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What Is a Minimally Good Life?

psyche.co

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Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#131

Post by stronglikedan »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #124
stronglikedan wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here I am, a single-by-choice hermit, with enough money to get by from a below-average-salary-for-my-position job, and no real achievements to be recognized for (which doesn't bother me, since I don't care what others think of me), and no real worries until I have something to worry about and deal with it then. And yet I feel perfectly content with my life in general, and happy 99% of the time.

If I was single with no dependents, I would also be happy with very little security. But with kids and a family, I now feel obliged to make sure I’m doing all I can to ensure their security, at least until they are adults.

With kids and a family, I wouldn't be happy. I was just illustrating the point that "minimally good" is subjective, as a response to OP attempting to objectively define "What is needed minimally?"

Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#134

Post by slumpt_ »

adolph wrote: post #112
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

It depends on the trait in question and nearly always is a mix of both environmental and genetic factors.

Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#135

Post by rayiner »

rayiner wrote: post #81
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…

Using the definition of “minimal” you seem to be applying, I’d add children and family, and some sort of communal religion. Tons of people all over the world in places like Bangladesh who have few of the things on your list, but derive happiness and satisfaction from their family and their faith.

(Like 90% of the people in the entire world would agree with the above statement and find the omission from the list above perplexing. During the Cold War, Sting actually had a song about how kids was one of the things Americans and Soviets can are on. The fact that people are downvoting it here is an indication of the outsized cultural influence of a set of views that are held by an extreme minority.)

Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#136

Post by crumbshot »

MorningInfidel wrote: post #114
crumbshot wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

It came from their comment, specifically:

> a society in which one is treated badly when one doesn't strive to keep up with the Joneses

> the never-ending hamster wheel situation

> perhaps humanity wouldn't be so rapacious of the earth

Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#137

Post by munificent »

> The way to do that is simple: we should consider whether we would be content to live the lives that the least fortunate in our society actually live.

I like this framing a lot. It's sort of the aggregate societal-level Golden Rule. Would you be willing to play "Real-Life the MMO" if you didn't know which character you'd be dropped into?

However, there is an interesting wrinkle you can apply to it that I think explains many of the moral differences along the progressive-conservative spectrum that I see in the US today. Consider:

* Would you be content to live the life that the least fortunate in our society lives?

* Would you be content to live the life that the least fortunate in our society lives including the personal choices they have made?

In other words, how much are you willing to chalk up misfortune to personal responsibility versus random unfair vagaries of life? Would you still be willing to play "Real-Life the MMO" if you might be dropped into a level 20 character with an already established history and had to take their life from there?

The conservative American perspective stated hyperbolically is that all bad outcomes are a result of poor choices. Many even seem to imply a just-world hypothesis that random events like disease are the universe magically punishing people for moral failings. The equivalent hyperbolic progressive view is that no one ever deserves any bad outcome and that misery is always a result of systemic factors outside of the individual's control.

Somewhere in the middle is probably closer to the truth.

Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#139

Post by ZainRiz »

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.

Sounds like a recursive problem.

What if the parents were parented badly and thus lack emotional capacity.

What if they were parented badly because the grand parents were parented badly?

Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?

#140

Post by foxdev »

rayiner wrote: post #81
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…

Using the definition of “minimal” you seem to be applying, I’d add children and family, and some sort of communal religion. Tons of people all over the world in places like Bangladesh who have few of the things on your list, but derive happiness and satisfaction from their family and their faith.

Things done in the name of religion are a net negative on my life. It's not the fault of all religious people, but the people doing it are hard to avoid if I get involved, even if I were inclined to try.
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