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Apparently there was a study done and your happiness levels out. Like if you got a big pay bump you'd be happier for a while but then back to baseline.
My boss used this to say that we don't need raises. I asked if we could prove it and me and her swap pays. She laughed and brushed me off.
There have been studies that claim there is a max on what money can buy you in terms of happiness. Before it was said to be 70k (of course depends on the country), now it might be 500k.
Yeah, cost of living has been shot in favour of profit optimizing algorithms
Money does buy you happiness. It just has diminishing returns.
So the best way to maximize happiness is to take the money from those that have maximized its effect and give it all to the poor.
I'm all but certain the whole "money can't buy happiness" shtick is just classist propaganda to keep the peasants poor by trying to build some kind of weird pride in staying poor.
Money can buy freedom, and while freedom doesn't guarantee happiness, it's a pretty fucking important ingredient.
It's usually used in explaining that a rich person can be sad, rather than to say all poor people are always happy.
In my experience, it's used to spitshine poverty.
True, that is common too 😅
Monet can buy "stress free lifestyle" which happiness is a byproduct
Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
How does one obtain food, shelter, healthcare, a basic sense of security by having a stable and safe living space?
Oh thats right, you obtain all that with money, obtaining those things without money is either functionally impossible for the vast majority of people, or literally a crime.
Yeah, adding an infinite amount of money to one person doesn't meaningfully impact their ability to get those first two layers figured out.
Distributing money such that everyone has those two base layers... is quite literally the foundation for a happy, stable, productive society.
Liquidate the billionaires... assets, of course.
Spawn more Luigis
Liquidate the billionaires… assets, of course.
If it were that simple, then we should just liquidate the billionaires with rifles. They deserve no respect.
Unfortunately, they're just the symptom of systematic issues of capitalist political economy, so without solving that, new billionaires will emerge.
No one earns a billion dollars. They steal it from those that create wealth.
That's what government is supposed to be for. To regulate. Capitalism is like a car, or a train. When under control, harnessed, maintained, directed, it is an amazing engine for accomplishing things. When out of control, it's deadly.
Capitalist markets are built off of the idea that people are inherently self serving and the ensuing competition will benefit people with lower prices, better products, etc to meet their own selfish needs. Capitalism uses capital to gain more capital, and is exploitative by design. When a company acts in a way to maximize profits, and appease shareholders, they're doing it selfishly, with total disregard for others or the environment, in a system that rewards their actions. This is quite like psychotic, or sociopathic, behavior.
I just think trying to control this is a losing battle, and what we really need are foundational changes to values, motives, and what gets rewarded and how.
Capitalist markets are built off of the idea that people are inherently self serving
You think they're not?
I think people are more than that. The point being that nothing is inherently wrong with making individualistic self serving choices except when there is disregard for others. But people can also be compassionate, alturistic, giving, and cooperative, so how about a system that rewards the better parts of human nature?
Because no one has really come up with such a system that's workable, I guess.
I advocate for a cooperative economy. The best example of it working at scale in the modern world is the mondragon corporation in spain.
The point being that nothing is inherently wrong with making individualistic self serving choices except when there is disregard for others
Historically, individualism hasn't been a good survival strategy. I agree that self-interest isn't inherently wrong, although I believe much of the things we consider self-serving are ultimately only sane to do once our basic needs are met, and depending on where you are and who you are, those may be at risk soon. There's a reason why people historically formed tribes and villages to survive, individualism is only possible when you have the privilege of an advanced enough society. The capitalist market system, in fact the market system altogether, couldn't come into existence prior to civilization, where society was strong and safe enough that individual enrichment was a viable survival strategy.
This video makes the point I'm getting at more concretely. Can start at 15:55, when they begin talking about historical materialism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nPVkpWMH9k
(tagging parent commenter @Cryophilia@lemmy.world because this also addresses their reply about people's inherent self-serving)
Interesting theory but not particularly relevant to capitalism here and now?
The parts I talked about are more the groundwork of analyzing the here and now, rather than actually talking about it, yes. I was addressing the points about individualism and self-serving 'nature', to point out they were only capable of manifesting through feudalism, capitalism, etc., and aren't some inherent immutable human nature. We know that egalitarian societies have been workable worldwide, it's not some utopian idealist dream.
As for no-one coming up with workable alternatives, yes and no:
Now, whether that second example is a society that people want, that's obviously a hotly debated topic, but I'd say objectively their system is working (in terms of stability and economic strength) and a modern alternative to our current system (their system is capable of rewarding societal values above self-service)
That's just capitalism plus a strong regulatory government, which is how all Western governments are supposed to work too. It's fairly easy to imagine a future PRC where greedy capitalist interests have infiltrated the government over the years and crippled it like many Western ones. It's just instead of manipulating people via democracy, they work backroom deals within the CCP to get people amenable to their interests into positions of power.
Essentially, the only successful checks we've found to capitalism is either a strong State or a strong Church, or both. I think we can all agree that organized religious rule is even less preferable than a capitalist oligopoly, which leaves having a strong government to balance capitalist tendencies.
This is off topic of the main thread but the chart was eye-opening to me about the order of love/belonging and esteem. Much of my insecurity drives from not having a girlfriend or any intimacy, but the only way to get that is be socially adept, but I'm not because being socially adept is a lower priority on the hierarchy of needs than intimacy.
Many, many people feel pressured to get a partner because it basically is a status symbol that conveys that you are successful, likeable, desirable.
...That isn't how healthy relationships work.
People are not commodities you can buy, they are not a reward at the end of a video game questline.
You have to be at a point where you you feel secure enough in your own life and your own personality that you can actually have a successful relationship where both people respect each other's boundaries and don't become resentful.
Ironically, most people who are seeking a mate... because that is a status symbol, because they feel pressured to, because they think that will fill some hole in their life...?
That is actually a major sign of immaturity and insecurity.
Those kinds of people are more likely to end up in unstable, totally transactional, or even abusive relationships.
...
Don't feel insecure or let people bully you because you don't have a mate.
Become ok with yourself first. Stop hanging around people who mock or belittle you, they are bullies, and bullies bully people because they view putting other people down as a way to make themselves feel better about themselves, to gain social clout amongst other likeminded bullies.
I know its especially hard to find in person group activities these days, but there may be some ... sports, in person tabletop groups, volunteer at a food bank or shelter, book clubs... these things do still exist, and if your goal is just general social experience, maybe make a few friends, they can help you out with that.
I do have some friends but no relationship. I don't just want a relationship because others have one, I want one because I have an innate desire for a relationship. I want to love and be loved, and make love too.
Yes. Financial independence would give ample time for me to escape abuse but alas, I'm trapped under family's false insights and paranoia.
"Money can't buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you're being miserable."
~~Clare Boothe Luce
Money buys you the luxury of beeing in the position where money can't contribute to your happiness any longer.
"Money can't buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery." - Spike Milligan
Money can't buy you happiness. But stress due to lack of money destroys people. Working as a volunteer at a homeless shelter has taught me that atleast here in the Netherlands quite some of them stay homeless not because there are no options to get of the street, but because with these options comes all the stress of having to pay the bills. That goes to show how rough it must be to live with financial stress, because living on the street itself is terribly rough, and still some prefer it.
If I may ask, what are the mainreasons people are homeless in the Netherlands? Mental illness? Drugs? Unwillingness to deal with "the system"?
Yes you name important reasons, also there's migration both legal and illegal. Legal migration also from within Europe, for example there are quite a lot of Polish homeless people here. Often they came here to work, but they lost their job and the housing that was part of the job, and they stick around for a while, thinking to turn things round, but things get worse when they start drinking. Often their best chance is to go back to Poland, because there they have social security rights, which they don't have here. But they feel shame to go back and face their defeat. It's heartbreaking sometmes, not very proud of how my country treats foreign workers..
There are some schizophrenic homeless people, but even more people with bad tempers, anti social personality traits, that get themselves into fights all the time. I often need to remind myself and others, that it's those people that often need help the most. Some people only want to help those that are very sympathetic, and greatfull. But those will make it any way, everyone is willing to help them. It's the ones with the bad tempers and the short fuses that need your help most, because most people are unwilling to look beyond it.
Money of course can buy happiness. Can subcribe to YT Music forever, can pay for therapy, can pay for everything. :,-)
Digital piracy can get you at least one of those happy things.
access to culture should be free, access to mental health should be free
I just want to talk.
I made it big. Huge. Motherfucking huge. I bought and paid off my house in 2 years, was taking 5 major trips a year, had all the bullshit.
Wasn't ever a materialist and was frugal, not cheap. Tried to take the lessons of my grandfather who grew up in the depression with literally nothing, and where he taught me over many years that everything is priceless and worthless at the same time. He was 1000x the father to me than my booze-bag sperm-donator male called my "dad".
That piece of wire on the ground might save your life. It might just be another piece of shit. One day you go and buy some wire for $11 because you need it, other times you walk past $11 of free wire laying there because you have no immediate need or want for it. I was too spoiled and precious to get it. I want my meat packaged on a Styrofoam tray and there needs to be cartoons on things. No you shouldn't make me a home made metal detector out of a broken FM radio, lacquered wire and a 9V battery because then I won't be cool.
Through my life and path, I discovered no matter how much material stuff, no matter how lovely the accouterments of my life, no matter how many "freedoms" and experiences I had stemming from my financial wherewithal, there was an underlying thing at the core, the kernel of my being, that had been neglected my whole life. For I was never taught to see it and know it. I hated myself and hated my life and refused to look through the telescope to see that.
I didn't really find any of this out until I had a humiliation that provoked the beginning of my thoughts of personal transformation. I later heard Miles' Kind of Blue for the first time, by myself, in a separate bed from my pill-popping wine-guzzling wife, wearing Bluetooth headphones. I had smoked a grain of cannabis, my first return to it in about 20 years. Something touched me and I cried. One photon of light hit me somewhere and I couldn't unsee it.
I later arrested my rage-drinking, or demon-drinking as I sometimes say. When the magical fairy wand didn't dispense the fairy dust on my life and render everything into utopia, I intuited my power-drinking was a mere behavior and really had effectively nothing to do with the underlying issue. Or perhaps it did in the same sense that water in a boat isn't the issue, it's the rotted holes and splits in the hull.
I aimed myself at discovery and self-transformation and opened myself to anything from which I could take something useful and apply it to my own perspective. After getting into 5 years of heavy therapy which I pursued with vigor, something happened. I connected to that thing that I didn't know existed.
My life exploded, I effectively went insane, but not insane enough to lose sight of that photon. I lost everything because I was not able to care for myself. I ballooned to 135kg.
I had $280,000 in my chequing account at one point, 100K of random investments, and I was living in my car and eating at shelter. I was fucked.
Anyhow.
Now my shit is together. I have 1BR apartment and I will never ask or take more. I refuse. I pull things out of dumpsters, clean them, use what I can and give away the rest. I repair electronics and sell them to survive in part. My community is Harkness Station, a bus shelter in the freezing cold snowbank called Winnipeg, where people live - many suffering addiction and abandoned by humanity. These are my friends and I bring them home-cooked food, water, tea, sugar-laden 3am coffee, hygiene, relief of all sorts. My friend Alex who did 4 years hard time for an armed-robbery he set-up, spoke to me about getting sober 2 days ago. He's heard my story but I've never heard those words on his lips before.
Hear what I'm saying please.
I got an inheritance from my sperm-donors estate and gave it away. There were more than 5 ~~zeroes~~ digits on it.
I am moving to Zen. All of the problems in my life are my own creation.
My grandfather gave me something priceless. My new community at Harkness showed me you can live with nothing.
We put all of this together and I can say with confidence I'll live in a car (which I don't have anymore because I gave it away), eat at the "missions" and be happy as a motherfucker. Whatever bro. I'm happy inside, I can care for me, and I need nothing but basic elements of mechanical survival. edit: How silly of me. I forgot the most important thing of all, perhaps so intuitive to me it needed not be said, but I think it should be said. I also need the love of humanity and connection to community for we are all one. And where I have no community I will make one because I also need that.
Past a certain point, money can't buy any more happiness. Sure, you have a house, but what is it worth if there's no one to share it with?
