"If I call myself an individualist anarchist, an iconoclast, and a nihilist, it is precisely because I believe that in these adjectives there is the highest and most complete expression of my willful and reckless individuality that, like an overflowing river, wants to expand, impetuously sweeping away dikes and hedges, until it crashes into a granite boulder, shattering and breaking up in its turn. I do not renounce life. I exalt and sing it."
I already disagree with the very premise of rich countries becoming richer during the referenced time frame. A quick google shows that the average income is basically the same as it was in 1965 (adjusted for inflation). We are talking about a jump from 20.27 to 22.65 dollars per hour, that's an 11% increase. It's basically nothing. And according to OPs summary the decline in happiness only happened from 1997 and according to the video it was somewhere in the 2000s where a noticable change happened. But for some reason they don't mention the financial crisis that happend in 2008.
There is not much that became more abundant between 1997 or 2000s compared to today. There might have been huge technological advancements but that doesn't affect most of us in our daily lifes. The only thing that comes to mind is storage space on electronic devices. Which would bring us to social media being the sole cause of the unhappiness. And while social media almost certainly plays a role I don't think it's the only or even the main cause.
I would even argue that a lot of important things became less available between 1997 and today. Affordable housing is a big one. And this plays into something they mentioned as well. People seeking short term pleasure rather than long term planning. But long term planning is basically pointless in todays world, especailly for people under 30. There is no sense of stability. There is no "I work hard and I can have a decent future anymore". I am 34 and I was already told by everyone growing up that by the time I have to retire there won't be no retirement funds available anymore. Things have only gone worse since then. Climate crisis is worse than ever, polticial stability going down, groups with radical ideas gaining more and more popularity. When all your long term planning seems pointless you might as well just engage in short term pleasure.
Access to affordable healthy food has gone down as well. Some staple foods are still as affordable as they used to but I don't think anything became more affordable or more abundant in the past 20 years. But something like healthy bread is not affordable anymore. 20 years ago it was. Good bread from the bakery was around $1-2 in the early 2000s, adjusted for inflation it should be just shy of $4 today. But a lot of healthy bread that isn't full of sugar is priced around $10. I am not from the US but that's the converted prices, maybe the situation is differenct in the USA.
And for rich people in rich countries things certainly didn't become more abundant. They had as much access to drugs, hookers, or other short term pleasures back then as today.
While the GDP and other measurements of "wealth" might have gone up for the past few years a lot of that wealth is tied up in corporations. It doesn't affect the average person living in said countries.
And when they started talking about how video games are bad I lost almost all interest in the video.
To keep it short. My main argument why people in rich countries are less happy is due them losing something people once had. Most people suffer more from losing than they gain from winning. Losing $100 will bother most people more than winning $100 will make them happy.
A well written and substantial exploration, but I can't agree with the author's conclusion:
Although it may sound counterintuitive, temporary conformity is the duty one has to one’s inner self and its authenticity. Even though we engage with society and continue to live in the old world, the world of coercion and oppression, we must keep a constant and persistent awareness of its wrongful character.
It is this action that will allow us to thrive, liberate the mind, and emancipate and empower the inner self as much as it is feasibly possible. There is no need to escape prison if the prison does not hinder one’s well-being.
The cell confines the body, but not the mind.
There is always a need to escape the prison, and anyone who has spent time in a cell will confirm that it confines the mind as much as the body. There is no prison that does not hinder a prisoner's well-being. Imprisonment creates a cognitive dissonance that will only increase the more one tries to conform to the rules of the prison (whether it be metaphorical or physical).
I would argue that instead, the solution to the prisoner's dilemma is to maintain the appearance of conformity as much as it benefits their position, while engaging in acceptable overt action to engender change that makes that repressive conformity obsolete.
If overt actions of social change that engender freedom are prohibited, subversive actions of non-conformity are justified, and are often the only outlet to maintain one's sanity.
Acceptance of the prison doesn't lead to greater enlightenment, only despair and silence of the soul. If you must conform, give them your smile, but always keep a spark ready for the right moment when the tinder is dry:
Spark
I always resented all the years, the hours, the
minutes I gave them as a working stiff, it
actually hurt my head, my insides, it made me
dizzy and a bit crazy — I couldn’t understand the
murdering of my years
yet my fellow workers gave no signs of
agony, many of them even seemed satisfied, and
seeing them that way drove me almost as crazy as
the dull and senseless work.
the workers submitted.
the work pounded them to nothingness, they were
scooped-out and thrown away.
I resented each minute, every minute as it was
mutilated
and nothing relieved the monotonous ever-
structure.
I considered suicide.
I drank away my few leisure hours.
I worked for decades.
I lived with the worst of women, they killed what
the job failed to kill.
I knew that I was dying.
something in me said, go ahead, die, sleep, become
them, accept.
then something else in me said, no, save the tiniest
bit.
it needn’t be much, just a spark.
a spark can set a whole forest on
fire.
just a spark.
save it.
I think I did.
I’m glad I did.
what a lucky god damned
thing.
From a US perspective, much of this seems like a false premise. Money isn't everything, but I think it takes ignoring or misrepresenting a lot of factors to say that most people are better off economically. On the other side, having $0 means a lot less when you live somewhere where money is a lot less important/required.
Do we haVe tOo mUcH CoMfORt?
Depressed people? No. Even things that might look like comfort (more likely ineffective escapism) are often a result of conditions rather than a cause of them. Lack of purpose/belonging/community, also lacking money and transportation (rural/car-centric esp.) and lack of third-places. Really just lacking prosperity and viable autonomy in general.
Also healthcare access in the US is not great (even worse adding in other factors) and mental healthcare is even a problem outside of the US. Unless I'm in a different timeline?
That said, I would say that a lot of factors here are how societies are structured rather than purely personal failings. Or: some modern things have been a disaster even if they generate a lot of money.
EDIT: Some of these points are actually raised in the video, especially by Anna Lembke after the half-way point. So the framing of the video seems a bit odd/clickbait-y. Well... I just noticed it says Yaron is "at the helm of the Ayn Rand institute", so it makes more sense now.
The cruel nature of these acts makes them immoral. I think that the desire to perform them is also immoral. I don't think the distinctions between the questions, nor the fact that there is no consciousness present changes that.
What about self-harm?
Wanting to die or suffer (or choosing it arbitrarily) is the polar opposite of our biological imperative for self-preservation, which is at the core of what makes us living beings, and which I think makes this immoral.
I'll note that I make a difference between wanting to die and sacrificing one's life for some noble goal, such as ending one's suffering in a situation where the only way to do so is death. In the first case one desires self-destruction for it's own sake, which is what makes it immoral. In the second case, one would strongly prefer to avoid death if it was possible to do so while also accomplishing their goal.
Because they want to lose weight
Though a preference for weight loss over life is extremely bad judgement (to say the least), the desired goal of losing weight is not immoral in itself, and in the absence of any possible moral obligations to other humans or life forms which would demand better judgement, I think that this is not immoral.
What if the person cuts off a limb and regrets it later?
I don't think lethality makes a difference here, and I don't think later regret influences the morality of an act after the fact.
Is there another question which ought to be added?
While waiting for someone who's more familiar with Voltaire, Nicholas Cronk's interview provides some context to Voltaire's career and gives some book recommendations. The two primary works he recommends are Candide and A Pocket Philosophical Dictionary. He explains his reasoning for both pretty well.
Fwiw, if you're just looking to start reading Voltaire, I don't think you'd go wrong reading the Candide. It's an enjoyable, short, and funny satire. The only context you may want first is Voltaire is largely responding to a view around in his time commonly called 'the best of all possible worlds'. This article explains that a bit better
If you're looking specifically for his philosophy, the SEP contextualizes what Voltaire has written and where. Its bibliography has primary sources, so you could always start with the one that you find most interesting
Arguing from a position of physics, like this author is, I didn't think dualism was still a serious theory with modern proponents.
As hinted in the article by mentioning the fundamental particles, there's no room in the known laws of physics to fit interactions between the neurons of the brain and some as yet undiscovered particles making up the substance of the engine driving qualia, whatever it would be besides the brain. Interactions with undiscovered particles would require energy, and, by conversation of energy, we should see energy of the brain disappearing (this is how we posited the existence of neutrinos, which were later discovered), but we don't.
Likewise, if this qualia engine were driving neural activity, even if the qualia engine were non-physical, neurons still are. So at the lowest level of the neurons, the qualia engine would have to trigger electrical activity in the neurons, which would be an unaccounted for source of energy, and we also don't see that.
I mean the following question in good faith because I legitimately did not know serious proponents of dualism still existed, but do dualists have any explanations for these problems?
Are you basing your claim on any source or theory? Experientally, I disagree. My mind's comfort zone is in the realm of the abstract, of the underlying structure. I find it hard to think of mundane things, and often have to do the effort to consider them to the able to function in society
If we talk language as the defining feature of humans, language is in its nature abstract. Even seemingly concrete words like London or Paris don't have clear, demarcated referents, acá their precise meaning remains in the abstract realm.
To make it easier to wrap my head around, I summarize each dot point:
o World can be simulated
o Substrate independent
o Simulate with pebbles
o Feels real to simulated beings
o Simulator can be turing machine
o Deterministic
o Independent of obsever
o Aside - different interpretations give different worlds?
o Can symbolically represent patterns
o pi is an example. Digits of pi could represent a world
o Sequences are independent of symbols
o Infinite sequences with infinite interpretations gives infinite possible worlds - thus, we're infinitely likely to live in a simulated world, even if a physical world is required to give rise to all those permutations
Then summarize the argument:
All worlds can be simulated
All simulations can be formulated as a sequence
All sequences exist
Therefore, all worlds exist
I think plenty of people would argue about (1), though I do not. (2) follows from (1).
I think (3) is not necessarily a given. We can conceptualize of a sequence, we can even write down a representation of a sequence, but in what manner does a sequence actually exist? Similar to the concept of a triangle. No such thing exists. We can only create representations of a triangle, or posit statements based on the supposed properties of a triangle, were it to exist.
Finally:
First you say that a sequence can represent a world, given an interpreter.
Then you say that such a sequence can represent a world, independent of an interpreter.
But you give no justification for that.
Consider an alternate formulation:
All worlds can be simulated
For the set of all interpreters, there exists at least 1 sequence which would be interpreted as the simulated world
All interpreters exist <- Doubtful
Therefore all worlds exist
You say that a sequence can be interpreted as a world, but is independent of that interpretation. In that case, sequences are unnecessary, because I could conceive of an interpreter which perceives our universe from any symbol or sequence. So it is not the existence of the sequence which is what causes the world to exist, but the interpreter.
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