>'Kahneman tried to explain the hedonic treadmill via with his own aspiration treadmill. He claims that he not only failed, but the data were opposite to his hypothesis.'
Uh... what that Edge article you are linking shows is that 'experienced happiness' which he thought would be a better measurement of happiness than life satisfaction is even more immune to your life circumstances:
>"This was the first of many such findings: income, marital status and education all influence experienced happiness less than satisfaction, and we could show that the difference is not a statistical artifact. "
This only strengthens the OP's opinion...
He does tell us at the end of the article that GDP correlates with the happiness levels of countries. But that doesn't really detract from the OP's reasoning. (Who knows if that's even causative, instability & war could cause both GDP & happiness to drop.)
Even the study you are linking suggests revisions, and is far from 'disproving' the hedonic treadmill theory.
I'd rather we not get bogged down in downstream minutia. Instead let's focus on the fallacy in the OP's core argument:
The original Treadmill Theory has been discredited--or at least fallen out of favor. Why? Because the original Treadmill theory is about people returning to the same baseline level of happiness. That's why the originators called it a treadmill - you don't go anywhere / change / improve / make progress etc.
That's why the "adaptation" analogy is preferred. After an initial rush of either happiness or sadness, you do return to a baseline...but this baseline is different that what it was before.
The reality, and summary, is this: nice things do make your life better. At first there's a rush of excitement over your upgrade. When that initial rush goes away, you backtrack a little bit, but still realize a life which is better than what it used to be. The inverse is true for tragedy.
For whatever reason, instead of the succinct description I gave, the author chose a long winded piece, added some charts with questional data, and slapped on a link bait title.
>For whatever reason, instead of the succinct description I gave, the author chose a long winded piece, added some charts with questional data, and slapped on a link bait title.
That's because their post this way got much more illuminating than the "succinct description" which does not even cover the same ground.
> This was the first of many such findings: income, marital status and education all influence experienced happiness less than satisfaction, and we could show that the difference is not a statistical artifact.
Is that saying affect of (income, marital status and education) on experienced happiness < affect of (income, marital status and education) on satisfaction, or is it saying affect of (income, marital status and education) on experienced happiness < affect of (satisfaction) on experienced happiness ?
>When I was visiting with community college students in Arizona, one young man said to me, “I’m one of the people who’s not good at math.” It kills me when I hear that kind of thing. I think about how different things might have been if he had been told consistently “you’re very capable of learning this stuff.”
Couldn't agree more with this specific example. But you shouldn't ignore reality either. A man with no legs is not going to win the 100 meters at the Olympics. Understanding where your potential lies is important for deciding where to invest your effort. That doesn't mean he can't improve at all though.
Especially in things like math, there is a popular belief that you need some kind of 'math gene' to be decent at it. There is little evidence that there are math specific genes beyond general learning ability.
Sadly, in a lot of cases this will lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy where you will stop trying to improve your math skills because you weren't "made for it".
But that's really more a problem of a false belief that these things are set from birth. A blind belief in 'I can do anything i want despite the situation or environment i am in!' isn't going to help anyone. I would advise the runner with no legs to invest his precious time and resources in something other than trying to win the 100 meters at the Olympics.
Interesting, the "reality" described are examples of fixed beliefs - who decides what someone's potential is? Who decides what someone's precious time and resources are? In other words "the reality" is singular, fixed, immovable. Examples: "Face facts, you cannot win the 100 meters" "Don't ignore reality, you have no ability to win races". The article seems to imply that people with low fixed beliefs have been told by others what their potential is, and what is precious. Having more flexible beliefs would mean that one does not limit the scope of ones potential. I imagine that one should therefore encourage others in having more fluid beliefs and one should guard against others when they say reality is fixed.
For example: a man with no legs can win the 100 meters race in the Paralympics.
> Sadly, in a lot of cases this will lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy where you will stop trying to improve your math skills because you weren't "made for it".
But isn't this just semantics? That is, if neither you nor anyone else can convince you that you're capable then, in fact, you are not capable.
most importantly, who's gonna build the automation?
there are engineering needs for a hundred years or more* to transform current work centered society in an automation centered society, and even then those things won't just maintain themselves forever.
*not because technical challenges, but because the resistance from who detains the status quo
While I think it would be difficult to abolish forced labor right now, I do believe he makes some very good points. It would be a start if we could get some consensus that forced labor is something we should try to get rid off, if it was possible, because it is used to control people and it makes people stupid due to lack of time for gaining knowledge/thinking/discussing. And i think this article is great for that purpose.
>As [Adam] Smith observed: The understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose life is spent in performing a few simple operations… has no occasion to exert his understanding… He generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become.”
If we agree that abolishing forced labor should be our goal, we can start working towards making that possible. I see automation and basic income playing a big role in this for example.
Norway has an unemployment rate of 3.9%... that's lower than the US (much lower if you use U6 as a metric) or UK. In fact, it's one of the lowest in the world.
3 years later and computers now outperform humans on Imagenet. While we still have a lot of work ahead, it shows how fast things can change in the exponential world of computers.
In 2002, other head transplants were also conducted in Japan in rats. Unlike the head transplants performed by Dr. White, however, these head transplants involved grafting one rat's head onto the body of another rat that kept its head. Thus, the rat ended up with two heads.[10]
doesn't it just replace it with another (nearly) hopeless condition? success presumably means total quadriplegia - and this exacerbated most likely by 'total body rejection' - or maybe even 'head rejection' depending on who is in control!
Don't go West young man. (Advice to Columbus.)
I. A Voyage to Asia would require three years.
II. The western Ocean is infinite and perhaps unnavigable.
III. If he reached the Antipodes he could not get back.
IV There are no Antipodes because the greater part of the globe is covered with water, and because St. Augustine said so.
V. Of the five zones, only three are habitable.
VI. So many centuries after the Creation, it is unlikely that anyone could find hitherto unknown lands of any value.
- Report of the committee organized in 1486 by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to study Columbus' plans to find a shorter route to India.
Makes you wonder about widely derided projects such as Mars One.
See the other comment by simonh in this discussion (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9261989): Columbus had a multiplicity of detractors because his estimate of the circumference of the Earth was off by a factor of 2, and to his dying day insisted he'd found the East Indies, not the very fortuitous West "Indies". If the Americas weren't there, he'd be at best a footnote in history, a crazy explorer who'd perished with his crews.
Not really. Nobody is saying that the stated goals of Mars One are impossible to reach. People are saying that it's a scam without the means or even a viable plan to reach those goals.
https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10056
Uh... what that Edge article you are linking shows is that 'experienced happiness' which he thought would be a better measurement of happiness than life satisfaction is even more immune to your life circumstances:
>"This was the first of many such findings: income, marital status and education all influence experienced happiness less than satisfaction, and we could show that the difference is not a statistical artifact. "
This only strengthens the OP's opinion...
He does tell us at the end of the article that GDP correlates with the happiness levels of countries. But that doesn't really detract from the OP's reasoning. (Who knows if that's even causative, instability & war could cause both GDP & happiness to drop.)
Even the study you are linking suggests revisions, and is far from 'disproving' the hedonic treadmill theory.