Technology: Everything is so amazing and nobody is happy.(kk.org)
kk.org
Technology: Everything is so amazing and nobody is happy.
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/02/so_amazing_but.php
13 comments
Louis CK is a comedian. I doubt he was truly trying to engage in discussion.
The best comedy works because it is intuitively true and engaging.
I find myself most enjoying the comedy that points out problems in society that would often be too taboo to talk about if not done in a humorous manner. I'd say that Lewis Black, Lewis C.K., and Jon Stewart all exemplify this quality.
Doug Stanhope (check youtube), while has a dirtier tone and not as poignant or substantive as Bill Hicks does continue along the same path.
This is one of my favorite Louis CK performances - he gets it perfectly.
Look at the number of people who complain that our president is corrupt, politics is doomed, the world is falling apart, etc. Politically speaking, things are more transparent now than ever before in history. Fewer people are being persecuted for their beliefs than ever before. On the whole, everybody is happier now than they were ten years ago, or ten years before that.
I'm usually guilty of being overly critical of things, and while I think that criticism has its place, there's a line between being critical of things to make it better and hating something because it doesn't reach a standard that couldn't have possibly existed even a year ago. A lot of people would be a lot happier if they could back off a little bit and see things for how they are rather than how they wish they were.
Look at the number of people who complain that our president is corrupt, politics is doomed, the world is falling apart, etc. Politically speaking, things are more transparent now than ever before in history. Fewer people are being persecuted for their beliefs than ever before. On the whole, everybody is happier now than they were ten years ago, or ten years before that.
I'm usually guilty of being overly critical of things, and while I think that criticism has its place, there's a line between being critical of things to make it better and hating something because it doesn't reach a standard that couldn't have possibly existed even a year ago. A lot of people would be a lot happier if they could back off a little bit and see things for how they are rather than how they wish they were.
A lot of people would be a lot happier if they could back off a little bit and see things for how they are rather than how they wish they were.
I knew this happiness after coming back from a deployment to Afghanistan. The people there had nothing, usually not even power, and our own accommodations weren't exactly... modern. I swore that I'd never forget how good I had it here, and indeed I didn't for a long time -- I even came to severely resent "Westerners" for a while.
During my "time of appreciation" lets say, I was very happy. I found joy and worth in the simplest of things, from showering with clean water to drinking a beer. Unfortunately, over time I once again became acclimated to my environment and now likely take things as much for granted as I did a few years ago.
I've found it takes a large amount of conscious effort to not fall into this same trap. It seems to be very much a case of "out of sight, out of mind"; the things I saw and experienced are mere vague memories now and somehow life has a way of blinding me from what I was once acutely aware: that no matter how bad I have it, others have it worse than I used to be able to imagine.
I knew this happiness after coming back from a deployment to Afghanistan. The people there had nothing, usually not even power, and our own accommodations weren't exactly... modern. I swore that I'd never forget how good I had it here, and indeed I didn't for a long time -- I even came to severely resent "Westerners" for a while.
During my "time of appreciation" lets say, I was very happy. I found joy and worth in the simplest of things, from showering with clean water to drinking a beer. Unfortunately, over time I once again became acclimated to my environment and now likely take things as much for granted as I did a few years ago.
I've found it takes a large amount of conscious effort to not fall into this same trap. It seems to be very much a case of "out of sight, out of mind"; the things I saw and experienced are mere vague memories now and somehow life has a way of blinding me from what I was once acutely aware: that no matter how bad I have it, others have it worse than I used to be able to imagine.
At the risk of sounding like a cliched old grandpa, I think a person's ability to appreciate simple things increases as you get older. It's certainly happening to me.
My daily walk with my dog is a real treasure to me now. Definitely couldn't have said such a thing about myself ten years ago.
My daily walk with my dog is a real treasure to me now. Definitely couldn't have said such a thing about myself ten years ago.
I heard a fun lecture once from a professor at the Stanford Center on Longevity. Their psychologists have observed a so-called positivity effect in older people, and they've got lots of studies on the subject:
http://longevity.stanford.edu/mymind/mentalhealthandemotiona...
“Human minds don’t process information like a computer,” says Carstensen, who was one of the first researchers to discover that older people tend to be happier. “We process what is relevant to our goals.”
And as we age, our goals tend to change — toward achieving emotional well-being, she says.
My favorite part of this article is this paragraph:
Further studies that showed a similar positivity effect in young people whose expected life spans were cut short by cancer or AIDS led to Carstensen’s current “shorter life span” explanation for the positivity effect.
This suggests that maintaining an awareness of your own mortality is a useful way to improve your happiness -- by encouraging yourself to focus on the positive -- and, paradoxically, that pretending you are going to live forever may be a recipe for unhappiness.
http://longevity.stanford.edu/mymind/mentalhealthandemotiona...
“Human minds don’t process information like a computer,” says Carstensen, who was one of the first researchers to discover that older people tend to be happier. “We process what is relevant to our goals.”
And as we age, our goals tend to change — toward achieving emotional well-being, she says.
My favorite part of this article is this paragraph:
Further studies that showed a similar positivity effect in young people whose expected life spans were cut short by cancer or AIDS led to Carstensen’s current “shorter life span” explanation for the positivity effect.
This suggests that maintaining an awareness of your own mortality is a useful way to improve your happiness -- by encouraging yourself to focus on the positive -- and, paradoxically, that pretending you are going to live forever may be a recipe for unhappiness.
Samurai were encouraged to meditate on their deaths and to think, "If today were my last day, would it have been a worthy one to be my last?" When I've taken this practice I've found myself working on more important things, spending time with people I care about more, and generally being happier. Highly recommended, quick further reading:
The Budoshoshinshu at Google Books:
http://books.google.com/books?id=gzFsCPYJhqEC&printsec=f...
The Budoshoshinshu at Google Books:
http://books.google.com/books?id=gzFsCPYJhqEC&printsec=f...
This is interesting and timely for me, as I just had exactly that experience yesterday, Ash Wednesday. I found it strangely comforting to hear "Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Interesting to see that this is a known psychological phenomenon.
Thanks. I liked tdavis's non-explanation of it better.
Well, so did I! But it's over so quickly. So just in case you find yourself wanting more...
(WARNING: ANECDOTES)
I find that contemplating death has a very similar effect, -- not the way you'll die necessarily, just that you will, go in the ground, rot, and everybody and everything will move on without you.
It's very good for the ol perspective muscle, once you get over the initial freak-out of contemplating The End of You.
I find that contemplating death has a very similar effect, -- not the way you'll die necessarily, just that you will, go in the ground, rot, and everybody and everything will move on without you.
It's very good for the ol perspective muscle, once you get over the initial freak-out of contemplating The End of You.
My Father (another old person ;) attributes this magical ability to a couple other things, too:
1. General personality; he believes most people are either "generally happy" or "generally unhappy" with regard to how they interpret both extreme (death) and everyday (sunset) events.
2. How emotionally confident one is that they've "found their place in the world" and the feelings that contribute to that peace (sense of accomplishment, etc.)
When I finally escaped our hometown, moved to Boston, and began this adventure that became a company, I soon started seeing beauty in everything. I was finally happy with where I was at that moment and nothing else mattered. I could not be upset.
Naively, I thought that might last forever; it didn't. Though not nearly as restless as I was a few years ago, it has crept back slowly and I no longer have that feeling of nirvana, if you will. I hope it comes back, though; I miss the beauty of those sunsets.
1. General personality; he believes most people are either "generally happy" or "generally unhappy" with regard to how they interpret both extreme (death) and everyday (sunset) events.
2. How emotionally confident one is that they've "found their place in the world" and the feelings that contribute to that peace (sense of accomplishment, etc.)
When I finally escaped our hometown, moved to Boston, and began this adventure that became a company, I soon started seeing beauty in everything. I was finally happy with where I was at that moment and nothing else mattered. I could not be upset.
Naively, I thought that might last forever; it didn't. Though not nearly as restless as I was a few years ago, it has crept back slowly and I no longer have that feeling of nirvana, if you will. I hope it comes back, though; I miss the beauty of those sunsets.
"A lot of people would be a lot happier if they could back off a little bit and see things for how they are rather than how they wish they were."
That's one of the central messages in Buddhism, FWIW. It's what "desire is the root of suffering" refers to.
That's one of the central messages in Buddhism, FWIW. It's what "desire is the root of suffering" refers to.
Discontent and innovation often go hand in hand... if everyone were happy, people would stop making the amazing stuff.
I'm of the same opinion. Not only are we never satisfied, we're also very quick to criticize our society and species. We rarely reflect on our triumphs, but repeatedly highlight our failures. Some monotheists take it a step further, drawing a comparison not only between humans, but between humans and the concept of a perfect being.
I suspect there's a degree of evolutionary pressure in this. An individual who is never satisfied is more likely to be successful than one who is easily satisfied. Without our ability to dwell on the negatives and forget the positives, we wouldn't have invented half the things we have.
I suspect there's a degree of evolutionary pressure in this. An individual who is never satisfied is more likely to be successful than one who is easily satisfied. Without our ability to dwell on the negatives and forget the positives, we wouldn't have invented half the things we have.
To me, our triumphs will likely never out weigh our failures. There are a small group of people in this world doing amazing things. However what is the point if we can't survive as a species? As technology improves, one day making something to destroy the world(bomb, nano-machine, virus, etc...) will be as easy and accessible as buying a toaster and if we haven't evolved mentally by then, none of our technology will mean anything. The world right now could be a vastly better place if people only cared a tiny bit more, but we have been so bought off by convenience that I don't think we ever will.
I'm inclined to be optimistic. Nature has been experimenting with viruses and self-replicating machines for a while now, and has yet to come up with a design that cannot be countered. Bombs are capable of causing mass destruction, but we're still a long way off from having a doomsday device as cheap as a toaster.
I also suspect that, given a century or two, we'll have discovered ways of spreading the risk of catastrophic events. Perhaps by regularly downloading our consciousness and distributing backups across the solar system, perhaps even a few sent to neighbouring stars: "Alpha Centuri Backups - Just In Case Some Jackass Blows Up The Sun".
I also suspect that, given a century or two, we'll have discovered ways of spreading the risk of catastrophic events. Perhaps by regularly downloading our consciousness and distributing backups across the solar system, perhaps even a few sent to neighbouring stars: "Alpha Centuri Backups - Just In Case Some Jackass Blows Up The Sun".
We do tend to forget the bad stuff that's happened and mostly reflect in the past on the good stuff.
But we ignore the good stuff that's happening right now and focus on the bad stuff.
I think this explains why people always think things were better 10, 20, 30 years ago.
But we ignore the good stuff that's happening right now and focus on the bad stuff.
I think this explains why people always think things were better 10, 20, 30 years ago.
Part of his point was calling out the pure consumers ("you non-contributing zero"), who are not the ones making the amazing stuff.
I generally agree with you though.
I generally agree with you though.
Louis CK is talking about the "hedonic treadmill" theory of happiness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill
and when people in the topic talk about seeing "how bad others have it" as a route to being more satisfied with your life they are trying to hack the treadmill. That is, reset it to a lower level.
I'm just old enough to have experienced life without cellphones and the internet, and now I have the internet on my cellphone. Yes, I still complain. It's slow, the screen is small, there's no Flash, etc. But every now and then I really do step back and recall how amazing technology is.
Recently, my brother-in-law (who's from a different country) came to visit. He saw the small differences that having the internet in your pocket can make - get a map of downtown right away, figure out the best route to that lot you parked on, figure out the phone number and closing time of that restaurant two blocks away, find out that it's not going to snow tomorrow so you can plan accordingly, all while having coffee at some corner store.
Is it life changing? No. But it's that incremental step that just makes some things a little bit easier, a bit more convenient.
Yes, the goal posts keep moving. And all of us here want to create the next thing that moves it just a bit more once again.
Recently, my brother-in-law (who's from a different country) came to visit. He saw the small differences that having the internet in your pocket can make - get a map of downtown right away, figure out the best route to that lot you parked on, figure out the phone number and closing time of that restaurant two blocks away, find out that it's not going to snow tomorrow so you can plan accordingly, all while having coffee at some corner store.
Is it life changing? No. But it's that incremental step that just makes some things a little bit easier, a bit more convenient.
Yes, the goal posts keep moving. And all of us here want to create the next thing that moves it just a bit more once again.
Is it life changing? No.
In many places, these same technologies are lifechanging. Here's an "I love technology. I love capitalism. I love technocapitalism" story for you: many 3rd world fishermen lead a close to subsistence existence by catching fish and then having to take it to market. Market conditions at towns A, B, and C vary on a day to day basis. If you pick the wrong town to deliver your catch to, you lose out on earnings and some other town loses out on cheap fish. In the worst case, you may be unable to sell your fish at all, in which case the fish rot while someone else starves.
But now, you have a cell phone.
So you can call ahead to towns A, B, and C and ask them "Hey, what is the going price for fish today?" Then you head to the one that reported the highest price. Problem solved.
This means that you can sell your catch, every day, and never go home to the family empty handed. It also means that no one ever goes to the market and comes home saying "Sorry kids, no fish today."
All because of a little technical doohickey that is practically disposable in the Western world these days.
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/qjec.122.3.8...
In many places, these same technologies are lifechanging. Here's an "I love technology. I love capitalism. I love technocapitalism" story for you: many 3rd world fishermen lead a close to subsistence existence by catching fish and then having to take it to market. Market conditions at towns A, B, and C vary on a day to day basis. If you pick the wrong town to deliver your catch to, you lose out on earnings and some other town loses out on cheap fish. In the worst case, you may be unable to sell your fish at all, in which case the fish rot while someone else starves.
But now, you have a cell phone.
So you can call ahead to towns A, B, and C and ask them "Hey, what is the going price for fish today?" Then you head to the one that reported the highest price. Problem solved.
This means that you can sell your catch, every day, and never go home to the family empty handed. It also means that no one ever goes to the market and comes home saying "Sorry kids, no fish today."
All because of a little technical doohickey that is practically disposable in the Western world these days.
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/qjec.122.3.8...
I should clarify, then, that my statement was specific to getting the internet on my cellphone, not about the cellphone itself. The scenario I specifically cited was how having access to the web from whereever I may be may not have changed my life, but it is an incremental improvement.
I have no doubt about the life changing effect of cellphones. Where I come from, cellphones fulfilled, and exceeded, the promise that landlines failed to meet.
Human happiness seems to be calibrated by whatever situation you consider to be your ordinary world. I traveled to Africa and visited a lot of people who's living conditions where less than ideal by my standards, but they where no more or less happy than I am, despite my (by western standards) better living conditions.
It reminds me of the quote by Bertrand Russell: "To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness."No doubt in a few hundred years people will wonder how we ever got along happily in the era we live in now. They may think it inconceivable that we could be happy under such circumstances.
It reminds me of the quote by Bertrand Russell: "To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness."No doubt in a few hundred years people will wonder how we ever got along happily in the era we live in now. They may think it inconceivable that we could be happy under such circumstances.
Slightly off topic, but, Louis CK --- highly recommended. Heavily inspired by (and probably the heir to) George Carlin. Caught him live this year, outstanding. Apparently, none of his material in his tours is ever recycled, something he picked up from Carlin.
CK is my favorite comedian and I am still waiting for the chance to catch him live. I whole-heatedly agree and recommend him to anyone who'll listen.
it's just a personal observation, but I think people seem to be hardwired to survival, not happiness - that means as more basic needs are fulfilled, the more sad they tend to become - unless they fallback to things to justify their lifes (religion, a lot of hobbies, buying the next iphone...). No wonder suicide rates are a lot higher in very well developed and safe countries than in warzones/poor places.
I guess what happens is the firmware in everyone's heads starts to wonder why should it keep maintaining that expensive and energy-hog piece of hardware when all the basic goals defined on its DNA are fulfilled - and then gently asks the hardware to just go ahead and turn itself off.
sudo shutdown -h now.
sudo shutdown -h now.
I've been having a similar discussion with all of my friends lately. When I brought a plant to work someone asked 'Why did you bring that?' and I explained to him that not 50 years ago the majority of Americans would see green on a daily basis, in fact so much green it would seem like a jungle. Now we work in concrete jungles, grey cubes, beige walls and highways.
People forget that for thousands of years we were hard wired to kill those attacking us, hunt for food, and protect our family. We struggled through disease, famine, lived in every condition this world can throw, and now we only use our brain and our bodies become confused when the genes tell them one thing and we do another.
Its probably going to be a while until our bodies catch up to our brains(maybe never).
People forget that for thousands of years we were hard wired to kill those attacking us, hunt for food, and protect our family. We struggled through disease, famine, lived in every condition this world can throw, and now we only use our brain and our bodies become confused when the genes tell them one thing and we do another.
Its probably going to be a while until our bodies catch up to our brains(maybe never).
Kai Krause:
It is a near impossibility to define quality of life, a deeply personal set of values, judgements and emotions. But in recent years there have been breakthroughs, a new sense of empowerment, a new degree of functionality for our tools: Research is now immensely powerful, fast, cheap and enjoyable, it used to be a slow, painful and expensive chore. To have the entirety of Britannica, Wikipedia, millions of pages of writings of all ages, find answers to almost any question in seconds, view them on a huge sharp window-to-the-world screen: a pure joy to "work".
Images: memories can be frozen in time, at any occasion, in beautiful detail, collected by the hundreds of thousands. The few cineastic masterpieces mankind produced, among the wretched majority of trashy abyss, one can now own & watch, rerun & freeze-frame. Music: all I ever cherished at my direct disposal, tens of thousands of pieces. Bach's lifetime oeuvre, 160 CDs worth, in my pocket even! Consider that just a few generations ago?
A perfect cup of tea, the right bread with great jam, the Berlin Philharmonic plays NOW, just for ME, exactly THAT ....and will even pause when I pee! What more does anyone need ??
Billions of our predecessors would have spontaneously combusted with "instant happiness overdose syndrome" given all these wonderful means, and I am not even mentioning heated rooms, lit at night, clean showers, safe food, ubiquitous mobility or dentists with anaesthesia.
...
No need to invoke grand sweeping forces, momentous upheaval, those armies of nano-tech, gene-spliced A.I. robots...
Let's embrace the peace and quiet of keeping things just as they are for a while. Bring them to the rest of the planet. Taking the time to truly enjoy them, milking the moment for all it has, really watching, listening, smelling and tasting it all.... ...that stasis..... that changed everything.
http://server1.edge.org/q2009/q09_11.html#krause
It is a near impossibility to define quality of life, a deeply personal set of values, judgements and emotions. But in recent years there have been breakthroughs, a new sense of empowerment, a new degree of functionality for our tools: Research is now immensely powerful, fast, cheap and enjoyable, it used to be a slow, painful and expensive chore. To have the entirety of Britannica, Wikipedia, millions of pages of writings of all ages, find answers to almost any question in seconds, view them on a huge sharp window-to-the-world screen: a pure joy to "work".
Images: memories can be frozen in time, at any occasion, in beautiful detail, collected by the hundreds of thousands. The few cineastic masterpieces mankind produced, among the wretched majority of trashy abyss, one can now own & watch, rerun & freeze-frame. Music: all I ever cherished at my direct disposal, tens of thousands of pieces. Bach's lifetime oeuvre, 160 CDs worth, in my pocket even! Consider that just a few generations ago?
A perfect cup of tea, the right bread with great jam, the Berlin Philharmonic plays NOW, just for ME, exactly THAT ....and will even pause when I pee! What more does anyone need ??
Billions of our predecessors would have spontaneously combusted with "instant happiness overdose syndrome" given all these wonderful means, and I am not even mentioning heated rooms, lit at night, clean showers, safe food, ubiquitous mobility or dentists with anaesthesia.
...
No need to invoke grand sweeping forces, momentous upheaval, those armies of nano-tech, gene-spliced A.I. robots...
Let's embrace the peace and quiet of keeping things just as they are for a while. Bring them to the rest of the planet. Taking the time to truly enjoy them, milking the moment for all it has, really watching, listening, smelling and tasting it all.... ...that stasis..... that changed everything.
http://server1.edge.org/q2009/q09_11.html#krause
Dupe from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=474588
(I believe this one has more than one dupe)
It's a good article, though. People naturally gravitate towards a feeling of unhappiness. I believe that if you look at most religions over the years, instead of finding out about religion, you end up finding out about the natural emotional state of man, i.e. that people are hard-wired to feel certain ways and they'll find some way of feeling them no matter what the age is.
Overall, this is a good thing -- drives innovation, keeps societies from stagnating, etc. In fact, hell would be a society in which everybody was perfectly at peace all the time. It seems we are designed to struggle and perform our best when we are struggling.
(I believe this one has more than one dupe)
It's a good article, though. People naturally gravitate towards a feeling of unhappiness. I believe that if you look at most religions over the years, instead of finding out about religion, you end up finding out about the natural emotional state of man, i.e. that people are hard-wired to feel certain ways and they'll find some way of feeling them no matter what the age is.
Overall, this is a good thing -- drives innovation, keeps societies from stagnating, etc. In fact, hell would be a society in which everybody was perfectly at peace all the time. It seems we are designed to struggle and perform our best when we are struggling.
I appreciate what I've got, it doesn't stop me for striving for better.
i'm happy most of the time: i mostly leave technology at work and only use it as a tool for interacting with people when i'm home. technology is not the end, it's a means.
Sure, because all of technology and all of science don't really feed our soul: so, our souls grow thinner and thinner, and our heads feel more and more overweight.
It's like eating straw all day long: at the end you are full of nothing (really important).
It's like eating straw all day long: at the end you are full of nothing (really important).
Well, just think for a minute about the results being produced by the brand-new science of paleopathology. Now that we can do autopsies on 5000 year old Egyptian mummies, we know that [1]:
- malaria, tuberculosis, severe ear infections, a variety of intestinal worms and kindred parasites, silicosis (a lung disorder caused by inhaling sand over a long span of time) [were all widespread], as well as perhaps smallpox, polio, and gout...
- severe tooth loss, common to all classes ... resulting from the infiltration of windblown sand into granaries and kitchens. The teeth of pharaohs and commoners alike were steadily worn down, often nearly to the gums, leading to ... CHRONIC TOOTH AND GUM INFECTIONS THAT COULD IN SOME CASES BE FATAL.
- bone growth patterns disclose a chronic pattern of malnutrition...
- [besides schistosomiasis, one specimen's] body was a beehive of various parasites ... had he lived on into EARLY ADULTHOOD, he might well have contracted such degenerative diseases as ARTERIOSCLEROSIS and ARTHRITIS. We tend today to associate these with middle or old age...
[1] Hollister & Rogers, Roots of the Western Tradition. Emphasis is mine.