Conservatives report significantly higher levels of happiness than liberals. On the other end of the spectrum, liberals are significantly more likely to experience adverse mental and emotional conditions. Some have argued that these differences in negative psychic states may explain most of the persistent divergence between liberals and conservatives in subjective well-being measures.
Clipping
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web > The well-being gap between liberals and conservatives
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web > Stage where relationships are everything
[https://peopleiveloved.substack.com/p/looking-to-tarot-for-answers]
Josh was less ambivalent, his father had passed a few years before we started dating and he was older than I am. He was in the stage I am right now, the one where everything besides relationships seem pointless.
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web > American exceptionalism
As a Brit who moved here in 2001, a huge problem is American exceptionalism.
You guys are told from birth that you’re the greatest country in the world and are all going to be anything you want to be. You actually deserve it. You should have that Ferrari. The supermodel girlfriend. The amazing life. Then reality kicks in around 17-18.
Healthcare? Nope. Mental health care? Get outta here. Paid time off? No guarantee. Minimum wage? In the toilet. Wage increases? A joke. Chances are you’ll die poor and alone but you’re watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians
The rich get richer, the poor suffer. And most people are poor. Then you throw social media into the mix, showing you the lives people are living that you want to be living.
It induces rage. You were promised this from day one. You don’t get it. It’s not fair! But luckily, you live in a country that gives you unfettered access to high powered weaponry available in any strip mall, and cheap ammunition.
People snap. Mostly young white males but that’s not exclusive. Gun laws are so weak almost anyone can get an AR-15 and a bucket full of rounds. Rather than commit suicide, let’s take out as many people as possible before biting the bullet.
Could you do that with a car or truck or knife? Yeah. But it’s sure as shit way more easy with an AR-15, and you get to see the fear in people’s eyes as you end their lives.
That’s the problem.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. It reminds me of a scene in the show Sopranos where Tony is talking to Svetlana (Russian woman with a prosthetic leg) and asked her why nothing appears to get her down and she says, “That’s the trouble with you Americans. You expect nothing bad to ever happen, while the rest of the world expects only bad to happen. And they’re not disappointed.”
Exceptionalism is so baked into our psyche that we completely miss it as a possible and likely explanation for the problem.
And therefore, untangling that exceptionalism to dig at the problem would be in a very real way like dismantling what it means to be an American. I just don’t see that happening because it would unveil a darker ugliness about ourselves that we’d rather not deal with. It is much easier, more convenient, and frankly lazy to place the blame on others and guns and mental health and incels and so forth.
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web > Mistakes made by techno-optimists
[https://www.afterbabel.com/p/ai-will-make-social-media-worse]
When I look back, I see two ways in which we in the tech community were naively optimistic. First, like many in Silicon Valley, I had an overly rosy view of human nature. Most of us thought that it was inherently good to just connect everybody and everything. But now I can see that even though most people are good––or, at least, they behave well when interacting with strangers––a small number of trolls, foreign agents, and domestic jerks gain access to the megaphone that is social media, and they can do a lot of damage to trust, truth, and civility.
Second, I didn’t fully understand human tribalism and the way that social media could supercharge it. All platforms wanted to grow their user bases and increase their engagement, and we all thought that social media was a healthy way to help small communities form and flourish. But as political polarization rose steadily, not just in the USA but in many parts of the world in the 2010s, we discovered that issues of partisanship, identity, and us-versus-them were among the most powerful drivers of engagement.
- Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google
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web > We have become a lonely nation
[https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/133ttgw/comment/jibtwdw/]
It’s beyond that. It’s a cultural problem of hyper-targeted consumerism, individualism and rootlessness. We are exposed to fewer potential friends and partners because our homes are more entertaining than seeking out enjoyment in new hobby related groups. We move away from our existing base for school, jobs and housing more than ever. The demographics in many western countries skew older so our own generations are smaller. Many traditions and cultural events that used to get people together have become passé.
The talking point of third places is brought up a lot now after the NotJustBikes video on this, and it’s valid to have options. But there are plenty of options here in Sweden, there are plenty of options to be car free. People just don’t want to participate in local affairs anymore. It’s easier and more fun (addictive) to relax at home in your free time and consume entertainment and socialize over the internet with basically the whole world at your fingertips.
You can live shielded in your bubble with remote anything and delivery everything. It’s all about infinite choices and no need to depend on others or for them to depend on you. This big societal shift brought with a more globalized and connected world also brought a new sense of hyper-awareness of everything everywhere, and it’s good at minimizing a lot of local things.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/133ttgw/comment/jibhubv/
I just asked chatGPT why Western European countries consistently rank above the US (15th - 20th) on the lists of “happiest places to live”:
While it is important to note that happiness is subjective and can vary greatly from person to person, some factors that contribute to these rankings include:
Social welfare systems: Many European countries have extensive social welfare systems that provide citizens with access to healthcare, education, and other essential services. This can lead to a higher quality of life and a greater sense of financial security.
Work-life balance: European countries tend to prioritize work-life balance, with policies that support paid parental leave, vacation time, and reasonable working hours. This can lead to lower stress levels and increased overall happiness.
Income inequality: European countries generally have lower income inequality than the US, which can contribute to a greater sense of social cohesion and well-being.
Public transportation and urban planning: European cities often have well-developed public transportation systems and are designed to be more walkable and bike-friendly, promoting physical activity and environmental sustainability.
Emphasis on community: Many European countries emphasize social cohesion and community involvement, which can lead to stronger social connections and support networks.
Education: European countries often invest heavily in their education systems, leading to higher levels of literacy and overall educational attainment.
Healthcare: Universal healthcare is more common in European countries, which can contribute to better health outcomes and reduced financial stress related to medical expenses.
Cultural factors: European countries may place a greater emphasis on happiness and well-being, which can influence individual priorities and values.
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web > Ayn Rand will kill us all
[https://superbowl.substack.com/p/ayn-rand-will-kill-us-all]
The mistake is that…it’s not just a logical deduction, but, so to speak, a deduction that has turned into a feeling. Not all natures are the same; for many, a logical deduction sometimes turns into the strongest feeling, which takes over their whole being, and which it is very difficult to drive out or alter. To cure such a person, it’s necessary in that case to change the feeling itself, which can be done only by replacing it with another equally strong. That is always difficult, and in many cases, impossible.
— Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Adolescent
Fact is, the same dynamic plays out in a wide variety of contexts. Smart people become invested in an idea, often for emotional reasons, then they launder their beliefs through a veneer of rationality.
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web > The slow but inevitable overwhelm of consumer capitalism
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web > Benefits of teaching
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35675158]
I always say that I learned more while teaching technology classes in my local community than any individual student.
Like this person, it helped hone my skills communicating technical ideas to non-technical people. Most importantly, it helped me understand others’ limitations and abilities of mine I had taken for granted. As a result, I learned patience and grace, that sometimes it’s better to show someone while doing it yourself, rather than expecting them to master it.
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web > How to make friends
[https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/how-to-make-friends]
Join the Elks or the Lions, the Knights of Columbus or the Polish American Civic Association. You might find it awkward, dull, or corny at first, but do you want to be a friend or do you want to be cool? The desire to be a friend sees everyone as interesting, as they are. It seeks greater ingress into the social and physical reality around you. The desire to be cool desires glamor and thrills; it sees people who cannot provide these as NPCs.
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web > More research about spiritual awakening
[https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/hey-why-arent-we-doing-more-research]
Imagine that there were a bunch of intelligent people trying to figure out how best to kill other people. This isn’t hard to imagine, since this is the world we live in. But let’s add another fun little wrinkle: imagine, also, that in this alternate world, some people are capable of killing other people by shooting deadly lasers out of their eyes. Not only that, but the laser shooters claim that this is a learnable skill, and there’s some old guy who hangs out at your local coffee shop who has laser eyes—he refrains from killing you because your silly jokes amuse him. And, according to historians, people have been shooting lasers out of their eyes for millennia.
For thousands of years, people have been like, “yeah, I meditated/prayed/contemplated for a while, and, one day, my mind metamorphosed, and now my relationship with the universe is a fundamentally constructive and peaceful one. I still have problems and get sad sometimes, I’m still a human, but it all seems much easier to deal with, and my day-to-day reality is luminous and beautiful in a way it wasn’t before, like God is ever-present, or the Godhead, or the Mystery of Being, or whatever I believe in personally.” That seems nice. That seems like something that should be available to as many people as possible.