra distractions that won't do much, if anything at all, for you overall happiness.

Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#108

Post by MorningInfidel »

licebmi__at__ wrote: post #69
MorningInfidel wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If his point is so easy to refute logically, you would have done so. Your entire comment is an ad hominem.

Because the point is not really a logical statement, but an appeal to emotion, expecting a logical refutation to a non logical statement is absurd and TBH, kinda ignorant of all the kinds of valid discussion humans have all the time. Do you really think is reasonable to demand a change of behavior in women instead of maybe demanding the same from men? Do you really think men with a couple are no longer part of the co…

I must be confused. I didn't read his controversial opinion as a demand, I read it as an observation. It's as unreasonable to expect women to counter their nature as it would be to tell men to stop preferring youth and beauty.

Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#109

Post by andi999 »

godzillafarts wrote: post #100

Been asking myself this question for a while, and have found the following reading to be very enlightening: - Letters from a Stoic, Seneca - On the Shortness of Life, Seneca - Walden, Henry David Thoreau - Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

Why Grapes of Wrath? Like dont work in a field which changes rapidly and get pushed to the sidelines to die poor in misery?
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