Good life is the absense of bad life.
Absence does not imply presence.
It is easy to enumerate what is bad for ones life - much harder to define a good life, hence one is able to achieve "good life" by substracting all that is considered "bad life".
What Is a Minimally Good Life?
151–160 of 162 posts
Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
You need some perspective on this. A solid half of the world has so little money that these people routinely die from easily preventable conditions.
Which falls in the "don't have enough to meet your basic needs" category and in which case I agree.
Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?
#153What 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.
You usually really like to use Scandinavian countries in your arguments but "somehow" you miss out on doing so now since they blatantly disproves your point in this argument.
Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Kids have to worry about money up to a point. I heard "we can't afford it" a lot growing up.
I remember being 8 knowing my parents were poor and rarely asking for anything I wanted because of it, even food. If I did ask, I felt guilty afterwards and would debate if I should have.
I played cautiously knowing that an injury could upend my family and my little sister’s future, and I didn’t partake in school sports or anything that could disturb my parents as they were already busy working 24/7 and it would have stressed them even more to have to pick me up or pay for equipment.
Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
> fault This is where you begin to introduce your own ideas rather than talk about mine. I didn't use that word and certainly didn't imply that anybody is at fault here. Sometimes things are just true. It doesn't mean anybody is to blame or that anybody is "better" than anybody else.
> the people with the power to change the never-ending hamster wheel situation are primarly women Why have they singled out women here if not to place blame? Women are a product of selection pressures just as much as men are. Moreover, it isn't like women are not on the same hamster wheel as everyone else.
For a start, you can't "single out" half of the population. Women aren't a minority.
I disagree with anyone who wants to pin the blame on current individuals or groups for things which were caused by evolution. Check the comment I was replying to here.
Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
As are women.
In the English language "Men" can also mean "human beings in general". Granted, this usage is a tiny bit archaic.
I assumed the gendered usage here was intended, since it's not a poem or a format where character count matters. Unfortunately it's ambiguous without further clarification.
Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
My hunch: His wife likely still wants him to be capable of material success and competition. She just doesn't want him to prioritize those endeavors past some particular threshold. Said another way, one's spouse probably finds it attractive that one can get a new job if one loses the current one. Marriages often go to hell when the husband is out of work and it becomes obvious that he either cannot or will not return…
This is a nasty generalization at best, and terrible sexism at worst. Why do you think you know my wife better than me?
What's sexist? I appreciate that my wife is employable and tries to do her best in competitions. That's why I said "spouse".
The divorce thing is true for men specifically: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/000312241665534...
What's nasty? Expecting that people generally value economic capability and competitive ambition in their life partners?
And, true, I don't know your wife. That's why I said to each her own. Still, as a thought experiment, quit your job and watch TV for 24 months solid then tell me how it's going.
Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
While that may be the case, 84% of the world identifies with an organized religion, and that number is growing (as the Christian population in China, the world’s largest putatively atheist country, grows rapidly). Religion is a bedrock for social organization nearly everywhere in the world. And actively religious people in nearly every country are much more likely to report being “very happy” compared to inactively r…
Sorry, but there is plenty of happiness research that contradicts most of what you say. There are world-wide studies about it every year in nearly every country of the world. Just look up "World Happiness Report", for instance, but there are many more studies. You can barely find a topic with less empirical research in psychology, sociology, and economics. You're right that religion and community also play a role in…
You’re thinking of happiness as a binary, but the surveys you list describe it as a scale. Most people in Bangladesh don’t meet many of the criteria in OP’s list, particularly income security. (They can feed themselves but that’s about it, and that’s not guaranteed.) So why do they rate themselves a 4.5 out of 10 on global surveys instead of 0? Because family and faith is an important source of happiness. Having kids and being able to feed them (which is a condition short of “income security” as postulated by OP, and is one that even most people in Bangladesh achieve) and participating in your religious community produces a certain baseline level of happiness. Those people would be happier if they also had income security and a fulfilling job. I agree with you on that. But their families and faith are a main source of what happiness they do have. Omitting those things from the list therefore overlooks a huge swath of the human condition.
Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
You usually really like to use Scandinavian countries in your arguments but "somehow" you miss out on doing so now since they blatantly disproves your point in this argument.
I don’t see how it disproves anything: https://happiness-report.s3.amazonaws.com/2020/WHR20.pdf. The United States is among the top 20 happiest countries in the world, happier than France, Spain, or Italy. Seeing as how the US is always portrayed as a dystopian hellhole with no income security, no healthcare, etc., and certainly France, Spain, and Italy fare better on those metrics, that would imply that something, perhaps our religiosity, is doing a lot of work boosting our happiness rankings.
Re: What Is a Minimally Good Life?
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
No need to drag sex into it.
I'm pretty sure he was using "men" in the generic since, similar to "humans". That said, looking at stats like suicide rate reveals that a literal reading may be more correct.
I note you've assumed the poster is male.
The "generic sense" of "men" to mean humans is sexist - blatantly so. It's also quickly becoming archaic, for this reason. Going out of your way to use it, instead of "people" or "humans" or "humanity", is now a statement.