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Ordinary Abundance

ordinaryabundance.com

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Re: Ordinary Abundance

#81

Post by jancsika »

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

If you don't mind vectorizing these then they already exist and are called power outages.

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#82

Post by fasterik »

palmotea wrote: post #49

Is this a variation of the old "don't fucking complain about the status quo, you have a telescreen, not even the kings of old had a telescreen watching them! How dare you question the titans of industry, whose minion's diligent effort has provided you a telescreen at an affordable price!"?

That seems like an extrapolation to a pretty extreme conclusion. I don't see anything in the article that says anything like that. It's an appreciation of how much objective standards of living have improved over the past few centuries.

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#83

Post by nicebyte »

fasterik wrote: post #82
palmotea wrote: post #49

Is this a variation of the old "don't fucking complain about the status quo, you have a telescreen, not even the kings of old had a telescreen watching them! How dare you question the titans of industry, whose minion's diligent effort has provided you a telescreen at an affordable price!"?

That seems like an extrapolation to a pretty extreme conclusion. I don't see anything in the article that says anything like that. It's an appreciation of how much objective standards of living have improved over the past few centuries.

Sure yeah. propaganda has to be subtle sometimes.

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#84

Post by nicebyte »

I don't know what's worse, people dying of a disease because there is no cure, or people dying of a disease because they can't afford a cure?

not having a vaccine for a deadly disease, or having a vaccine AND a monstrous media machine that will convince millions to not take it?

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#85

Post by fasterik »

nicebyte wrote: post #83
fasterik wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like an extrapolation to a pretty extreme conclusion. I don't see anything in the article that says anything like that. It's an appreciation of how much objective standards of living have improved over the past few centuries.

Sure yeah. propaganda has to be subtle sometimes.

Propaganda for what, exactly?

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#86

Post by drblast »

jplusequalt wrote: post #58

>It is to humanity’s credit that we remain restless in the midst of all of this progress. We continue to look forward, pushing the frontier further with new treatments, new tools, and new institutions that will help future generations in ways we can’t even picture yet. Abundance truthers ignore that having access to more consumer goods is often orthogonal to happiness ("Hedonic treadmill"). But am I better off for al…

I often imagine WWIII, as I witness the bombs coming down to destroy everything we've built, wondering, "what conveniences would I give up for this not to be happening?"

And I also realize that this is more than a thought experiment for many people living right now.

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#87

Post by palmotea »

fasterik wrote: post #85
nicebyte wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure yeah. propaganda has to be subtle sometimes.

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.

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#88

Post by palmotea »

xg15 wrote: post #42
smallmancontrov wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> affordable That's the crux, isn't it? You aren't just dependent, you are dependent on a system that relentlessly stalks you with increased demands. You are tasked with keeping ahead of a pack of hunters who want to take you down -- and not only will your companions leave you for dead the moment that happens, the group will punish any suggestion that we might want to do something about this on a systemic level becau…

I think you need better companions.

Or his companions need to get better. I interpreted...

>> You are tasked with keeping ahead of a pack of hunters who want to take you down -- and not only will your companions leave you for dead the moment that happens, the group will punish any suggestion that we might want to do something about this on a systemic level because they strive to join the hunters themselves.

...as referring to software engineers as a whole, because it fits.

We're laborers, but a significant fraction of us has misinterpreted having a comfortable salary now as being capitalists themselves, so bought into libertarian propaganda and behave like they're temporarily embarrassed billionaires (for instance, by strongly resisting things like unionization).

Unfortunately, too many of us who are actually interested in "[doing] something about this on a systemic level," are too pampered to have the focus to actually be effective, and get distracted and put all kinds of divisive stuff front-and-center (basically playing into the divide-and-conquer game of the bosses).

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#89

Post by fasterik »

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 don't see why pointing out improvements in quality of life is "propaganda for the status quo" or precludes talking about political power and economic security. We can and do talk about both all the time.

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#90

Post by breuleux »

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…

I feel that oftentimes our biggest problems come with the irresponsible scaling up of certain solutions, at which point it is usually too late to roll back because we have come to depend on them. There has to be some time between the moment we invent something great and the moment we make trillions of the thing and realize, oh, maybe that's a problem. But we don't pace ourselves. And if we keep plowing ahead heedlessly, we may very well end up burning everything and collapsing our entire civilization. It's a dangerous game to keep betting on the future without actually ever properly planning anything at all.
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