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The 10 commandments for happiness and success

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Re: The 10 commandments for happiness and success

#111

Post by crassus »

marcosdumay wrote: post #65
crassus wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, religion makes you happier[1], so its strange the author left it out of his ten points ""[9] and a review of 498 studies published in peer-reviewed journals concluded that a large majority of them showed a positive correlation between religious commitment and higher levels of perceived well-being and self-esteem and lower levels of hypertension, depression, and clinical delinquency.[12] A meta-analysis of 34…

I'd try an hypothesis that religion gives a huge fixed amount of happiness, at the cost of a small amount of unhappiness that slowly accumulates through the entire life, and even through generations. Looks like the most logical outcome for me, but I don't know how to test it - or even if there is enough data in the world to test it now. Anyway, the usual correlation is not causality applies here.

Given that the vast majority of all people that have ever lived have been religious, your hypothesis is going to be very hard to test. Now what do we call untestable beliefs?

Re: The 10 commandments for happiness and success

#112

Post by ekm2 »

cgh wrote: post #68
giulivo wrote: post #35

I enjoyed the post but there is one sentence I can't understand: > 2/ Only surround yourself with brilliant and positive people. Negative and mediocre people are everywhere and their influence on you can be devastating. The thing is that I'm potentially one of those "mediocre" people and I don't see why my influence should be devastating. For instance, what is wrong about being negative? Not that my days are about it…

Globally speaking, there is less poverty and warfare than there has ever been in human history, or to put it another way, humanity is more prosperous and peaceful than it's ever been. By all objective measures except environmentally, 2013 is shaping up to be the greatest year in human history. Really, the greatest issue facing humanity today is climate change, not the other stuff you mention. So take some cheer in th…

Globally speaking, there is less poverty and warfare than there has ever been in human history

I have always been curious how people come to this conclusion.

Re: The 10 commandments for happiness and success

#113

Post by stevewillows »

bradleysmith wrote: post #99
stevewillows wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I listened to the audio book version - - the man sounds like the Devil himself. Great book though - - I recommend it to everyone I know.

if you havent read it, He also did The Art of Seduction in a similar 'rules through historic case-by-case basis' style, but focused on relationships. its every bit as icky, and definitely just as good. Robert Greene always reminds me of the quote by Sandy Lerner I heard on NPR somewhere: "the first rule of any game is to know you're in one"

Icky is probably the best word to describe it. There is a certain power to understanding how to maneuver a situation and use it to your advantage.

With Laws, I found the 'never outshine the master' principal to be invaluable when meeting a new group of people.

As an aside, tomorrow is your first HN birthday. HB!

Re: The 10 commandments for happiness and success

#114

Post by crassus »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #94
crassus wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name some of them.

You may want to educate yourself by looing into the 30 year war, as one of many, many exmples.

I'm sorry, which were the atheist nations participating in the 30 years' war?

Re: The 10 commandments for happiness and success

#116

Post by vukmir »

crassus wrote: post #110
enraged_camel wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop moving goalposts.

I just think it amusing that his example of atheist nations are countries with crosses on their flags . You can't separate the history of the West from the history of Christianity without committing ahistorical absurdities.

Amusing, true. False, I don't think so.

P.S. I'm not separating the West and Christianity. Just pointing out that today, in my opinion, the countries of Scandinavia can be considered to be peaceful, prosperous, and (mostly) atheist.

Re: The 10 commandments for happiness and success

#117

Post by bradleysmith »

stevewillows wrote: post #113
bradleysmith wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you havent read it, He also did The Art of Seduction in a similar 'rules through historic case-by-case basis' style, but focused on relationships. its every bit as icky, and definitely just as good. Robert Greene always reminds me of the quote by Sandy Lerner I heard on NPR somewhere: "the first rule of any game is to know you're in one"

Icky is probably the best word to describe it. There is a certain power to understanding how to maneuver a situation and use it to your advantage. With Laws, I found the 'never outshine the master' principal to be invaluable when meeting a new group of people. As an aside, tomorrow is your first HN birthday. HB!

I've always liked Law 9 'Win through your actions, never through argument'. It's good to remember most arguments won are Pyrrhic victories.

hah yeah thanks. I'd been lurking for years before I realized this was a community to stay with (and build reputation with) on the internets. I always think of how much I'd read it in college (graduated 09), and kick myself for not grabbing my name then. I think it was a year or two of following before I knew what y-combinator was :).

Re: The 10 commandments for happiness and success

#118

Post by stevewillows »

bradleysmith wrote: post #117
stevewillows wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Icky is probably the best word to describe it. There is a certain power to understanding how to maneuver a situation and use it to your advantage. With Laws, I found the 'never outshine the master' principal to be invaluable when meeting a new group of people. As an aside, tomorrow is your first HN birthday. HB!

I've always liked Law 9 'Win through your actions, never through argument'. It's good to remember most arguments won are Pyrrhic victories. hah yeah thanks. I'd been lurking for years before I realized this was a community to stay with (and build reputation with) on the internets. I always think of how much I'd read it in college (graduated 09), and kick myself for not grabbing my name then. I think it was a year or…

We all lurked for a bit. :)

I've spent most of the day talking with different people about this book. There's a lot of really great wisdom that often gets overshadowed by the few manipulative techniques.

Re: The 10 commandments for happiness and success

#119

Post by yaddayadda »

Dewie wrote: post #78
ams6110 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't get the anti-religion sentiment here. If you find in religious teachings a way to live happily, productively, in a socially positive way, why is that a problem or anything to apologize for?

I guess it's the same reason why the top recommendations in places like this for feeling better when you're down is things like exercise: the effects of exercise is well-documented and fairly reproduce-able. You put activity in and then you get dopamine out. You get to talk about your well being as a (seemingly) easily measured and to a degree manipulable brain chemistry. As soon as you start to wander into territory…

layperson cite for finicky placebos: http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2013/01/are-placebos-really-s...

Re: The 10 commandments for happiness and success

#120

Post by roryokane »

hnriot wrote: post #54
brugidou wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your values have nothing to do with evidence, reasoning and/or facts. You can change your opinion, increase your knowledge, admit you were wrong about facts but this won't change your values.

Of course it does. One's values can be affirmed by evidence, or shown to be based on untruths. For example, I might have competition as one of my values, believing that its always good to be competitive and do one's best and strive to win. Then one day wake up and take stock of the accumulated evidence and realize that maybe this wasn't a good value to have held after all. It's nonsense to say values have nothi to do…

This disagreement is a result of using the single word “value” to mean two different types of values. The values you describe are “instrumental values”. The values brugidou describes are “terminal values”. Here is a description of each: http://lesswrong.com/lw/l4/terminal_values_and_instrumental_...
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