How to Be Happy • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Be Happy

#81

Post by chippy » Sun, Jul 20, 2014, 4:42 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #79

Can someone tell me how this 'cult of happiness' started in western culture. The obsession with happiness is so pervasive and absurd that people are depressed because they are not happy 24x7 not because of a personal tragedy. Why is some vaguely defined happiness sold as some holy grail that must be achieved at all costs. There are billion dollar industries built around selling happiness ( fashion industry, fitness i…

"the pursuit of happiness" is right there in the US Declaration of Independence. The country holds that the pursuit of happiness as an unalienable right.

Re: How to Be Happy

#82

Post by rquantz » Sun, Jul 20, 2014, 4:42 PM UTC

mansr wrote: post #62

npsimons wrote: post #27

Extroversion is among the best predictors of happiness, Well of course it is! No one ever meets the shy happy people because they never go out!

There is also, as the author mentions, a correlation between religiosity and happiness. Still, "start going to church" is not on the list of things to do. I'll hazard a guess that the author is not religious and thus doesn't consider it relevant. While I don't personally believe this a worthy pursuit, it does show the arbitrariness of the selection. EDIT: Point 8 does touch on religion but does not (directly) endorse…

This is on Less Wrong, a website devoted to rationality. You'll notice several times in the article he is clearly addressing a rationality-focused audience. For instance:

Without a magical deity to give you purpose, though, you'll have to find out for yourself what drives you.

He's writing for atheists. Telling an atheist "in order to be happy you need to get religion" is like telling a recovering alcoholic "in order to fall asleep you need to have a few drinks."

Re: How to Be Happy

#83

Post by wslh » Sun, Jul 20, 2014, 4:43 PM UTC

pkorzeniewski wrote: post #46

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 lik…

> It's bullshit, there is no "golden solution" for everyone.

The science of happiness (not their philosophy) is new and it is in a prehistoric stage. Think about the history of chemistry and the alchemist adventures!

The post doesn't invalidate your opinion, just reading and article doesn't make you happy except for a few enlightened ones. But, knowing the correlation using a lot of data can help you in this search.

Re: How to Be Happy

#84

Post by NoahTheDuke » Sun, Jul 20, 2014, 4:44 PM UTC

I actually found the Be Happier [0] article to be a better source of actionable and researched-backed advice. I put a bunch of the In A Nutshell sentences into my general Anki [1] deck, and it's had a measurable effect on my overall happiness.

[0]: http://lesswrong.com/lw/bq0/be_happier/

[1]: http://ankisrs.net/

Re: How to Be Happy

#85

Post by chippy » Sun, Jul 20, 2014, 4:46 PM UTC

Deivuh wrote: post #4

As someone was currently suffering of depression, this is going to help me. Nice article and linked resources.

Interesting use of varying tenses in your grammar. Is English your first language?

Re: How to Be Happy

#86

Post by chippy » Sun, Jul 20, 2014, 4:48 PM UTC

gaelow wrote: post #2

My problem may be laziness. I couldn't bring myself to read more than half of such a long article, so I guess I'll just stay moderately unhappy.

The bit about procrastination was in the first half of the article :)

Re: How to Be Happy

#87

Post by id » Sun, Jul 20, 2014, 4:48 PM UTC

xyzzyz wrote: post #74

id wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What's the probability that having speck in the eye at any given time has some terrible consequences (like, for instance, causing traffic accident, or making a mistake when doing a brain surgery)? If we assume that on the whole Earth, at any time there's at least one person who would suffer greatly from speck in the eye, the probability is at least 1/8e9. Now notice that 1/8e9 of 3^^^3 is more people than have ever l…

I assumed there to be no side effects to the dust specks. Otherwise millions would die in accidents and the thought experiment wouldn't make much sense.

Re: How to Be Happy

#88

Post by elbear » Sun, Jul 20, 2014, 4:51 PM UTC

asdfologist wrote: post #42

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.

The difference is that this person actually backs his advice with some studies.

Re: How to Be Happy

#89

Post by rsaarelm » Sun, Jul 20, 2014, 4:52 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #58

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…

[deleted]

I'm a member of their IRC channel and have no idea what the channel invasions thing is about. What have I been missing out on?

Re: How to Be Happy

#90

Post by fernly » Sun, Jul 20, 2014, 4:53 PM UTC

pkorzeniewski wrote: post #46

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 lik…

The posted article acknowledges that happiness is in large part a genetic trait, and in other large part the result of life history (parenting, health, etc).