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Why Envy Might Be Good for Us

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Re: Why Envy Might Be Good for Us

#91

Post by adamsea »

adnzzzzZ wrote: post #82
asdfman123 wrote: post #77

Yes, I believe all of our emotions probably serve some evolutionary purpose. Does that mean they're useful in modern society? Not necessarily. Being anxious might have helped my ancestors prepare for unexpected famines. Being aggressive might have helped them lock down the resources they needed to survive. Do those emotions help me as an adult software engineer in Houston? Heck no. Anxiety and aggression just get in…

That's a very misguided view of things. Aggression will help you fight for higher wages for yourself more often than if you weren't as aggressive. Anxiety will drive you towards actions that will decrease your anxiety, and those actions will generally be useful for you and sometimes the people employing you. I think you're not really in touch and being honest with yourself if you don't think both aggression and anxie…

Well its kinda both, no?

Sometimes aggression is constructive or useful in situations like negotiating. Sometimes it is counterproductive and considered harmful.

What I took away from the OP is that we cannot blindly act on our emotions - that having an intermediate, self-reflective and self-questioning step in how we act and think is vital in order to be happy and successful in the world in which we live.

And, of course, this includes questioning the self-questioning. Sometimes it's the wrong time to question, and it is the right time to act on unfettered emotion.

The question is, when? ;)

Re: Why Envy Might Be Good for Us

#92

Post by anxiouspete »

adnzzzzZ wrote: post #82
asdfman123 wrote: post #77

Yes, I believe all of our emotions probably serve some evolutionary purpose. Does that mean they're useful in modern society? Not necessarily. Being anxious might have helped my ancestors prepare for unexpected famines. Being aggressive might have helped them lock down the resources they needed to survive. Do those emotions help me as an adult software engineer in Houston? Heck no. Anxiety and aggression just get in…

That's a very misguided view of things. Aggression will help you fight for higher wages for yourself more often than if you weren't as aggressive. Anxiety will drive you towards actions that will decrease your anxiety, and those actions will generally be useful for you and sometimes the people employing you. I think you're not really in touch and being honest with yourself if you don't think both aggression and anxie…

No, it won't. Anxiety lasts long after the actions have been made and the initial threat eliminated because a lot of people with anxiety disorders will tend to ruminate on their actions and possibly even catastrophize about them, creating to a whole different kind of anxiety that are at times unactionable. This is how people end up with PTSD.

I've been trying very hard to break out of this cycle and can tell you first hand it's not in anyway beneficial or pleasant and is actually very very destructive.

Re: Why Envy Might Be Good for Us

#93

Post by fbonetti »

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #10

The author's final conclusions take, as a matter of fact, that inequality is what drove revolutions of the past. It seems that the more precise cause of these revolutions throughout time has not been the lack of equality, but the lack of fairness. And these are two very different things. If we take 1000 people and give rewards in proportion to performance at some task, it will be extremely unequal - yet fair. If we t…

This is a really interesting take, and I think explains why so many young Americans feel disillusioned. It's not the inequality that bothers them per se, it's the fact that they can't afford to buy homes and that their educations have put them in a lifetime of debt. It's the fact that millennials will end up poorer than their parents and won't achieve the standard milestones of adulthood until later in life.

Re: Why Envy Might Be Good for Us

#94

Post by hanshan »

adnzzzzZ wrote: post #82
asdfman123 wrote: post #77

Yes, I believe all of our emotions probably serve some evolutionary purpose. Does that mean they're useful in modern society? Not necessarily. Being anxious might have helped my ancestors prepare for unexpected famines. Being aggressive might have helped them lock down the resources they needed to survive. Do those emotions help me as an adult software engineer in Houston? Heck no. Anxiety and aggression just get in…

That's a very misguided view of things. Aggression will help you fight for higher wages for yourself more often than if you weren't as aggressive. Anxiety will drive you towards actions that will decrease your anxiety, and those actions will generally be useful for you and sometimes the people employing you. I think you're not really in touch and being honest with yourself if you don't think both aggression and anxie…

Where the problem arises is the degree to which one is affected by these emotions. Too much anxiety can lead to paranoia, schizophrenia and anti-social behavior, too little can lead to life threatening situations. Too much aggression can lead to irrational mass murder, too little can lead to slavery.

Re: Why Envy Might Be Good for Us

#95

Post by mkempe »

adityapurwa wrote: post #12

I was taught that it is okay to be envious, what isnt okay was to wish that someone will lose the things we envied about. When I see someone bought a new car, I will pray “I hope his car is useful and he can benefit from it, I hope that someday I will have a car like his or even better”. While it might be hard in practice, so far it helped me stay positive to everyone.

The correct word for the positive emotion is feeling emulous -- which means you are filled with admiration and the motivation to emulate the achievement you see, or to do even better. To feel envious involves a grudge and a desire to take away/undermine the achievement or possession of another person.

Example: do you wish you had a beautiful, new, fast car like your acquaintance; or do you wish they had an accident and lost their car (and/or got injured while in it)?

Helmut Schoeck wrote a great treatise on the subject of Envy. [1]

[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/0865970645

Re: Why Envy Might Be Good for Us

#96

Post by [deleted] »

ikeyany wrote: post #87
TangoTrotFox wrote: post #10

The author's final conclusions take, as a matter of fact, that inequality is what drove revolutions of the past. It seems that the more precise cause of these revolutions throughout time has not been the lack of equality, but the lack of fairness. And these are two very different things. If we take 1000 people and give rewards in proportion to performance at some task, it will be extremely unequal - yet fair. If we t…

> If we take 1000 people and give rewards in proportion to performance at some task, it will be extremely unequal - yet fair. How can you possibly claim it's fair if those 1000 all started with different opportunities, different abilities, and different privileges?

[deleted]

Re: Why Envy Might Be Good for Us

#97

Post by coldtea »

frockington wrote: post #70
coldtea wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America has not "led the way" of Western civilisation. It presides America by a couple of millennia, and has been developed much further, subtler, and deeper as a civilisation in Europe (where all of its traditions, and thinkers, and laws originated). America for example invented neither the scientific process, nor the enlightenment, nor democracy, nor philosophy, and so on. Even the legal system is based on ole Roma…

I think its America's individualism that led to America's roaring success and increase in inequality. If you let people have more individual liberty, some are going to be highly motivated and intelligent and excel while others are going to be lazy and slow. Throw in a few years of selective breeding and you're going to get rising inequality

>* If you let people have more individual liberty, some are going to be highly motivated and intelligent and excel while others are going to be lazy and slow. Throw in a few years of selective breeding and you're going to get rising inequality*

I don't think that exhaust the causes. Not to mention it borders on the racist (the lazy self-selected breed of the poor, and the high achievers smart rich).

Instead, if you people have more individual liberty, they'll be less likely to work together and stop politicians and corporations from stomping on them.

Add grubby moguls that stop at nothing (the never ending legacy of the robber-baron) and have politicians, media, and judges in their pockets, and you're going to get rising inequality.

Re: Why Envy Might Be Good for Us

#98

Post by foop123 »

Senderman wrote: post #59
Nokinside wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did specify it "long term survival purposes". Maybe I should have been more specific. In a environment where survival is uncertain survival values and system that maximizes survival is the best. Innovation and individuality succeed in a systems where basics are covered and system can be trusted to work. Example of wrong system: preppers with single family bunkers loaded with weapons and food. If the society collaps…

I believe I follow: your advice is to the individual looking to maximise their own survival chance. I read your original comment in a more abstract way, I suppose - 'long term survival,' to me, evoked way to preserve what we value as humanity, elusive as that might be, for ITS survival - if that makes sense. I must say I'm very fond of this hypothetical amish vs. biker gangs throwdown.

sounds like you got your first sci-fi short story right there.

Re: Why Envy Might Be Good for Us

#99

Post by TangoTrotFox »

ikeyany wrote: post #87
TangoTrotFox wrote: post #10

The author's final conclusions take, as a matter of fact, that inequality is what drove revolutions of the past. It seems that the more precise cause of these revolutions throughout time has not been the lack of equality, but the lack of fairness. And these are two very different things. If we take 1000 people and give rewards in proportion to performance at some task, it will be extremely unequal - yet fair. If we t…

> If we take 1000 people and give rewards in proportion to performance at some task, it will be extremely unequal - yet fair. How can you possibly claim it's fair if those 1000 all started with different opportunities, different abilities, and different privileges?

Imagine you and I decided to have a race in a couple of years with some reasonably incentivizing prize. Who would win? Would it come down to genetics, background, our physiological development in youth? Probably not. It's mostly just going to be decided by who puts more effort into training and preparing for it. It's only when we speak of the best of the best that things like genetics and developmental history start playing significant roles. For us mere mortals in most things, the winner is just the person who puts more into it.

And this is the standard for life. In most things just putting in the blood, sweat, and tears is enough to end up well above average - and that's well more than what's needed to succeed. And this gets even nicer in real life since it's not just a race. There are a practically unlimited number of fields enabling people to try whatever they want and aim to put their unique characteristics to optimal usage letting them be the one with the 'homefield advantage.'

Re: Why Envy Might Be Good for Us

#100

Post by vinceguidry »

wruza wrote: post #86
vinceguidry wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody ever truly has nothing. You still have something most people that have ever existed in the world don't, life. You can respond, learn, and grow. No matter how far you've gone down a path, you can always turn back. We can only ever trick ourselves into believing we truly have nothing.

Whether you can learn and grow depends on various factors, actually. Some people can’t learn and grow due to internal and external issues, living relatively crappy live until death. And by ‘some’ I mean many. You may have a potential but may not see a way to discharge it. >trick ourselves In a way a broken engine tricks itself into not working. “You’re 300HP, just start, dude!”

People aren't engines. They don't just break.
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