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Ordinary Abundance

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Re: Ordinary Abundance

#151

Post by elil17 »

Many people in low income countries still lack every item on this list except for smallpox eradication and the sewing machine (indirectly, through imported second hand clothing).

One thing that I have found very interesting is reading what recipients of direct cash transfers do with the money: https://live.givedirectly.org

These are some of the worlds poorest people who get a transfer of several hundred to a thousand dollars via a charity called Give Directly. Although most of the money gets invested into business ventures, one interesting thing that comes up frequently is people buying straw mattresses for $20-30. The people who do this were frequently sleeping on hard dirt before getting the money.

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#152

Post by woodpanel »

nice little piece of web-literature.

Reminds me of a funny scene in Netflix's mini-series Dracula between him and Kathleen:

> D: You’re clearly very wealthy.

> K: Wealthy?

> D: Yes. Well, look at all this stuff. All this food. The moving picture box. And that thing outside, Bob calls it um, a car. And this treasure trove is your house!

> K: It’s a dump.

> D: Kathleen, I’ve been a nobleman for 400 years. I’ve lived in castes and palaces among the richest people of any age. Never….never! Have I stood in greater luxury than surrounds me now. This is a chamber of marvels. There isn’t a king, or queen or emperor that I have ever known or eaten who would step into this room and ever agree to leave it again.

> I knew the future would bring wonders. I did not know it would make them ordinary.

on a side note: while our brains seem to be wired to forget about such abundance in our lives that prior generations gave us, almost every item there not just has no appreciation in our contemporary culture, but is even showered with moralizing vilification and resentment: whether it is using them (e.g. affordable flights, A/Cs), buying them (e.g. overseas produce), producing them (e.g. telegraphs: data-centers), or the shapes or contents they are supposed to come (e.g. the art).

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#153

Post by elil17 »

woodpanel wrote: post #152

nice little piece of web-literature. Reminds me of a funny scene in Netflix's mini-series Dracula between him and Kathleen: > D: You’re clearly very wealthy. > K: Wealthy? > D: Yes. Well, look at all this stuff. All this food. The moving picture box. And that thing outside, Bob calls it um, a car. And this treasure trove is your house! > K: It’s a dump. > D: Kathleen, I’ve been a nobleman for 400 years. I’ve lived in…

> moralizing vilification and resentment

Or genuine concern over their environmental impacts...

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#154

Post by elil17 »

pibaker wrote: post #105

Just want to notice that the author is a part of the effective altruist cult. > I am an associate program officer in the Abundance and Growth Fund at Coefficient Giving, where I lead our grantmaking on Innovation Policy. In this role, I aim to identify and support efforts to safely accelerate scientific progress and innovation. I am motivated by the broader goals of improving scientific research, funding, institution…

This seems like a very un-culty varietal of effective altruism. Nothing to do with AI doom on his website

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#155

Post by elil17 »

potsandpans wrote: post #148
Slow_Hand wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And so… what? Make a point or leave it be, rather than making vague innuendo about how we should disapprove of them.

Effective altruists are a transhumanist cult filled with people that think an ML degree qualifies them to speak on subjects outside of their domain and make decisions on behalf of humanity. A disclosure should be required next to anything they're working on.

Is that this person though? If you actually look at his website there doesn't seem to be anything about transhumanism. Seems like he's just a metascience/science policy guy

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#156

Post by woodpanel »

elil17 wrote: post #153
woodpanel wrote: post #152

nice little piece of web-literature. Reminds me of a funny scene in Netflix's mini-series Dracula between him and Kathleen: > D: You’re clearly very wealthy. > K: Wealthy? > D: Yes. Well, look at all this stuff. All this food. The moving picture box. And that thing outside, Bob calls it um, a car. And this treasure trove is your house! > K: It’s a dump. > D: Kathleen, I’ve been a nobleman for 400 years. I’ve lived in…

> moralizing vilification and resentment Or genuine concern over their environmental impacts...

appreciate the downvote for proving my point

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#157

Post by sajithdilshan »

palmotea wrote: post #87
fasterik wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Propaganda for what, exactly?

> Propaganda for what, exactly? The status quo. Framing things in this way is something I first encountered in libertarian/capitalist propaganda (when I didn't know better and was basically a dogmatic libertarian). The message is basically: people should focus on the goods the status quo provides, instead of the political power, economic security, etc. that it doesn't.

> I first encountered in libertarian/capitalist propaganda

you should definitely look up the communist/socialist propaganda on East Germany and Soviet Union. In capitalism there is no such thing as what is provided by status quo, that's the whole point of capitalism, you can have whatever you want as long as you are willing do whatever it takes, unlike socialism/communism where you're allowed to have whatever the government mandates as the max (land, money, etc.) you can have

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#159

Post by imjonse »

xnx wrote: post #3
carlgreene wrote: post #2

Hedonic adaptation really is something. I have been deeply trying to appreciate these modern marvels more and more, but it's hard. A hot shower, air almost 50 degrees cooler than the outside air coming out of my vents, communicating instantly thousands of miles away, it's all so easy to just forget and take for granted

We need a Netflix Chaos Monkey tool for modern life. Each week one modern convenience stops working for a day: indoor plumbing, air conditioning, electricity, wifi, automobile, air travel etc. after one day without, you will again appreciate those things for the next few years

A trip to the third world or even easier to a ghetto/favela/poor rural area in your own country is realistically achievable and may lead to an even more profound appreciation. A real life Chaos Monkey is easy to interpret as gamified or temporarily slowed down modern life, so may even be fun sometimes.

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#160

Post by watwut »

tshaddox wrote: post #75
fcarraldo wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are solving problems, but we're also creating more problems with those solutions. Greenhouse gases, global warming, oil spills, wars over resources, straining power grids, species extinction, worsening mental health, worsening social cohesion, widening inequality. All are the result of technological progress within our systems of government. Hedonic adaptation prevents us from asking "is this worth the downsides,…

It's possible to mistakenly think you've solved a problem when you've actually made the situation worse, of course, and that's just plainly a bad thing. It's important to be able to identify specific things which we thought were solutions but were actually new worse problems, and roll them back if possible. [0] But that's not really what the hedonic treadmill refers to! The hedonic treadmill is referring to the fact…

> The hedonic treadmill is referring to the fact that, when a problem is solved, the level of pleasure or happiness individuals experience reportedly quickly returns to the pre-solution baseline.

That is not a fact or objective truth or even historical, that is a hypothesis and a theory.

And the distinction matters. It is not in fact true that all people in all setups and classes and historical periods and periods of their lives were equally happy. In fact, you can be unhappy, solve the problem and be more happy/content for the rest of your life. Overall peoples happiness go up and down.

Hedonistic treadmill is a theory. It is also a slight of hand argumentative trick to shoo away valid complains people have. It was worst in the past, but you are not completely happy accepting bullshit today, therefore you just dont know how good you have it, basically.

Global warming make quite a lot of people (like hundred thousands) miserable as they had to evacuate and then return back to non-existent houses. They literally lost everything except bank account and whatever fit into the car. The areas with high drug and alcohol use, high violence rates are in fact not full of people who have it too good. I could go on ... the inequality and accumulation of power is threatening to make most of us all worst off and it is not because we got spoiled by hedonistic treadmill.

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