Which is precisely why humanity will be just another of many dead end evolutionary cul-de-sacs in Earth’s natural history.
I’ve come to peace with that, but this is a nice microcosm of the core reason. We can do better, we know better, but at the end of the day, almost all of us will just take the animalistic dopamine rush of winning.
Live together or die alone. We choose the second one like breathing.
If most humans were like Kempf (we’re not), we’d actually have a chance.
I don’t think this hypothetical is about winning so much as never having to worry about your needs being met again. The calculus changes completely for a lot of people (not optimistic enough to say most) if that’s not part of the equation.
What are you talking about? Capitalism is the system that focused on (in some countries even created) the “middle class”, because it’s beneficiary to have a whole group of people that have all their needs met and have disposable income to keep the machine running.
If you don’t have money for iPads, cars, vacations, avocado toast and fancy lattes, capitalism grinds to a halt and crumbles.
The biggest companies and richest people of the world and not selling bread, water and shelter. They are selling fashion electronics, electric cars and ads on entertainment websites.
The middle class was created by the economic rights and protections provided by The New Deal and decades of unionization efforts. Crediting capitalism is not only disingenuous but also downright insulting to those who fought capitalists tooth and nail for what you’re crediting those capitalists for.
Actually the term was coined at the 1939 Worlds Fair and popularized in '44 with Roosevelt’s signing of the GI Bill, but if you have even the smallest shred of evidence for your claims, go ahead, I’m humoring.
That’s not a source, that’s a number. You have to link the sources, you can’t just paste Wikipedia. In any case this is a discussion about specifically the American middle class.
Edit’: Also I found the Wikipedia article you’re citing and it directly contradicts your point:
“The modern usage of the term “middle-class”, however, dates to the 1913 UK Registrar-General’s report, in which the statistician T.H.C. Stevenson identified the middle class as those falling between the upper-class and the working-class.[14] The middle class includes: professionals, managers, and senior civil servants. The chief defining characteristic of membership in the middle-class is control of significant human capital while still being under the dominion of the elite upper class, who control much of the financial and legal capital in the world.”
Because it makes us feel safe, and it makes us feel like we’ll be happy.
I have a Master’s in Psychology, and I will always remember the disheartening feeling when I learned the most prevalent and accepted theory of what defines human happiness. Know what it is?
Comparison to others.
Very literally, the person in the tribe with the biggest mud hut is probably happier than you in your Chevrolet when your neighbor pulls up in a Cadillac.
Is that what makes us the most happy, or is it where we most often seek happiness? I don’t think they are the same thing. You aren’t going to find the happiest people in the world living in poverty, but I don’t think they are billionaires either.
What do you mean by the person in the tribe? Are you talking about a hypothetical tribal society and their happiness when removed from the civilized world as opposed to people in more modern communities?
Most people are like you.
Which is precisely why humanity will be just another of many dead end evolutionary cul-de-sacs in Earth’s natural history.
I’ve come to peace with that, but this is a nice microcosm of the core reason. We can do better, we know better, but at the end of the day, almost all of us will just take the animalistic dopamine rush of winning.
Live together or die alone. We choose the second one like breathing.
If most humans were like Kempf (we’re not), we’d actually have a chance.
I don’t think this hypothetical is about winning so much as never having to worry about your needs being met again. The calculus changes completely for a lot of people (not optimistic enough to say most) if that’s not part of the equation.
Which is exactly why Capitalism keeps us barely holding on, by design.
What are you talking about? Capitalism is the system that focused on (in some countries even created) the “middle class”, because it’s beneficiary to have a whole group of people that have all their needs met and have disposable income to keep the machine running.
If you don’t have money for iPads, cars, vacations, avocado toast and fancy lattes, capitalism grinds to a halt and crumbles.
The biggest companies and richest people of the world and not selling bread, water and shelter. They are selling fashion electronics, electric cars and ads on entertainment websites.
The middle class was created by the economic rights and protections provided by The New Deal and decades of unionization efforts. Crediting capitalism is not only disingenuous but also downright insulting to those who fought capitalists tooth and nail for what you’re crediting those capitalists for.
The middle class existed long before the new deal or unions. Like a century before.
Actually the term was coined at the 1939 Worlds Fair and popularized in '44 with Roosevelt’s signing of the GI Bill, but if you have even the smallest shred of evidence for your claims, go ahead, I’m humoring.
Go check the Wikipedia sources
That’s not a source, that’s a number. You have to link the sources, you can’t just paste Wikipedia. In any case this is a discussion about specifically the American middle class.
Edit’: Also I found the Wikipedia article you’re citing and it directly contradicts your point: “The modern usage of the term “middle-class”, however, dates to the 1913 UK Registrar-General’s report, in which the statistician T.H.C. Stevenson identified the middle class as those falling between the upper-class and the working-class.[14] The middle class includes: professionals, managers, and senior civil servants. The chief defining characteristic of membership in the middle-class is control of significant human capital while still being under the dominion of the elite upper class, who control much of the financial and legal capital in the world.”
Did you just unironically say Avocado Toast?
Okay but why would we all take the money? Because we want to be rich? Or because we need to be rich in order to live a comfortable life?
Because it makes us feel safe, and it makes us feel like we’ll be happy.
I have a Master’s in Psychology, and I will always remember the disheartening feeling when I learned the most prevalent and accepted theory of what defines human happiness. Know what it is?
Comparison to others.
Very literally, the person in the tribe with the biggest mud hut is probably happier than you in your Chevrolet when your neighbor pulls up in a Cadillac.
Yes, we really are that small as a rule.
Is that what makes us the most happy, or is it where we most often seek happiness? I don’t think they are the same thing. You aren’t going to find the happiest people in the world living in poverty, but I don’t think they are billionaires either.
Comparison to others is the killer of all joy.
What do you mean by the person in the tribe? Are you talking about a hypothetical tribal society and their happiness when removed from the civilized world as opposed to people in more modern communities?
Yes. A hypothetical tribe. I’m saying happiness is completely relative, but based on comparison to immediate peers.
And what can we do with this information, in psychology? Is there a way to shift focus away from it? Or is there something else to learn?