Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to Be Happy

lesswrong.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 222 posts

Re: How to Be Happy

#41

Post by walterbell »

maaku wrote: post #33
Jweb_Guru wrote: post #10

Just for those of you who aren't aware, LessWrong is a site devoted to the cult of the "singularity." The site founder, Eliezer Yudkowsky, is a secular humanist who is probably most well-known for his Harry Potter fanfiction, "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality." His core beliefs include that the obvious goal of the human race is immortality, that it is justifiable to kill a man if it would remove a spec of…

Play fair. > His core beliefs include that the obvious goal of the human race is immortality "We should be allowed to live as long as we want to." Emphasis on the want. I don't find that very controversial. > that it is justifiable to kill a man if it would remove a spec of dust from the eye of every other person on Earth No, the setup was one person's torture for 50 years (not death), or specks of dust in the eyes o…

If your friend has dust in their eye, do you feel the urge to help or comfort them? Is that good, bad, utilitarian?

If you personally torture someone, would that have any effect on you? Is that good, bad, utilitarian?

Is there a recursive relationship between observers and observed systems? If so, does the intention of an observation matter?

Re: How to Be Happy

#42

Post by asdfologist »

mansr wrote: post #38

Most self-help advice boils down to the author saying "be more like me." This is no exception.

Your point? That's true of most advice in general. It's common sense that if something worked for one person, then perhaps it could work for another.

Re: How to Be Happy

#43

Post by [deleted] »

davidtanner wrote: post #40

I was a lot happier when I stopped reading LessWrong. I'm not even trying to be (overly) snarky - I really did used to read LW and I'm very glad I stopped as it was one of the many small things dragging down my well being.

[deleted]

Re: How to Be Happy

#44

Post by ansible »

SyneRyder wrote: post #32
__Joker wrote: post #6

I hardly agree with "Develop the skills and habits associated with extroversion". Why I need to be comfortable with social company if my predisposed nature and comfortableness is to be alone ?

If you are already an introvert, developing the skills to be an extrovert will let you have the choice & flexibility to jump between the two whenever you want to. There's nothing wrong with feeling comfortable being alone (indeed that's a good skill to have, and not everyone has that). But there may come a time when you would like to be more extroverted occasionally & make more friends. If you don't build that skill…

Agreed. I'd go further to say that if you are naturally extroverted, it would be worthwhile to develop some ability to feel comfortable while being alone.

I know some people that go stir crazy when there is no one to interact with. That seems sub-optimal if you want to be truly happy.

Re: How to Be Happy

#46

Post by pkorzeniewski »

I've read many articles and books on this subject and not a single one of them had any effect on my life. It's usually just a list of things that - according to the author (and every author of course has different opinion) - will make you happy. It's bullshit, there is no "golden solution" for everyone. Reading such articles will make you even more unhappy, because now you've the whole list of things and you feel like if you don't achieve them all, you'll be unhappy for the rest of your life.

Re: How to Be Happy

#47

Post by id »

maaku wrote: post #33
Jweb_Guru wrote: post #10

Just for those of you who aren't aware, LessWrong is a site devoted to the cult of the "singularity." The site founder, Eliezer Yudkowsky, is a secular humanist who is probably most well-known for his Harry Potter fanfiction, "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality." His core beliefs include that the obvious goal of the human race is immortality, that it is justifiable to kill a man if it would remove a spec of…

Play fair. > His core beliefs include that the obvious goal of the human race is immortality "We should be allowed to live as long as we want to." Emphasis on the want. I don't find that very controversial. > that it is justifiable to kill a man if it would remove a spec of dust from the eye of every other person on Earth No, the setup was one person's torture for 50 years (not death), or specks of dust in the eyes o…

So annoying 3^^^3 people "for a fraction of a second, barely enough to make them notice" is worse than horribly torturing a single person for 50 years?

Keep in mind that the 3^^^3 dust specks are spread across 3^^^3 people and their annoyance can't be simply added together.

Re: How to Be Happy

#48

Post by maaku »

walterbell wrote: post #41
maaku wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Play fair. > His core beliefs include that the obvious goal of the human race is immortality "We should be allowed to live as long as we want to." Emphasis on the want. I don't find that very controversial. > that it is justifiable to kill a man if it would remove a spec of dust from the eye of every other person on Earth No, the setup was one person's torture for 50 years (not death), or specks of dust in the eyes o…

If your friend has dust in their eye, do you feel the urge to help or comfort them? Is that good, bad, utilitarian? If you personally torture someone, would that have any effect on you? Is that good, bad, utilitarian? Is there a recursive relationship between observers and observed systems? If so, does the intention of an observation matter?

What do you mean "good, bad, utilitarian"? Good and bad are descriptions we attach to causal causes which lead to outcomes with higher (good) or lower (bad) utility.

Having either my friend have dust in his eye or some stranger tortured are outcomes with less utility in my book than the counterfactual default. Actions which lead to these outcomes are bad, actions which prevent or provide restitution are good.

I don't know what you are getting at with a recursive relationship between observers and observed systems.

Re: How to Be Happy

#49

Post by maaku »

id wrote: post #47
maaku wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Play fair. > His core beliefs include that the obvious goal of the human race is immortality "We should be allowed to live as long as we want to." Emphasis on the want. I don't find that very controversial. > that it is justifiable to kill a man if it would remove a spec of dust from the eye of every other person on Earth No, the setup was one person's torture for 50 years (not death), or specks of dust in the eyes o…

So annoying 3^^^3 people "for a fraction of a second, barely enough to make them notice" is worse than horribly torturing a single person for 50 years? Keep in mind that the 3^^^3 dust specks are spread across 3^^^3 people and their annoyance can't be simply added together.

> and their annoyance can't be simply added together

Why not?

EDIT: Serious question. If I save two lives that is twice as good as saving one, right? Why is this situation different?

Re: How to Be Happy

#50

Post by shurcooL » 

  8. Find your purpose and live it. One benefit of religion may be that it gives people a sense of meaning and purpose. Without a magical deity to give you purpose, though, you'll have to find out for yourself what drives you. It may take a while to find it though, and you may have to dip your hands and mind into many fields. But once you find a path that strongly motivates you and fulfills you, take it. (Of course, you might not find one purpose but many.) Having a strong sense of meaning and purpose has a wide range of positive effects.41 The 'find a purpose' recommendation also offers an illustration of how methods may differ in importance for people. 'Find a purpose' is not always emphasized in happiness literature, but for my own brain chemistry I suspect that finding motivating purposes has made more difference in my life than anything else on this list.
I think that's the biggest factor of my happiness. I have a long-term open source project that I believe in and I work on it in all my spare time. Little by little, it's getting closer to one day being very useful in many ways.
Post reply on HN