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What Is a Minimally Good Life?

psyche.co

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Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#111

Post by dang »

growlist wrote: post #2

I 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…

Please don't do gender flamewar on HN. Nothing new comes of these, and nothing good.

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

Edit: this kind of thing has unfortunately been a problem many times:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22124843

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https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21785560

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https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20289069

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19862112

Worse, your account has been using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. That's against the site guidelines, and we ban accounts that do it. We have to, in order to prevent HN from being taken over by flames. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and fix this so we don't have to ban you. If you want more explanation about how/why we moderate this way, there is plenty at these links:

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Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#112

Post by adolph »

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.

Current thought about parenting (environmental effects) vs parents (trait heritability) is that one's parents has more a role than how one is parented.

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

Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#113

Post by adolph »

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

- This Is Water, Wallace

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI

Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#114

Post by MorningInfidel »

crumbshot wrote: post #60
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.

Well exactly, he didn't have a logical point to make. Just an unfounded assumption that women are ruining things for everyone.

Where did 'ruining things for everyone' come from? In the same vein, I could interpret the post as 'women drive more economic growth than men'.

Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#115

Post by Daishiman »

lm28469 wrote: post #107
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…

This isn't true. There's definitely a baseline of happiness, but my life turned around dramatically once I had basic control over my finances and I didn't have to worry anymore about my financial future, the baseline increased and isn't coming down.

Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#116

Post by Daishiman »

mightybyte wrote: post #43
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…

This seems like a pretty good list. I'm sure it's possible to debate the details, but it seems to hit the big points. What I think is interesting about it though is that aside from "enough income to not have any substantial worries about the future", none of these items can actually be provided by society / government. Government certainly can't provide a loving partner, fulfilling sexuality, good mental and physical…

A government's environmental policy has an objective impact on every measure of mental and physical health.

Urban design, whether you're stuck two hours in traffic to get to work, whether you work 35 or 60 hours, whether you can take a walk in your neighborhood at night in peace...

Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#117

Post by zookeeprr »

joncrane wrote: post #94
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.

I'm not rich, but I'm comfortable. Most of my choices, and certainly all of my major life choices (like where to live, what car to drive, what job to take) are still based around money. Edit: good points in the responses. I don't worry about eating out, what to order, what brand of sundry to buy. I do try to optimize but as others have said, that's more of a desire than a requirement. Having said that, I think the on…

That's definitely true up until a pretty obscene level of wealth, but there's definitely a difference between basing all choices around money, and basing major choices around money.

For example, I no longer scour the grocery store for the cheapest available option for every item I select. I no longer have to spend months finding the best value for a pair of shoes, a piece of furniture, etc.

Basically, if I spend a couple hundred dollars too much on stuff one month, I'll hardly notice it. Whereas, when I was poor, that was the difference between making rent or not.

Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#118

Post by brudgers »

joncrane wrote: post #94
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.

I'm not rich, but I'm comfortable. Most of my choices, and certainly all of my major life choices (like where to live, what car to drive, what job to take) are still based around money. Edit: good points in the responses. I don't worry about eating out, what to order, what brand of sundry to buy. I do try to optimize but as others have said, that's more of a desire than a requirement. Having said that, I think the on…

The poor stand in the paper products aisle calculating the relative value of one multi-pack of toilet paper versus another. While a person with money might look and decide one is too expensive, it's not an optimization problem. There's not pressure to get it right. The cost of a mistake is rounding error not a meal.

Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#119

Post by godzillafarts »

andi999 wrote: post #109
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?

More along the lines of practicing altruism even when I perceive things around me to be bad

Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#120

Post by tolbish »

andi999 wrote: post #109
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?

The lesson to be learned from that book is that we can do some cruel things to people we feel are beneath us, but we can also do some beautiful, empathetic things. The lesson to be learned from that book is not "don't be poor".
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