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Ten Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

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Re: Ten Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#71

> 4. Be part of bigger things > Being part of bigger things makes us feel valued. Find communities and projects to be part of. Start your own. It could be online or in the real world. Make sure the groups don't get politically active one way or the other. Today's social landscape is made significantly worse by political polarization dragged to the extreme - fuelled by short form content silos and bubbles. (Tiktok, In…

Inquiry: what do you define as politics? Example: is a trans person in your community political for using their preferred pronouns? Going to their preferred bathroom? Is a gay person political for mentioning their same sex spouse? Is an immigrant political for discussing their immigration process (“sorry can’t make it I have an apt with the embassy”)? Is tits or gtfo political? I’m not trying to be contrarian this is…

For me personally the line is crossed when you start making judgments.

Having an appointment with the embassy is not political. Saying the government shouldn’t force people to go to the embassy is.

Re: Ten Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#72

> 4. Be part of bigger things > Being part of bigger things makes us feel valued. Find communities and projects to be part of. Start your own. It could be online or in the real world. Make sure the groups don't get politically active one way or the other. Today's social landscape is made significantly worse by political polarization dragged to the extreme - fuelled by short form content silos and bubbles. (Tiktok, In…

Inquiry: what do you define as politics? Example: is a trans person in your community political for using their preferred pronouns? Going to their preferred bathroom? Is a gay person political for mentioning their same sex spouse? Is an immigrant political for discussing their immigration process (“sorry can’t make it I have an apt with the embassy”)? Is tits or gtfo political? I’m not trying to be contrarian this is…

Maybe it starts when some people start to apply some power on other people ? But all your examples are people talking about themselves : their own lives, their own choices, their own specifics, their own struggles. I would say people can have all this and mention it as long as it stays on the fringe and does not become a topic to debate. This would be outside the scope of the group.

Maybe other people should avoid commenting on peoples life / choices / specifics / struggles, and the atmosphere may stay nice.

Re: Ten Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#73
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inquiry: what do you define as politics? Example: is a trans person in your community political for using their preferred pronouns? Going to their preferred bathroom? Is a gay person political for mentioning their same sex spouse? Is an immigrant political for discussing their immigration process (“sorry can’t make it I have an apt with the embassy”)? Is tits or gtfo political? I’m not trying to be contrarian this is…

For me personally the line is crossed when you start making judgments. Having an appointment with the embassy is not political. Saying the government shouldn’t force people to go to the embassy is.

> sorry, wont make it. Appointment.

Ok

> sorry, wont make it. Stupid appointment.

Banned!

Re: Ten Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#74

The one thing I'd put in context is "don't waste time on commuting". In Europe for sure and possibly many parts of Asia like Japan or bigger metropolises in China etc. most people will commute by public transport. You can read. Whenever I had a job where I commuted at least an hour a day, the number of books I read, per month, went from 2–3 to 10 or more.

this is a good reminder for me. I just switched from a 5 minute cycle commute to a 20 minute cycle commute. Time to break out some audio books.

Re: Ten Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to tell my parents to stop talking about politics because it was making me dislike them. They weren’t informed citizens, they were just regurgitating whatever they happened to read in their newspaper that day. If you pushed them on anything they said they didn’t really have any understanding beneath the headlines they had read. It would be better for them if they could disengage from it but they don’t seem to w…

So no discussion happened and they were left uninformed? I talk through things with my family and share different takes and sources. Some are unhinged and called out. But usually there is lots of common ground. And sometimes changed options. No single raindrop believes it to be blamed for the flood.

Discussion did take place. There is only so much you can do though.

I’m glad it worked for you but in my case it didn’t.

Ultimately people who continually drag the conversation around to politics just aren’t very nice to be around.

Re: Ten Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#76

>Don't take it all too seriously, we all die. Wise wisdoms overall, to have this particular advise from someone who has passed away just hit a different notes. There's an old Chinese proverbs on being happy: "If you want to be happy for an hour, take a nap. If you want to be happy for a day, go fishing. If you want to be happy for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want to be happy for a lifetime, help someone else".

[deleted]

Re: Ten Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#77

> 4. Be part of bigger things > Being part of bigger things makes us feel valued. Find communities and projects to be part of. Start your own. It could be online or in the real world. Make sure the groups don't get politically active one way or the other. Today's social landscape is made significantly worse by political polarization dragged to the extreme - fuelled by short form content silos and bubbles. (Tiktok, In…

All groups have internal politics, which is worse.

Re: Ten Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#78

> 4. Be part of bigger things > Being part of bigger things makes us feel valued. Find communities and projects to be part of. Start your own. It could be online or in the real world. Make sure the groups don't get politically active one way or the other. Today's social landscape is made significantly worse by political polarization dragged to the extreme - fuelled by short form content silos and bubbles. (Tiktok, In…

Inquiry: what do you define as politics? Example: is a trans person in your community political for using their preferred pronouns? Going to their preferred bathroom? Is a gay person political for mentioning their same sex spouse? Is an immigrant political for discussing their immigration process (“sorry can’t make it I have an apt with the embassy”)? Is tits or gtfo political? I’m not trying to be contrarian this is…

Politics in groups is like pornography

You can't define it but you know it when you see it

Re: Ten Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#79

I upped the font size on my Pixel recently and this is one of those sites where (in Firefox) the sidebar takes up more than 50% of the width of the screen and retains tiny text while the article itself wraps on a couple words per line.

Reader mode works. Just tested on Firefox on a pixel...

Re: Ten Steps Towards Happiness (2015)

#80

> 4. Be part of bigger things > Being part of bigger things makes us feel valued. Find communities and projects to be part of. Start your own. It could be online or in the real world. Make sure the groups don't get politically active one way or the other. Today's social landscape is made significantly worse by political polarization dragged to the extreme - fuelled by short form content silos and bubbles. (Tiktok, In…

I think this is wildly wrongheaded. The socially polite "no politics" is a critical insulator allowing normally non-socially acceptable behavior to grow. I am convinced it is those in power not wanting an informed populace. We are not in uninteresting times. People need to be engaging in world around them, not ignoring it. A: "My neighbors are scared" B: "Don't talk about that, we might get testy because I think your…

The way to cause effective local change among people you know is to build meaningful relationships with psychological safety. They will figure out your political opinions with time, and they will be more subtly but durably influenced.

Jamming it into conversations with strong moral judgement attached to the opinion will make people dislike you, and it will not influence people who disagree with you. It will make them harden in their existing views because the emotional awfulness of what you are saying (implicitly accusing them of being bad people, or making them feel under threat) reinforces how correct they have been to have held those views.

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