Be Happier

Klevador

[-]Will_Newsome13y350 Response to previous version

This isn't a fault of the post per se, but I wish there wasn't so damn much equivocation on the word "happiness". I know what sadness, contempt, contentment, rapture, &c. are—introspectively they strike me as a rather distinct states. But "happiness" means like ten or fifteen different things that are only somewhat related to each other. (FWIW smiling makes me feel bitter-sweet, not happy, so this might be an undue generalization from one example.)

Also, at least many kinds of happiness are measures of value, not ends in themselves, and so chasing after them specifically is getting dangerously close to wireheading or the problems of Goodhart's law more generally.

[-]Will_Newsome13y220 Response to previous version

Some feelings that have some "happiness"-nature: joy (piti), rapture (piti), bliss (sukha), loving-kindness (metta), adoration, sadness (paradoxically?), bitter-sweet-ness, exaltation, triumph, relief, a variation on wistfulness related to loving-kindness, power, pleasure, communing with God (maybe rapture/adoration/exaltation hybrid?), sehnsucht (sort of?). There are more but the list at least indicates the variety.

5[anonymous]13y

Owen Flanagan has done some decent work on eudaimonia, you might find interesting e.g. how eudaimonia (Buddha) differs from eudaimonia (Aristotle) and to some degree what kind of states of mind each value.

7Klevador13y

Re Equivocation: Good point. The important distinction seems to be between hedonic well-being and eudaimonic well-being. Found on the web: The thrust of this post is mostly for hedonic well-being (or 'experienced happiness').

5Will_Newsome13y

(For the "meaning and self-realization" side of things one should check out transpersonal psychology. Here's an abridged version of William James' "The Varieties of Religious Experience".)

1Klevador13y

I believe it's more mundane than that. From what I've read, eudaimonic well-being (aka life satisfaction) is measured by self-report tests (eg. "How satisfied are you with your life?")

5steven046113y

It would be particularly nice to understand what sense of "happiness" people (should) have in mind when they say that happiness is instrumentally useful.

5Raemon13y

When did people say happiness was instrumentally useful? I mean, I think it probably is to a certain extent, but I want happiness explicitly because it's a terminal value, and I don't judge people who place other values higher.

3Will_Newsome13y

How do you make the distinction between valuing being happy versus valuing the things that cause you to be happy? I'm worried about happiness-seekers making errors here; I think that at least in some cases a person trying to increase his happiness sounds a lot like an economic planner trying to increase a country's GDP, rather than trying to increase the things that GDP is (perhaps-incorrectly!) seen as an indicator of desirability of. It seems to me that various kinds of happiness are qualia that are outputs of certain motivational architectures which were created by variably egosyntonic genetic/memetic/Hebbian selection pressures aimed at solving not-entirely-motivational problems which might in themselves be valuable to solve. In such cases reifying the goal of being happy qua being happy would risk an unfortunate error. (This is all modulo my confusion about what people usually mean when they talk about "happiness" in general.)

1Raemon13y

There are things I value in addition to being happy. Creating quality art. Contributing to global human flourishing. But I definitely value happiness for its own sake. I don't try to maximize happiness, but there's a certain amount that I need to satisfice on. I don't know exactly what makes me happy - it's includes "working on fulfilling projects," "having a good social network", "getting exercise", and "having close, intimate friends/romantic-partners". but not necessarily all of those things, all the time. One important thing I learned last year is that sometimes, something I think of as "important" turns out to be making me unhappy. It's useful to me to look at "total happiness GDP", see when it started going down, and then figure out which variable was the cause. This year, I started going to a bunch of new meetups, which were individually fun and valuable for my long-term non-happiness goals. But for some reason I became increasingly stressed and unhappy. Eventually I realized that I had forgotten I was an introvert, and even though I enjoy extroverted activities, I need to ensure I get alone time. I cut back on meetups, and I feel much better now. I appreciate this because I feeling good is good, and also because it means I can get other things done. Not sure if that explained it very well. I could write multiple pages about how I think about happiness, but if I'm doing that it probably should be a fully-formed post.

0steven046113y

Yes, when I claimed that people sometimes say that happiness is instrumentally useful, that was not based on them saying happiness is worth pursuing and me concluding they must therefore think it's instrumentally useful; rather, it was based on them saying happiness is instrumentally useful.

0Raemon13y

They didn't say it on this page though, hence my confusion.

0Klevador13y

As for your second paragraph — I'm not certain, but I think it's rational to treat happiness as a maximand. Is your objection not addressed by the sections "Optimal Happification" and "Happiness Interventions Work!" ?

3Will_Newsome13y

To a significant extent it seems to me to be a question of moral philosophy. But there are also practical objections—for example, I might have missed it, but I don't see "regularly smoke opium" as one of the listed recommendations. As far as increasing happiness goes I hear it's hard to beat heroin. Nonetheless most people who strive for happiness don't go the heroin/painkiller route. I think this says something about the desirability of experienced happiness by itself.

7TheOtherDave13y

Most people I know believe that heroin (and similar mechanisms) get short-term happiness followed either by long-term unhappiness, or death. So I'm not sure how much their avoidance of that route says about how much they desire happiness by itself, other than that it isn't strictly more important than longevity. (The fact that unhappy people don't always kill themselves suggests that as well.) Of course, it's tricky inferring causation from correlation. It might be that we believe that about heroin because it reinforces our predisposition to reject experienced happiness as a motivator, for example, whether it's true or not.

-1Hul-Gil13y

That's the long and short of it, I think. There is no reason not to use heroin to obtain maximum utility (for one's self), if one a.) finds it pleasurable, b.) can afford it, and c.) is able to obtain pure and measured doses. (Or simply uses pharmaceuticals.) The perceived danger of heroin comes from its price and illegality (uncertain dosage + potentially dangerous impurities), which often results in penury, and overdose or illness, for the user. People also want "real" happiness, by which I presume they mean happiness resulting from actions like painting a picture, and not happiness induced by chemical... which is silly, since the two feelings are produced by the same neurochemistry and functionally identical (i.e., all happiness is ultimately chemical). (The perceived difference may still bother someone enough that they choose a different route, though, especially if they don't realize they can just paint a picture... on heroin.)

1TheOtherDave13y

Well, you're leaving out any discussion of goals I might have other than pleasure, and how well heroin helps me achieve those goals. One difference between heroin use and painting a picture is that the latter case causes there to be a picture, for example, and I might value the existence of the picture in addition to valuing my neurochemical state. But, sure, if I can do all the same stuff in the world as well or better while maintaining a heroin habit, then that's not relevant.

0Hul-Gil13y

I was hoping someone would bring that up. You've already given the same answer I would, though: it's not necessarily an either/or scenario like Nozick's "experience machine" concept, so it's possible to have both heroin and pictures, in theory.

0tog13y

Are pure and measured doses safe? What about the adverse consequences of addiction?

1[anonymous]13y

This seems reasonably close to reinventing fun theory.

0Hul-Gil13y

See my post below; I think this is due to a.) a misunderstanding of the nature of happiness (a thought that chemically-induced happiness is different from "regular" happiness... which is also chemical), b.) a feeling that opium is incredibly dangerous (as it can be), and c.) a misunderstanding of how opium makes you feel - people can say "I know opium makes you happy" without actually feeling/knowing that it does so. That is, their mental picture of how they'd feel if they smoked opium doesn't correspond to the reality, which is - for most people - that it makes them feel much, much better than they would have imagined.

[-]David_Gerard13y310 Response to previous version

I felt the urge to upvote this article on a "more please" basis, but actually tl;dr'ed past the content once I'd read the summary. Anyone else?

[-]satt13y130 Response to previous version

Yep, me too. I don't think that's a problem, though. The content is practically an annotated bibliography, which needs to be there to substantiate the summary but doesn't need to be read unless you really want to.

7Klevador13y

Still, I argue that you should read the bulk of the post. Reading just the summary may be like just reading the synopsis of a movie (if I may be so hubristic! :) instead of watching it. You 'get' the idea but you don't appreciate it as much, and it doesn't stick with you as much as if you watched it. Less mental associations. And to be more specific, you will miss, among other things, the supporting argument (aside from the obvious) for why you should make a point of avoiding bad experiences. Perhaps I should have included it in the summary.

7Randaly13y

Evidently almost everybody, since nobody has pointed out the broken link here: "This research also supports the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions by demonstrating that higher levels of happiness may expand an individual’s mindset to include thoughts of others." Which is a pity, because I thought the meat of the post added a lot to the (already completely awesome!) summary. (Also: there's a broken link.) ETA: Also, I see a lot of references to "(Aaker et al 2010)" throughout the post- is that the same as "(Aaker, Rudd, & Mogilner, 2010)," which is only cited once?

3Klevador13y

Fixed and fixed! How do you have such sharp eyes. Yes, and I don't learn well from outline-summaries only. I imagine that I would not gain much if I had read only the summary up top. The just-acquired lessons would quickly dissipate without the examples and explanations to reinforce them.

2Randaly13y

Thanks- I'm just following whatever extracts I find particularly interesting back to the original papers. (I found the bit about spare time leading to happiness particularly interesting, which is how I found the Aaker reference.) One more thing: In the sentence "Aside from making them happier, you will also improve your relationship with them via the Benjamin Franklin effect, which — unintuitively — makes people like you more if you ask them for favors.", the link to the wikipedia article on the Ben Franklin Effect links to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin_Effect Instead of to the article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect

0Klevador13y

Fixed.

4Klevador13y

Does this mean that outline-summaries in posts like this are a bad idea, given that people can be very impatient? (BTW, before tl;dr-ing, try breathing deeply first. It may make you feel less impatient :p )

[-]David_Gerard13y130 Response to previous version

No no, outline summaries are a great idea! Just keep in mind that may be all someone reads ;-)

7wedrifid13y

No. I read the outline summary. I wouldn't have read just a wall of text. I may have scrolled through and read the section headings - but that gives me essentially the outline summary.

3undermind13y

I found some of the content in the summary sufficiently noteworthy that I will remember it, regardless of the supporting evidence, and for the rest, the supporting evidence doesn't help. In particular, asking people for favours to give them the opportunity to be kind is a cool idea that is new to me, which I intend to start doing.

2A1987dM13y

I read about half of the article and skimmed the rest.

1juliawise13y

Me too.

[-]steven046113y300 Response to previous version

This may be paranoid of me, but I'm always worried that when posts like this use the word "you", people will read it as "you", when they should be reading it as "the average person, who is similar to you to some extent (e.g. in possessing such brain machinery as is humanly universal), and whose properties inform you about your own properties to a degree that depends on background information".

[-]steven046113y220 Response to previous version

It would be pretty neat if we had some happiness research that was disaggregated by such variables as intelligence, cognitive reflectiveness, and introversion. Does anyone know of such research?

0[anonymous]13y

This is a good idea, considering that many lesswrongians are probably neuro-atypical!

[-]Will_Newsome13y120 Response to previous version

E.g., I've seen a few studies purporting that "high intelligence" (which IIRC meant like 1.5 SD above average SAT scores) provides substantial protection against common cognitive biases. Yet I've never seen anyone take this into account when discussing "de-biasing".

4steven046113y

How would you take that into account? Does high intelligence provide more protection against some biases than others? Can we isolate what aspect of high intelligence provides the protection, and amplify that aspect?

-2Will_Newsome13y

I personally wouldn't take it into account at all, because it's H&B research, i.e., untrustworthy and irrelevant to rationality, and also I do not condone trying to "de-bias" oneself. (Pretty sure the H&B consensus agrees with me on the dubious nature of "de-biasing", anyone know if I'm wrong?) Lukeprog might have answers to your questions, IIRC he's the one who sent me the papers in question.

4steven046113y

Would you condone trying to de-bias oneself if you thought the research was trustworthy and relevant? That is, do you see an extra reason on top of those reasons not to engage in de-biasing?

1Will_Newsome13y

Yes, the first law of ecology (also known in another aspect as Chesterton's fence). There are exceptions but those exceptions only apply to people with abnormally accurate self models.

9MichaelVassar13y

Why expect unintended consequences to oppose ones preferences? The biases weren't created by processes that cared about your preferences.

9Jayson_Virissimo13y

Yeah, but our preferences were caused by the same thing as our biases, right? At the very least, shouldn't we expect our preferences to be highly entangled with our biases because of their common origin?

[-]Wei Dai13y210 Response to previous version

Don’t do ‘comparison shopping.’

I used to do less comparison shopping than I do now, and would occasionally regret certain purchases. I almost never have such regrets now. And comparison shopping itself feels more like play than work. Does this seem like enough reason to think that the advice doesn't apply to me, or is there something I'm overlooking?

2Dustin13y

I've commented on this research before. In short, while it's plausible that I may be less happy with purchases made via comparison shopping, I'm overall less happy with the world where I don't do comparison shopping.

1dlthomas13y

Better still might (mind you, I said "might") be trading with someone else you trust - you do the comparison shopping for them, they do it for you, after communicating your criteria. That way, you get the best option available (or something reasonably close to it) while not eroding your satisfaction with thoughts of what could have been.

2RobFisher13y

See also the section on anticipation: "...the pleasure derived from window shopping for a dress may exceed the pleasure from actually acquiring the dress." I get happiness from the process of comparison shopping. It is part of the anticipation. Perhaps this advice needs further qualification.

2MaoShan13y

Based on your contributions here, you are more aware than most people of the other biases at play when considering purchases. Therefore you are qualified to engage in psychologically "risky" behavior.

0John_Maxwell13y

It makes me uncomfortable to think that I might have made a purchase that was suboptimal, sometimes. So this point I just think things through thoroughly every time; it seems less stressful empirically.

0[anonymous]13y

Seriously, I often do it just for fun. ("OMG can't wait for Ivy Bridge! It will make counterfactual-me's computer so much faster! /covet")

[-]Alicorn13y200 Response to previous version

I think this would do well in Main.

3wedrifid13y

Yes, it most certainly doesn't belong here. Move it to main please author! (Whereupon Eliezer should promote it.)

[-]Klevador13y390 Response to previous version

1 karma point to go :)

eta: I have 19 karma at the moment.

[-]wedrifid13y310 Response to previous version

Oh, wow. Welcome to lesswrong in that case! Best introductory post I recall seeing!

3Barry_Cotter13y

Shit. When I was reading through I suspected you were one of the remote literature researchers because this has the makings of a good literature review article I think.

0SusanBrennan13y

I upvoted your post to a nice round 20. It's a much nicer number than 19 anyway.

4TheOtherDave13y

I'm saddened that it's no longer prime.

3Danfly13y

Upvoting to 31, which is quite a fantastic number, since it is both (aptly) a "happy" prime, as well as a "sexy" prime.

0Klevador13y

Explain?

2Danfly13y

Sorry. I probably should have linked happy and sexy. I was saying that the "happy" component fit well with the topic. Sexy was just an added bonus. To summarize: If you take a number, sum the squares of its digits to make a new number, then do the same with the next number and it eventually reaches one through that process, it is a "happy" number. "Happy prime" just refers to those prime numbers which are happy. Demonstration: 3^2+1^2=10 and 1^2+0^2=1 a sexy prime differs from another prime by 6 (in this case; 37).

0SusanBrennan13y

You forgot primorial.

[-]sark13y120 Response to previous version

Hi. First of all thanks for the immensely helpful summary of the literature!

Since you have gone through so much of the literature, I was wondering if you have come across any theories about the functional role of happiness?

I'm currently only aware of Kaj Sotala's post some time ago about how happiness regulates risk-taking. I personally think happiness does this because risk-taking is socially advantageous for high status folks. The theory is that happiness is basically a behavioural strategy pursued by those who have high status. As in, happiness is performed, not pursued. Depression and anxiety would be the opposite of happiness. I remember some studies showing how in primates the low status ones exhibit depression-like and anxious behavior.

It may simply be my ignorance of the literature, but it seems strange that all these (otherwise wonderful) empirical investigations into happiness are motivated only by a common folk theory of its function.

2khafra13y

The outlines of the performance theory seem good, and it feels introspectively correct as well. But if happiness is a high-status marker, why is it unattractive to women?

[-]wedrifid13y190 Response to previous version

The outlines of the performance theory seem good, and it feels introspectively correct as well. But if happiness is a high-status marker, why is it unattractive to women?

I took a look at the paper, and in particular the sample image they include:

My first impression was a lot more attraction to the female 'pride' picture than any of the other female images - while pride in females was found to be highly unattractive. Now I want to determine whether my preferences differ from some norm or whether this picture is an unusual case.

I do allow that much of my preference may have been determined simply due to the combination of hideously unflattering t-shirts and arms being up in the air compensating for that and actually making breasts evident. If giving all the people ghostly shirts was supposed to be some clever attempt to isolate the influence of clothing then it seems somewhat shortsighted. (Mind you if males were consistently not attracted to the 'pride' female despite it being the only one with apparent breasts then that is just all the more significant!)

[-][anonymous]13y140 Response to previous version

Were those pictures seriously used in a psychological study? It strikes me as obvious that the 'pride' images would stand out for having much more implied animation. Though I could see attractiveness swinging both ways depending on viewer personality.

Edit: These seem to have been used in the actual study (via). Maybe that really is just an example?

[-]RobinZ13y160 Response to previous version

Edit: These seem to have been used in the actual study (via). Maybe that really is just an example?

If those are the pictures, it looks an awful lot like they completely failed to control for the identities of the people in the pictures. For example, the "pride" group is better described as the "professional athlete" group.

7wedrifid13y

Yes, these images were even included in the published pdf of it. It would be useful to be able to see the other images that they used. Perhaps this image is an exception to the norm and the author included it rather than the most representative one because he got a crush on cute-pride-chick during the editing process.

6Nornagest13y

Odd. Those look like stock photos, while the ones in the grandparent clearly aren't. I can see either being used pretty readily, but I'm having trouble coming up with a rationale for both.

6Viliam_Bur13y

Similar mistake. Most of "female neutral" pictures contain only the head; "female happy" has more examples with hands etc.; "female pride" is in a sport context; "female shame" has many full-body pictures. Authors of the study probably never heard about ceteris paribus.

2NancyLebovitz13y

Thanks for tracking down the original images. They seem like much better choices than the pictures in the comment above here. Just an impression, but I think that something which can make men (and possibly women) attractive isn't pure sadness-- it's sadness which somehow conveys "but the right person can make me happy".

0John_D12y

I personally think the original images used in the study are even worse choices, because at least there is some uniformity between displays of emotions taken from the article, which better control for possible confounders. Now for the actual pics used in the study. In the set of male pics that are supposed to display pride, there seem to be far more pics that convey athleticism or wealth, as others have pointed out. In the happiness pictures, there seem to be far more close-ups and profile pics, with the rest of the body being hidden from the viewer. I would argue that the shame pics are animated in comparison. Seems like an overall poor study based on these sample of pics, and certainly should not be a recommendation for men to not smile next time they are out in public.

0[anonymous]12y

This study is a little flawed. In the male example, the shame and especially the pride pictures look more animated, as opposed to just standing straight. When you see someone who is happy, are they just standing straight with their arms by their side? No, that is not the posture you would expect. The happiness picture doesn't look like a genuine display of happiness, while the pride and shame pictures, to me at least, convey the type of body language one would expect when seeing those emotions. I admit I don't have a good alternative explanation for the female pictures, but perhaps a wide smile is just attractive to men regardless of the posture.

5A1987dM13y

I thought about, well... what you say in your last paragraph even before reading your last paragraph. Hence, no idea of how to generalize my impression to people wearing ‘normal’ clothes.

3wedrifid13y

The way the 'prideful' posture emphasizes the breasts?

0A1987dM13y

Yes.

4SkyDK13y

Nope, pride definitely is more attractive for me due to the enhanced sense of curves. If this is supposed to proof something, I'd be highly suspicious of the results. I'm really bad a judging men, but I figure the pride one to be better there as well. The happy one seems to fake.

3NancyLebovitz13y

I don't find male happiness unattractive in general, but the Happiness Man in the picture has a smile which strikes me as very spooky. Were those people feeling the actual emotions, or just asked to express them? The man seemed much better at shame (more effect on the body and the face) than the woman.

3wedrifid13y

POLL: Which of the female poses in the image above is the most attractive?

[-]wedrifid13y340 Response to previous version

Poll Option: Pride is the most attractive of the female poses.

6wedrifid13y

Poll Option: Happiness is the most attractive of the female poses.

4wedrifid13y

Poll Option: Shame is the most attractive of the female poses.

1wedrifid13y

Poll Option: Neutral is the most attractive of the female poses.

-30wedrifid13y

3[anonymous]13y

I don't know; I'm a lot more attracted to the male pride picture, and there's no breasts in that one.

9Nisan13y

There are biceps though :3

4wedrifid13y

I'm actually more attracted to the male pride picture than I am to the female neutral and shame pictures - despite generally identifying as a heterosexual male. I don't know or much mind whether it is the same kind of attraction in play but it just seems like there is so much more life emanating from those characters, so I feel drawn to them.

2Klevador13y

Something that distorts my assessment of the images is the female's dowdy clothing, unflattering on the female figure except in the pride image. She looks like a shapeless flour sack in the other three pics. On the male, the shirt seems 'alright', neutral.

2thomblake13y

Wow, that is really weird, if that's what they found.

1Eliezer Yudkowsky13y

You need some actual poll here, but yes, the pride image seems obviously more attractive. It is possible that the other confounders played a role, but I at least think that I find pride attractive generally.

6wedrifid13y

OK. Come to think of it if I rate the pictures based on how happy they seem to me at first glance the 'pride' picture still wins out over 'happiness'. That quite possibly speaks primarily to how happy I feel when in the respective poses.

0khafra13y

Pride it is. What we need now is an experimental design to discern whether LWers prefer pride because we're contrarian; because wannabe-rationalists are less threatened by strong, confident women; because we're unusually attracted to prominent breasts; or some other reason.

4CuSithBell13y

Purely out of scientific curiosity, I'm sure.

0RobinZ13y

I was thinking that giving volunteer instructions on the poses they are to make and letting them take their own pictures with a foot-pedal to operate the shutter might work. Does anyone see a problem with that solution?

1Klevador13y

Good question. Unfortunately I tried to focus entirely on 'how to become happier' in researching for this post, although a possible answer to your query is that happiness promotes prosocial behavior and that happiness can be infectious up to three degrees of separation, thereby making everyone more likely to engage in prosocial behavior.

[-]Viliam_Bur13y110 Response to previous version

I buy cat food and give it to random cats I meet in the city. This has extremely good cost:benefit ratio for happiness. The food is cheap and I only give each cat a little, but the act of feeding the cat makes me happy for a few hours. Because those cats are not mine, I have no additional costs. Try to beat that! :P

9TheOtherDave13y

I used to take peanuts to a nearby park to feed squirrels, in much the same spirit. It had the additional benefit that I could eat the peanuts myself if I wanted, and it caused passersby to look at me funny (as I would not-infrequently have squirrels sitting on my lap and rummaging curiously through my pockets).

1ChrisHibbert13y

My significant other keeps a garden, and we have several productive fruit trees that we enjoy getting fruit from. Squirrels take a significant amount of fruit, and cats leave unwelcome surprises in the garden. We trap squirrels and remove them to county parks. (We don't do anything about the cats.) Marginally increasing the frequency of squirrels and cats is a negative externality for us. I'm glad you aren't feeding squirrels (or cats) near us.

0TheOtherDave13y

(nods) Sounds like it works out well for both of us.

6gwern13y

I see your one-shot cat food and raise you cat pennies.

0John_Maxwell13y

What city do you live in? I don't think I've ever been in a city that had enough cats for carrying cat food to seem worthwhile.

0Viliam_Bur13y

Two cats staying on the same place -- one near my home, another near my job. Chance of meeting 30% per cat per day + 1% random encounter. The cat food is dry, so it won't spoil; I keep a small ration in a small box in a pocket of my coat, carrying it is no problem. (The city is Bratislava, but both my home and work are out of center.)

[-][anonymous]13y110 Response to previous version

This is amazing! Well researched. I want to see an article like this on so many topics.

0MichaelVassar13y

Wow. I disagree exactly. It's a data-dump with little insight. Exactly what I don't want to see on LW.

8Jonathan_Graehl13y

Maybe insight is better, but for people who haven't already studied everything, posts like this save a lot of time and suggest study of things that perhaps they hadn't realized were there.

6wedrifid13y

"Insight" sounds altogether too much like "Speculative Just So bullshit". These are actual empirical findings pertaining to the expected outcomes for executing given behaviors and references to the evidence they are based on. The point isn't to gain 'insight', and any analysis of the data would be best as an investigation in more detail of what the precise indications of the data are, how the indicated behaviors can be most usefully executed and whether any of the summaries given of the findings (and even the findings expressed in the abstracts) are the correct interpretation of the data.

6Hul-Gil13y

I would have liked some thoughts on/insight into the data posted as well; but all the same, summaries like this, that gather a lot of related but widely-dispersed information together, are very useful (especially as a quick reference or overview, or, as Jonathan says below, as a starting point for further research), and I definitely wouldn't mind seeing more of them.

3drethelin13y

http://lesswrong.com/lw/a60/quantified_health_prize_results_announced/5wq7

4Klevador13y

http://lesswrong.com/lw/bdo/rationality_quotes_april_2012/6c7t

0[anonymous]13y

http://lesswrong.com/lw/yp/pretending_to_be_wise/

[-]RomeoStevens13y80 Response to previous version

Happiness research makes me sad.

1Alicorn13y

Really? How?

[-]RomeoStevens13y220 Response to previous version

Humans pine for excess leisure but revealed preference shows that they find excess leisure stressful. People go stir crazy after 2-3 months. I can't say I wouldn't eventually find leisure boring, but I was unemployed for 8 months a couple years ago and it was unequivocally the greatest time in my life. The only lasting negative thoughts I had during that time were thoughts related to it ending. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I'm some wonderfully atypical snowflake, I suspect that many creative/intellectual types would love carte blanche to pursue random projects. But this proportion of the general populace is far smaller than the portion who profess to want it.

8A1987dM13y

I guess you somehow still had enough money to fulfil the couple bottom layers of Maslow's hierarchy of needs without much trouble, didn't you?

1Swimmer963 (Miranda Dixon-Luinenburg)13y

Wouldn't most people have enough savings to last 8 months? I'm still in university and I have enough savings to live at my current standard (~$1000/month expenses not including tuition) to live for...hmm, almost 2 years if I'm not in school and paying tuition during that time. Then again, I guess lifestyle expenses rise along with income after most people graduate, and they might rise faster.

7thomblake13y

I was under the impression most people in America are in massive debt and have very little savings.

2Nornagest13y

I've heard the same, but I'm kind of skeptical -- I haven't actually researched it, but the factoid usually seems to come up when someone's trying to push a narrative, which tends to be a warning sign. In particular, if mortgages and automotive debt are being counted, then most adults before retirement age might look pretty indebted on paper without that necessarily destroying their medium-term ability to stay solvent. On the other hand, standard financial advice seems to be to maintain six to twelve months' worth of savings, which suggests to me that most people don't.

1Swimmer963 (Miranda Dixon-Luinenburg)13y

WHYYYYY??????

2thomblake13y

Personally, because of student loans, mortgage (which doesn't really count), and trying to keep up an extravagant standard of living during lean years, justified in part by expectation of making insane amounts of money in the future. At this point, I have no savings because I'm in debt. I don't have any expectation that I won't be able to come up with however much money I might have saved in the case of an emergency, so the best use of my excess now is to pay off the debt, since interest rates are not in the favor of savings.

2Alicorn13y

Because credit card companies are financially disincentivized to send cards with instructions reading "How To Use Your Credit Card: Borrow our money for free by purchasing things you can afford and paying down your full balance on time, every time, leaving us to profit solely from merchant fees." Among other causes.

3TimS13y

We get to empirically test this assertion, because the new credit card regulations of the last few years have much more detail about the benefits of paying in full, on time.

0Alicorn13y

If they're long, complicated, and/or in fine print, I don't think that's a test of my assertion.

5TimS13y

The first page of the credit card bill now says how much it will cost in interest if you pay only the minimum, or only pay the minimum amount necessary to eventually pay off the debt (along with when that pay off would occur). It's fairly transparent. Which isn't to say that it overcomes (or attempts to overcome) cognitive biases people have about the relative size of different numbers. But it isn't hiding the ball.

-1Alicorn13y

Fair enough; I haven't seen one personally (I have a credit card but don't use it much and I think it would send the bills to an old address still if I did) but I'll call it at least a partial test of the assertion on your say-so.

0[anonymous]13y

I don't know if this was meant to be serious or funny, but I upvoted because it made my laugh. :D

7A1987dM13y

I'd like to remind everyone here that “most people” make less than $851 a year.

3Swimmer963 (Miranda Dixon-Luinenburg)13y

Excellent point. Funny how brains tend to automatically edit that out, and claim "well, isn't it obvious I was talking about North America/Europe."

3A1987dM13y

(I'm not completely sure most people -- or even most unemployed adults -- in North America/Europe have enough savings to last 8 months, either.)

1RomeoStevens13y

A maslow interpretation of my behavior would indicate that I respond extremely poorly to a lack of fulfillment of the second level (much more so than the average person). ANY reminder or actions I need to take in order to maintain my current standard of living angers and depresses me. Having 8 months worth of living expenses in the bank gave me a temporary fulfillment of level 2 which was the main cause of my happiness.

7Hul-Gil13y

I have experienced the same thing. I have apparently endless capacity for leisure, possibly because I have an endless number of interests and hobbies to pursue then drop then pick back up. I've never understood people who don't want this kind of life; do they really exist? Can people get bored with leisure?

6The Dao of Bayes13y

I'd suspect most people feel both stress from unemployment, and guilt when they are dependent on someone else (or possibly fear of losing this support). I can't really imagine a lot of situations where a person has months to themselves without triggering one of those two, so I'd expect most people aren't very good at evaluating the situation to begin with...

6[anonymous]13y

Mmm. Possibly, but remember that "unemployment" has a fairly arbitrary definition in most cases -- it measures the number of "potential workers" (as in members of the "labour force", which is tough to pin down exactly) who've looked for work within a given time period (usually about four weeks) but haven't been able to find it. It doesn't capture: homemakers, full-time students, incarcerated people, disabled folks who want to work within their abilities but can't find a job, people who've become discouraged from looking for work, people who prefer not to, the self-employed, involuntary retirees, the underemployed, stay-at-home parents, children, elderly folks, most disabled people, and independent farmers. It's possible to be neither "employed" nor "unemployed" by this measure. My point is, the stress probably isn't from lack-of-employment itself; that's probably a proximate cause, a triggering event that's playing on something else, like simple desperation. That's a matter of culture, I daresay. The Protestant Work Ethic and the self-supporting individual memes are not generalizable to humanity the world over. Which isn't to say it isn't a common reaction. Just that, as my ultimate point here goes, you should probably not conflate "an inability to meet one's own survival and psychological security needs that's recognizable within one's mental framework" with "leisure." I have lots of free time, in the sense that I'm unemployed and not carrying many obligations day-to-day, but it's hardly all leisure time, and there are things that need to be done in terms of practical upkeep even if that doesn't look like trading labor for biosurvival tickets.

2The Dao of Bayes13y

That sort of reinforces my point - simply "not having a job" doesn't equate to an actual increase in leisure ("Humans pine for excess leisure but revealed preference shows that they find excess leisure stressful" and "I can't say I wouldn't eventually find leisure boring, but I was unemployed for 8 months a couple years ago and it was unequivocally the greatest time in my life. ") Basically, I'm questioning whether the people studied actually had excess leisure, or just happened to meet certain standards like "not employed full-time in a standard corporation."

-1[anonymous]13y

nod Downthread someone else mentioned some relevant ideas like "the petty rich" and other folks whose basic needs are met, but who aren't necessarily world-shakingly wealthy in their spending habits.

4Nornagest13y

Retirement, among people with retirement savings and no major health issues yet? I'm sure that's been studied. There's also a number of professions where hiatuses of a couple months at a time are normal -- teaching comes to mind, as do the more lucrative forms of seasonal employment.

0NancyLebovitz13y

There are also people with inherited money. There's a category I call the petty rich. They have enough money that they don't need to work, so long as they maintain a middle class or lower lifestyle. I'm not sure how many there are, but I've met a few. I've never seen them discussed or studied-- they aren't exactly conspicuous.

3A1987dM13y

I guess some people can and other people can't, where by some I mean ‘a fraction most likely to be more than 5% and less than 95%’. (As for me, if I have nothing to do for a while I tend to just waste most of my time sleeping or aimlessly browsing the Web and similar addictive-but-not-so-fulfilling stuff, whereas if I'm very busy I spend what little spare time I have on actually fulfilling hobbies and socialising. So I do get bored with leisure, but that's just a result of akrasia and I guess if the next time I get a few spare months I beeminded (say) reading books/watching films/listening to albums/doing things I've always wanted to read/watch/listen/do but never got around to reading/watching/listening/doing, I wouldn't.) ETA: This guy did get bored with leisure, apparently.

1thomblake13y

Yeah, I find that very confusing too. But then, if pursuing random projects is in "leisure", then I don't really see the distinction between that and "not leisure". Maybe some people just sit around and watch paint dry, given the chance?

1Hul-Gil13y

I was thinking of that; maybe some people equate leisure time with being directionless, and thus need externally-imposed goals?

0TheOtherDave13y

Yes.

5Apprentice13y

Define A as "the stuff I would spend my time doing if I got tenure". Define B as "the stuff I would spend my time doing if I became unemployed." I've been wondering how close A and B are to being identical.

9Viliam_Bur13y

If you are unemployed, you are running out of money, and you know the time is running out (unless you manage to make something that brings a lot of money soon). This anxiety can make a huge difference in how you will spent the time. Even if you made the same plans, I would expect more procrastination in situation B.

[-]NancyLebovitz13y70 Response to previous version

I think it would be excellent if people who try out any of these suggestions post the results.

1wedrifid13y

Even if for no other reason than such examples being powerful motivating influences!

2NancyLebovitz13y

I need to update towards optimism-- I was thinking about the possibility that the studies were wrong. Admittedly, a lot of them may be-- I don't trust studies about people where there's a lot of extrapolation from a simulated situation-- but the idea that there might be good news didn't even cross my mind.

[-]falenas10813y70 Response to previous version

Excellent article! The only problem I had was that almost every article cited in the spending on others section was written by one group, it would be nice to see other supporters, if they exist.

[-][anonymous]13y60 Response to previous version

This makes Robin Hanson's depiction of future brain emulation societies pretty bleak if the basic happiness structure of human minds isn't changed drastically. In his prediction, emulations (ems) will mostly live at near subsistence level and will have to work almost solely on heteronomous goals given by a manager that can probably compel you to provide extreme degrees of cognitive transparency.

Even in modern Western society, there's a big problem with heteronomous goals. I think this is one area where self-hacking is extremely important. I'm planning to w... (read more)

[-]MaoShan13y60 Response to previous version

This is Tao Te Ching for the 21st century, and I mean that in a good way. I appreciate the time you took to research and aggregate the information.

[-]b1shop13y60 Response to previous version

Gut reaction: Working out has an externality. Muscle tone applies a cost on others who must devote more of their time (which can be measured in dollars, by the way) toward the positional signalling game of fitness. Does this mean we should avoid conspicuous health?

Second reaction: I don't like this advice. Maybe I value other goals higher than happiness.

8gwern13y

Does muscle tone not contribute to genuine health and longevity? That's a positive externality being generated right there.

3b1shop13y

Doesn't buying a nice house contribute to genuine peace and stability while forcing a potential spendthrift to start saving? That's an internalized benefit. Just because something has benefits doesn't mean it has externalized costs.

2gwern13y

Or does it contribute to speculative bubbles, and increase unemployment by forcing 'stability' (inflexibility & stasis)?

1b1shop13y

For the record, I agree that home ownership isn't worth it for most prices. Bad example on my part. I stand by my original point. Just because working out has benefits doesn't mean it's not without negative externalities.

4gwern13y

Sure, but this is something that could be said of everything - everything has consequences which one has not foreseen. That's the first law of ecology. Unless you have specific reason to bring that up, or good evidence that the obvious benefits are outweighed by subtler negative externalities that others have noticed, or something, why are we discussing it?

[-]b1shop13y100 Response to previous version

Because the linked-to study simply says "conspicuous consumption has negative externalities" and the conclusion given is "Avoid Conspicuous Consumption." I call foul.

[-]Klevador13y100 Response to previous version

‘positional goods’ which, by definition, cannot be augmented, because they rely solely on not being available to others.

... the production of positional goods in the form of luxuries, such as exceedingly expensive watches or yachts, is a waste of productive resources, as overall happiness is thereby decreased rather than increased.

^ This is specific to wealth and cannot (necessarily) be said of other forms of status, such as fitness.

2Good_Burning_Plastic10y

That's a pecuniary externality. People of your same gender will find it harder to compete, but people of your preferred gender will have more attractive potential mates available.

1Klevador13y

The term "conspicuous consumption" is commonly applied to displays of (financial) wealth; the recommendation to avoid conspicuous consumption does not imply that you should avoid all forms of conspicuous superiority. I'm not sure that fitness-as-status is so closely analogous to wealth-as-status.

3hvass13y

For heterosexual men, one reason to exhibit conspicuous consumption is the dating game. :-) And for everyone else, I think the Halo Effect is quite a good reason as well especially for clothes. But focus on experiences of course, just don't go into a complete extreme.

3b1shop13y

It's the same reasoning as the "avoid conspicuous consumption" lemma, and it could also be applied to education-as-status, lawncare-as-status, fashion-as-status, art-as-status or karma-as-status. Maybe the lesson could be rewritten as "Conspicuous Consumption has Costs on Others"? That seems like an unbiased reading of that study. But I'm not even sure if I agree with that. If conspicuous consumption encourages others to become productive members of society out of envy, then it has its societal benefits.

-1Klevador13y

You seem to be saying that the rules of the game of wealth-as-status are the same as those for fitness-as-status, to take one of your examples. But this is not at all clear to me. Wealth can be stolen and given away. Wealth can be amassed. Fitness is accessible to most people in a way that wealth is not. I'd say that it is an overgeneralization of the findings.

1Jayson_Virissimo13y

In what way is fitness accessible to most people but wealth is not?

0A1987dM13y

Make that "to most people in the developed world", then. If I want more fitness, I just have to exercise more and eat better, which the majority of people in the developed world could afford with little trouble if they wanted to. (Programs like the 5BX take less than half an hour a day -- personally I use Goodbye Couch.) If I want more wealth (and here we're talking about an amount of wealth that can buy "exceedingly expensive watches or yachts", not just a couple hundred more dollars per months) there's very little I can do to reliably achieve that.

1NancyLebovitz13y

The interesting question might be whether the usual way of signalling health (muscle bulk and low fat-- more bulk for men than women) is as closely connected to actual health (longevity, energy, enjoyment of life, disease resistance, fun, probably more....) as the culture assumes. What's a optimal pursuit of looking healthy?

1wedrifid13y

As far as I am aware the 'low fat' signal is a cultural idiosyncrasy. All else being equal it's a signal of somewhat less disease resistance.

0A1987dM13y

Why are people assuming that the relationship between fat and health must be monotonic?

1wedrifid13y

They aren't. That would be crazy.

3A1987dM13y

So, from the fact that underweight people are less healthy than neither-underweight-nor-overweight people it doesn't follow that overweight people are also healthier than neither-underweight-nor-overweight people, and hence that there's no good reason (other than signalling) for people to not want to be overweight, does it? (Or am I misunderstanding what the whole issue is about?)

-2A1987dM13y

Let's work this out TDT-style: if the right answer to the question "should you exercise" is "no (because that would make others jealous unless they exercise too, because then they wouldn't look as good as you)" you get a world with people who don't exercise. If it is "yes (because then you'd look better)" you get a world with people who do exercise. I'd pretty much prefer the latter world. IOW, I'm not sure that this game is purely positional (i.e. zero-sum).

9wedrifid13y

I hate seeing TDT agents described as thinking like that. Because they just don't.

[-]drethelin13y50 Response to previous version

cannot upvote this enough

1MichaelVassar13y

Why is a request to upvote being upvoted?

[-]thomblake13y140 Response to previous version

It's not a request to upvote - it's a statement of approval. And as per Why our kind can't cooperate, vacuous statements of approval or agreement are upvote-worthy, if only because of their rarity.

6John_Maxwell13y

An even better idea would be to send the author a private message in appreciation; that wouldn't decrease the signal-to-noise ratio but would have the same positive reinforcement effect.

3drethelin13y

If you think this is bad you should see my comment on the hpmor thread that got upvoted 12 points for just agreeing with the parent

2A1987dM13y

Yeah, http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/topcomments/ is always full of comments in HPMOR discussions. (As of now, only one of this week's top ten comments is not in a HPMOR thread.) It bothers the hell out of me.

4DanPeverley13y

Everyone goes into those threads primed to be friendly to the other people, because they are all members of the same fan-fiction reading in-group. There is also a shift from "on a rationality site" mode to "talking about media" mode, where rigor in voting rationale tends to become somewhat more lax. I don't mind, but I'm part of the in-group so that's to be expected.

3Dias13y

On the plus side, if that thread has a lot of new people drawn by HPMOR, so we may not want to subject them to such stringent standards. On the other hand, I think we upvote (orrather, don't downvote enough) in the rest of LW too much anyway.

-2A1987dM13y

Because someone wants to see more comments like that?

[-]MarkusRamikin13y40 Response to previous version

That's well done.

Can you make one about taking over the world?

0Paulovsk13y

yeah, I'd love a step-by-step guide.

[-]lukeprog13y30 Response to previous version

Well done!

Learn about the science of happiness. Internalize the lessons in this article and in here.

The link at the end of this sentence is broken.

3Klevador13y

Fixed!

[-]habryka6y20

Mode note: Fixed the old semi-broken HTML formatting for this post. Old formatting is still available as a revision.

[-]Micaiah_Chang13y20 Response to previous version

Hm, I don't see anything in there at this moment; and I'm not confident enough to say that I know everything in the article but...

Is there any research on how entertainment *types affects happiness levels? I don't mean genres necessarily, but let's say, low cognitive load works like Bond movies, summer action flicks and slapstick comedies versus 'artsy' high cognitive load works like Schindler's list, Shakespeare plays and hard scifi.

So what I have is two apparently conflicting pieces of information. I know that people like to put off the latter for the fo... (read more)

[-]pnrjulius13y20 Response to previous version

This needs to be broken up into smaller, more digestible sub-articles. It's too much to take in all at once.

7Klevador13y

I don't know... you don't have to take it in all at once. You can read just one section at a time, after all. Each section has a link to it in the summary. What is the added advantage in splitting it up?

2Randaly13y

I think the length works as is. (I did spread my reading out over 2 days, though.)

0John_Maxwell13y

Let's think in consequentialist terms here. You obviously put forth a lot of useful effort, thanks for that! But realistically, it seems plausible that the material is not being presented in a way that is maximally accessible, and your post could potentially be even more awesome than it already is! I'm not suggesting you change anything at this point, just pointing stuff out.

0Klevador13y

^ But, that can be said of too many things. I don't find it meaningful. e.g. 'It's plausible that Harry Potter has not been written in the best possible way.' Of course it's plausible, but the consideration of its plausibility does not contribute to making better-informed decisions. It contributes no useful information!

3John_Maxwell13y

Right. The real question is how much the post could improve given an hour's effort; in other words, how much improvement could you buy for an hour of labor. And I'm suggesting that you could get a pretty good deal.

[-]torekp13y20 Response to previous version

How do Philippe et al distinguish "obsessive" from "harmonious" passion?

3Klevador13y

Good catch! Here is their definition (will update the main post later). Bolding mine:

[-]Desrtopa13y20 Response to previous version

Spend on others, especially people you are close to.

This one sounds dubious to me if you happen to be rich. I always thought that if I were rich, I would make a public precommitment only to give away money to worthy charities, so as to avoid worry that anyone trying to get close to me was really trying to get close to the money. Maybe it doesn't work out that way?

8TheOtherDave13y

It seems simpler to just include my money in what I identify with. I mean, it doesn't bug me that people trying to get close to me might really be trying to get close to my sense of humor, or my appearance, or my kind demeanor, or various other attributes of mine. Why make an exception for money? But the more traditional solution to this "problem" is to make friends among people with roughly the same level of wealth.

2Desrtopa13y

I wouldn't mind letting people who get close to me partake of my sense of humor, attractiveness, or good nature, because these aren't resources that are diminished by being shared among others. But if people want to get close to me in order to induce me to distribute my expendable resources among them, I'm going to feel resentful, because anything I spend on them is an opportunity cost, and they're faking signals that would qualify them for special consideration in my utility function. If they weren't pretending to enjoy my company for any other reason, and were open about just wanting to be where the money was, I would feel comfortable rebuffing them. (I somehow failed to notice this response until just now.)

0TheOtherDave13y

(nods) Yeah, I resonate emotionally with this, but on consideration I don't really endorse it. Even things like humor and kindness are functions of attention, which is also a limited resource, and attractiveness plays a complex role in social-status economies. If someone were open about just pretending to be my friend in order to get access to those resources, it seems I ought to feel just as comfortable rebuffing them, although I expect that in practice I would mostly be confused, since I do not have as clear an understanding of social resources as I do of money.

3Desrtopa13y

Having friends at all costs attention, but I don't invest extra attentional resources into being funny or kind to people around me. If anything, it takes less energy for me to be friendly and funny around people I'm comfortable with than it does for me to be distant or awkward around people I'm uncomfortable with. If I'm going to invest my attention into spending time with people at all, I'd rather they be positive interactions.

0TheOtherDave13y

Interesting. It definitely does consume extra resources for me. I became most vividly aware of this after my stroke, when attentional resources were very scarce, and I often ran out of them in mid-interaction, and even basic social interaction became incredibly exhausting; my irritation about this very much resembled the feeling of having all my employed friends insisting on going out to dinner when I was unemployed and poor. (I don't care about it so much anymore, in either area, because I'm now running a large surplus of both money and attention.)

[-][anonymous]9y10 Response to previous version

These are some key takeaways (stolen without permission from elsewhere...)

Appreciate

Be grateful and count your blessings (literally). Recycle happiness by reminiscing about good experiences.
Think of counterfactuals. (“If I didn’t have this positive thing, what do I lose?”)
Breathe deeply. Expand your time — by slowing down.
Actively want to be happier. Motivation and investment matter.
Stay in the present.
Be passionate, but don’t obsess.

Care

Socialize with close others.
Associate with happy people.
Give the people around you opportunities to be gen

... (read more)

0Jiro9y

This is good advice when targeted at some people but the people most likely to hear it are probably the people who would be worst off listening to it.

0[anonymous]9y

Oh my bananas, that SSC article is astounding. What excellent ideas (still eternally frustrated that he, like EY take an eternity to get to their point, whereas you accurately summarised it in 1.5 lines like I prefer...)

[-]Logos0113y10 Response to previous version

Alright... after reading through much of this, a certain line struck me over and over again.

Actively want to be happier. Motivation and investment matter.

I have only one question.

Why?

(To clarify: I mean: Why be happy? Why want to be happy? How is it useful? What 'good' is happiness?)

7Richard_Kennaway13y

I agree with Will Newsome's comment, especially the second paragraph. Looking for "happiness" as something distinct from and on top of living the life you truly want is like going to London and looking for "London". A signpost pointing to "London" is only useful when you are far from it.

5Raemon13y

It's some people's terminal value. It's okay if it's not yours. Is there a more complicated reason why you feel "fulfilling your potential to impact the world" is important?

2Logos0113y

Not fulfilling the potential itself, but rather the capacity to do so, (which can only properly be measured by the actualization / acting-upon-of said capacity). As to why -- well, fundamentally it's the notion that maximized instrumentality is the maximally optimal instrumental state. From there the question becomes; "is maximized instrumentality useful?" That is a "self-proving" terminal value. One need only ask the question to see that it implies its answer. "Is being useful useful?" Well... yes. Whatever it is you want to do or achieve is transparent / irrelevant to this. Being useful is useful. The "use" of being useful is that it's useful. These are essentially tautological statements. So when I ask, "what's the use of being happy" -- saying "It makes you happy" is true (tautologically) but not an expression of utility, whereas having utility is useful because it's useful is also tautologically true but is an expression of utility.

0tog13y

Surely a self-proving value is one where the question "Is X valuable?" is self-proving?

0Logos0113y

Indeed. Which is why happiness is not a terminal value.

2Zaine13y

I've read your other responses, and while I don't think my experience will assist you in an attempt to feel the emotion, it may assist in your ability to understand the emotion's desirability. I find myself more productive when I'm happy; my mind has less cluttered thoughts, due to less anxiety and cognitive duress (I can only best describe this as a state when my subconscious works overtime on thoughts I'm only barely conscious of, and each time I try to deeply contemplate a new thought, somewhere along the halfway point it's unwillingly relegated to my subconscious as something I'm anxious over pops to the top of my mind). I also notice a correlation between times I am unhappy, and a lowering in my self-confidence. Normally my confidence hovers right below what I would consider 'a level of confidence conducive to hubris', and when happy, it can tend to spill over into this danger zone. When unhappy, my confidence becomes akin to the normative level of confidence I've observed most people whom I've encountered to likely possess. This diminishing of confidence too lessens my productivity, and to reestablish my normative confidence level, I must then end my unhappiness. Thus, for me, over-abundant happiness can be dangerous, but wading just above the happiness threshold gives me clarity of mind and purposeful focus. Hope this helped elucidate happiness's utility for you. Cheers!

0Logos0113y

One fo the many things I dislike about the English language is that it does not readily acknowledge that "happy" is no excluded middle.

0Zaine13y

I consider my normative state to be just under or around the 'happy' threshold, which I'd consider as between happiness and unhappiness. Happiness essentially equates to a certain chemical balance in the brain, and the same holds true for unhappiness. When the brain releases neurotransmitters equitably, I'd postulate the brain's chemical balance to reflect neutral emotions. As an aside, I've heard genuinely, innocently laughing releases endorphins just as effectively as exercise; what do you emotively experience when these endorphins release? If you want to hack happiness, exercise or some media you find consistently hilarious might work through pure chemistry. (Note: I may be mistaken in the neuroscience, though doubt it; I'm working on a piece of paper that declares proficiency in the field.)

0adamisom13y

Might I recommend following Zaine's description with this paragraph from Luke's How To Be Happy: IgnoreWe all want to be happy, as apparently you don't, but continue with and happiness is useful for other things, too.2 For example, happiness improves physical health,3 improves creativity,4 and even enables you to make better decisions.5 (It's harder to be rational when you're unhappy.6) EDIT: note that the formatting is off in copy and paste. Comments do not support subscripts. numbers 2-6 refer to notes in the article

2fubarobfusco13y

Might be fun? Sure beats the alternative? It's compatible with all the good drugs and keeps you off all the bad ones?

1Logos0113y

Okay. So what? Does it? Why? What is the alternative? How is 'happy' better? I can't help but not that this is post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning. ---------------------------------------- Let's engage in a bit of an exercise. I am a thirty year old man. I have never in my life experienced happiness. I have no prospects of becoming happy. Everyone I have ever seen who was happy seemed, in many fundamental ways, contemptible to me: they were complacent, they were 'satisfied'; they settled and lacked any driving ambition or devotion to achieving the uttermost limits of what they could achieve or become. They did not utilize the maximum of their potential to impact the world, and instead... seem less. Explain to me why I should want to be like that. What is useful about this? Why is it good? I am open to total revision of my worldview. I come to this dialogue with a history that I relate only to reveal my preconceptions; that they might be accounted for. So to hug the hypothesis: "What's so great about being happy?"

6Richard_Kennaway13y

Did these people differ in this respect from people who were not happy? And does the post hoc propter hoc thing apply here also? ETA: If "happiness" is the state of living the life you truly want, then if your wants are small, "happiness" will be easily achieved, but if your wants are large, not so easily. You will therefore observe of people that on average, the greater their ambition, the less their happiness; the greater their happiness, the less their ambition. It would be an error to read the wrong causality into this correlation, and attempt to achieve happiness "by lopping off our desires, ... like cutting off our feet, when we want shoes." (Jonathan Swift) "Happiness" is neither to be aimed at nor avoided. Doing what you truly want is to be aimed at, and not avoided.

0Logos0113y

So then you reject altogether the core premise of the article, which also stated; "Actively want to be happier. Motivation and investment matter." Of course, I can also note that the only way, from my perspective, to guarantee your maximal significance (in terms of material impact upon the world) -- is to always strive for something you don't have; to wish to be more than you are in every possible sense of the word... including the efficacy with which you strive for more. In other words; to 'condemn' yourself to always be incapable of doing what you "truly want" -- because you will never, ever be good enough at getting better.

0Richard_Kennaway13y

What are you doing about it?

0Logos0113y

That question segfaults in my parser.

1Richard_Kennaway13y

I meant, borrowing your words, are you consumed with a driving ambition or devotion to achieving the uttermost limits of what you could achieve or become, utilizing the maximum of your potential to impact the world? Are you always striving for something you don't have; wishing to be more than you are in every possible sense of the word... including the efficacy with which you strive for more? And if so, what are you doing about it?

4Logos0113y

Not as much as I should be. 1) Completely overhauling my professional capacity and career-path. In the last two years I've changed tracks to the point where my income has doubled year-over-year from that point, and am set to another 'doubling'. 2) I am systematically seeking out those areas where I am most deficient and am seeking means to bypass, exploit, or otherwise mitigate or account for those deficiencies. I have had setbacks and failures across the board, but I do not allow them to stop me. I have had a total collapse of my professional, personal, social, and romantic lives/livelihoods on more than one occassion, and in each instance I've "dusted myself off and picked back up again" as it were. I'm currently working on how to rebuild my social life (as it is utterly lacking) but I suspect that once my fiscal situation becomes stabilized at the newly higher point I'll have more attentional reserves available to dedicate to this. Another area I am constantly lacking in since my teen years is my physical excellence and dietary habits. I don't have the cognitive/attentional reserves to address the exercise regimen just yet, but that's coming. The diet I also am working on; exposing myself to new foods and food combinations in order to expand my pallatte (as an autist this is an exceptional challenge for me in ways that are non-obvious.) None of these things are, to be quite frank, particularly pleasant. I typically can't stand people for example; and though I have been told time and again I make an "excellent" host/guest/conversationalist/party-goer... it's physically exhausting to me (this is related to cognitive deficiencies on my part; I am unable to 'filter' out things and must consciously assign attentional levels to all things around me -- try staying perfectly alert in complex settings for, say, an hour or two and you'll get why being around groups of people is exhausting to me.). Despite this I have raised that as a priority on my regimen because being

0Richard_Kennaway13y

Sounds like the right track. To answer your earlier question: Pretty much. I'd rather do what I want than pursue fuzzies. The cake is a lie.

0Zaine13y

Have you read Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder? It's a non-fiction book recording the story of Dr. Paul Farmer, a tremendously benevolent epidemiologist that shares your worldview, does all he can to medically assist the poor (specifically, the Haitian poor), and still cannot meet the standards he sets himself. However, Kidder's depictions of Farmer's personality portray him as a happy man. Perhaps the book will be of some help, if you indeed have not yet read it.

0Logos0113y

I'm quite certain that the vast majority of people who ever encountered me in meatspace would make the mistake of thinking that I am a happy person. I laugh, I smile, I go through all of the motions. I am upbeat and concerned with the wellbeing of others. I am patient to a fault, and nigh unto never show any signs of any kind of being foul-mannered or intemperate. Those who know me when I am ... myself -- know a very different person. They are few.

0Zaine13y

This is still in line with Kidder's depiction of Farmer. In one scene, Farmer has dinner with two close colleagues with whom he's worked a long time. Kidder has been invited by Farmer, but compared to his usual, jovial self, Farmer blows up at one of his colleagues and beleaguers the colleague on how they are not serving the people who need them most (poor people) first. Kidder, shocked at how Farmer so blatantly torments and manipulates his colleague into capitulating to Farmer's wishes, asks the other colleague whether this is normal. She responds, "You think that was bad? What he was doing to Jim was nothing. On a a scale of one to ten, that was about a five." Regardless, the book both educates and entertains; I recommend at least checking it out.

-10adamisom13y

[-]Hul-Gil13y10 Response to previous version

Great post! I'm going to use as much of it as I can.

I think it might be difficult to apply some of these, since I notice a good deal of my unhappiness is not affected by changes in thought or outward motions, and it can be hard to translate knowing you should try something into actually applying it. (But both of these can be mitigated: smiling, for instance, really does make me feel a bit happier even if I'm forcing the smile, and I'm sure there are plenty of articles about akrasia, here on LessWrong.)

Prefer experiential purchases; avoid materialistic g

Overall, it is a good explanation supported by evidence, however I would like to see a followup with perhaps some different ways to implement that kind of thinking.

[-][anonymous]10y00 Response to previous version

Why did OP delete her account?

0entirelyuseless10y

My understanding was that their username was recognizable by people who knew them in real life and they wanted to make sure that did not happen.

0gjm10y

Looking at the comments, it looks to me as if the OP didn't delete their account -- there are multiple comments below, with username still attached, that appear to be by the OP. Is there a mechanism for deleting just the association between an account and a single post, or something?

0entirelyuseless10y

I see many comments with [deleted] but none with the username, maybe you are looking at different comments. Or it could be the result of some error.

0gjm10y

I see all of these comments as having an author (the same author). They all seem to me to be clearly by the OP.

0entirelyuseless10y

Ok. I had assumed the main post was by someone else with a deleted account who appears in the comments. But it looks like you're right.

[-][anonymous]10y00 Response to previous version

It's hard to resolve this with my productivity (for effective altruism) goals.

[-][anonymous]13y00 Response to previous version

The following quote is misattributed to Ahuvia, (2002)

This research also supports the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions by demonstrating that higher levels of happiness may expand an individual’s mindset to include thoughts of others.

The quote comes from Aknin, Dunn, & Norton, (2011a), p. 352.

Also, this post has been absurdly useful to me. Fantastic job! :)

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Stretching Happiness (fighting hedonic adaptation)

Some Key Terms

Money and Happiness

Spend on others, especially people you are close to.

Don't be Stingy.

Think about time, but don’t think of time in terms of money (“An hour of my time is worth…”).

Being richer will not necessarily make you happier.

Pitfall of being wealthy: your ability to savor positive emotions and experiences will be impaired. Don’t make money your priority.

Financial aspirations are bad for family life (and the quality of interpersonal relationships is a strong predictor of happiness).

Don’t live ‘high’.

Avoid conspicuous consumption.

More Recommendations

WORK SATISFACTION

Coping with Stress: React pragmatically rather than emotionally.

Leaders and Entrepreneurs: Don’t take on too many business partners. (See also AUTONOMY below)

Prefer the ‘approach’ path instead of the ‘avoid’ path.

AUTONOMY: Make a point of prefering autonomous goals rather than heteronomous goals (goals imposed/expected by others).

AUTONOMY: Make sure you have spare discretionary time — even at financial cost.

Be passionate, but don’t obsess. “Passion Does Make a Difference to People’s Well-Being” (Philippe, Vallerand, & Lavigne, 2009)

Do work that you enjoy doing. Flow.

Set goals that are reasonably challenging and reasonably achievable.

Prefer intrinsic (vs. extrinsic) goals

MATERIALISM AND PURCHASING

The Hedonic Treadmill: We adapt to life changes. Many things that give pleasure will soon cease to do so, thereby driving us to seek more, and more…

Prefer experiential purchases; avoid materialistic goals. It is better to collect (positive) experiences than to collect things.

Don’t engage in ‘comparison shopping.’ And don’t place much stock in the happiness potential of any one positive change.

'Follow the herd.' (Dunn et al., 2011)

Socialize — with the right people.

Associate with happy people.

Give the people around you opportunities to be generous. Ask them for favors.

Be actively kind (and occasionaly reminisce about your recent acts of kindness).

Choose smaller, more frequent successes rather than larger ones.

Go for variety and surprise. Don’t keep doing the same thing.

Savor the anticipation. Delay consumption. Actively anticipate good experiences.

Divide positive experiences into smaller pleasures, if possible.

Corollary: Conclude negative experiences as soon as possible.

Make a point of avoiding experiences that make you feel bad.

APPRECIATION

Be grateful. Count your blessings (literally). Recycle happiness. Reminisce about good experiences.

Think of counterfactuals. (“If I didn’t have this, what do I lose?”)

Breathe deeply. Expand your time — by slowing down.

Stay in the present.

Actively want to be happier. Motivation and investment matter.

Learn about the science of happiness. Internalize the recommendations in this article and in here.

EXTRA CONSIDERATIONS

It will be easier to stay happy when you become happier

Happiness Interventions Work!

Extra extra: Cultural Differences