On The Paradox of Choice -- Related To Happiness

I've become hopelessly addicted to watching TED videos lately. Two of them have been of particular interest:

The Paradox of Choice -http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html

Why Are We Happy -http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html

The first one about the paradox of choice was of particular interest. It pretty much encapsulates a lot of ideas that I've had recently about happiness. This is where my inner "socialist" comes out. How can I explain this?

We all act in our own self interest. Today we don't have to make all of our own food, make our own clothes, build our own houses, etc. We have decided to divide our labor and specialize into different fields of interest. I am a technology consultant. You might be a doctor or a flight attendant or a customer service rep. We each try to do the job to the best of our ability and we benefit from everyone else who specializes and we exchange the money from our jobs for goods and services from others. This is how our economy works.

Although this format may try to maximize efficiency in our economy, does it really make us all happier? I'm convinced that everything we do is to increase our happiness. Every action we take is an attempt to increase our happiness.

In the labor market, we all act in our own self interest. We pick the jobs and/or careers that we think are best and will maximize our earnings and wages relative to our interest in the job. We we specialize into different fields more or less independent of what others think we should do (obviously we would want to pick jobs that have a decent demand for their goods and/or services).

When we're in each of our respective professions, we are generally trying to maximize our earnings. Our companies are doing the same thing. So when we offer products and/or services to our customers, we're trying to get the most money we can get out of them. We are NOT trying to maximize their happiness. Curiously, the more choices we offer them, the more confused they turn out to be.

Example:

You go to the grocery store looking for some salad dressing (as the video stated). You get arrive to the arrive, and OH CRAP, there are a ton of dressings here. Which one should I get? I wonder which ones tastes the best? If I choose this one, will it be good? Will I regret buying this salad dressing if it's not good?

I'm convinced we each ask ourselves variations of the same questions for each purchase we make. There's not just one option. There's tons of options! How to pick?

This is the source of our unhappiness. Not necessarily being unhappy, but just less happy relative to the situation if we didn't have so many options. Excessive options confuse people and lead them to question their decisions. This is not to say that SOME choice is good, but I'm just saying that if we had fewer choices, then we would be MORE happy.

Again, I'm trying to say that since we are all acting in our own self-interest within the professions that we work in, we're trying to maximize our earnings and not thehappiness of customers. This leads to an aggregate decrease in happiness due to all the options people have.

In the video, Barry Schwartz says that is there were more "income redistribution", then we would take some of the excess choices from the rich people and give them to the poor people, who would actually benefit from more choice. I think this idea is problematic, but very interesting. It's problematic in its implementation, because who wants Uncle Sam coming for more of their money? But if Uncle Sam did, maybe they (richer people) would actually be happier...

This ties into the second video question why we are happy. It very nicely reinforces my point that people who have more options question themselves more and have more an internal struggle in their daily lives.

Example from the video. You have a class of photography students who get to choose 2 pictures from their collection of 10 to be blown up and framed. For half of them, you tell them that they should choose one of the two pictures and they will have 3 days to change their mind about the choice. For the other half, they must make one final decision on the picture that they will choose. Who do you think is happier, the people with our without the choice? Turns out the people who are stuck with their initial choice are happier. Whoa. Doesn't work out like you think.

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I hope these videos spark some thoughts in your mind. They sure did for me. I think that if we all step back and accept that people in our industrialized nation are somewhat paralyzed by all the choices that we have and think about all the good we could do by giving those in other countries more choices, we would ALL be better off. It's amazing. Life wants to be simple.

On The End of Capitalism

After 6 months of reading it on and off, I finally finished the book Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life. I've always wanted to learn more about him, and at 750 pages, I definitely learned more about him and Cuban revolution than I ever did before.

One thought that stays with me is the idea that eventually capitalism might end. Maybe our brand of capitalism is not sustainable. Maybe it needs to be changed. Now before you sit there and call me a brain-washed, socialist bastard, just hold on a second. I think we're all trained from day one here in the United States to say that capitalism is the best thing since sliced bread and everything else will fail. That really neglects the situation for all the people in the developing nations around the world. Because especially today, we are wealthy at their expense. So while we sit here and watch our football, go to our malls, and spend money we don't have, there are millions are people who really don't have anything.

This brings me back to 2 summers ago when I went to Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. One day at breakfast there was a Christian group (about 20 deep) that were having breakfast at a table near me. They had come to this country to visit and were saying their various prayers. I just couldn't help but ask myself, do they ever wonder how they ended up in the United States and most people live in poverty and have a daily struggle. How do you reconcile that with the idea of a "loving God"? I just can't erase that memory from my mind.

There's this huge gap that we have created between the developed and developing nations of the world. The question I keep asking myself is: will our technological prowess eventually end scarcity of most essential items?

I'm not saying this is going to happen tomorrow or 1 year from or even 10 years now. I'm saying in the distant future, will everyone be able to have essentially what they need? We will be so efficient and advanced in everything to the point where we are abundant with the necessities for living life. To me, at that point capitalism doesn't really make sense. In capitalism, you need a steady stream of new products. People need to buy things over and over to keep the economy going. For example, look at our "recession". The savings rate went from .5% to 4.5% and we've had a complete shit show in the economy. HELLO. People are actually saving money and not spending it on crap. But, that's the thing. For capitalism to work, you need people spending money. When we don't, the whole thing goes completely to hell. When you got those stimulus checks from G-Dub, he didn't want you putting them into the bank. He wanted you to spend it and keep yourself in this cycle of debt that is all-too common in our country. He doesn't want you to save money in a recession, especially with 70% of our economy being consumer spending-- see Paradox of Thrift.

My question is, will we ever be so efficient and advanced that we don't need to buy any more crap? Will we have everything that we need? But if that were to happen, not many people would have jobs. Capitalism just wouldn't work.

Thoughts?

Video -- Richard Dawkins on Fox News

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA66lP2GkiE&NR=1

On Morality

I'm not sure if this is an entirely new idea...I'm sure someone else has already thought about it.

It's new for me though.

I've been thinking a lot about morality lately. How do you know if you're doing the "right" or the "wrong" thing? How can you potentially come up with a set of rules that everyone should live by in order to be "moral" people?

I've decided morality only exists in our minds.

Imagine the state of nature. There is no government. People are their own independent nations. I contend that in this scenario, there is no right and wrong. Might means right. Whoever is stronger is going to end on top. I'm not saying that people in the State of Nature should be going around killing everyone and such things, I'm saying that if they felt like doing it (because of a dispute over resources or whatever), then it is totally permissible to do so. Who is to tell them that what they are doing is wrong?

Now obviously we don't live in the State of Nature. We have a government. We forfeit some of our individual freedoms to come together and form a society. Humans and prehuman species formed societies and groups a long time ago. They decided they were better off as a group than by themselves. Over time, we have become used to the concept of forming such groups. We have become used to understanding that certain actions go against the formation of our society. If we steal, then we are not playing our part in society.

Ok, here it is----morality really is the instinctive voice in our head that tells us what is right and wrong. I contend that we all know what right and wrong is. It's just that a number of us ignore the voice in our head and do what is more pleasurable. That voice in our head is evolution talking. We have been wired to know that certain actions go against our society. Stealing, killing, lying, etc.

We can obviously know that stealing, killing, lying and bad things to do. We shouldn't do them because, again, they are going against informal contract that we signed in order to be a part of the society. So for the more shaky and complicated areas, how can we know what is right and wrong?

Here is my rule. For something to be wrong, if greater than 50% of society were to act in a similar way to the one in question, ask yourself would society be able to exist?

For example, if greater than 50% of people lied all the time, then society couldn't exist. We wouldn't be able to trust one another. That is whole basis of society. If greater than 50% of us were killers, then obviously at least half of us would be dead, so that wouldn't be a good thing.

So what do you think? Is this the only rule of morality that we need?

On Marriage For Life

The institution of marriage seems to be increasingly inadequate and dated.

In the US today, the base rate for getting divorced is 50%. That means that 1 out of every 2 marriages will end in divorce. That's a lot of divorces I guess. I was listening to a story on NPR about the reason for the prevalence of divorce in the United States. It said that the US uniquely values two traits -- individuality and the bond of marriage. Many countries value one or the other, but the US values both. So it's kind of a schizophrenia with two core values that are in conflict with each other.

And then you hear the religious conservatives blast off about how our morals are getting worse and we're not upholding Christian values and blah blah blah.

When Christianity and most of the religions today were first formulated, people didn't really have that many options for potential mates. There was no Match.com or Craigslist or the club down the street or anything. There were few options around them, and they took advantage of those options that were available. But today, you can potentially communicate with a much wider group of people. You can find people around the world, and have a relationship with them. So our options have increased. So we're still a pretty individualistic society and species and now we have more options for mates. What else did you think was going to happen?

It has nothing to do with "the decline of our morality." It has to do with options. We have more of them. And if your wife or husband isn't treating you right, then you're going to find a better option. That's what you SHOULD do. So this whole expectation that you're going to magically love someone forever once you get married and you should only be with them, is just complete nonsense. It doesn't consider actual reality. Most people just don't have any self control. Look at our credit card debt. It's ridiculous. People buy shit they can't afford all the time.

This whole concept of marrying someone for life I think is reserved for a small group of people. People who actually have self control and those that have adequately tested their relationship and compatibility beforehand. You can't just know someone for 6 months, get married, and then expect it to work forever.

EVEN THEN, you're missing the other factor of PEOPLE CHANGING. You are not a static machine. Every single day...every single minute...things are happening that are changing you. Over time those changes add up. People change and have newer interests or different personalities. So your relationship has to be flexible enough to accommodate those potential changes.

In the law we now have this concept of marriage that creates these sticky situations when people inevitably breakup. Who owns what? Who gets the kids? What we need is a more flexible legal relationship between people that actually mirrors reality. Because people breakup. And that's not changing any time soon.

On The Value of Philosophy

I think the study of philosophy is infinitely valuable for the people of our society.

"Well, but in philosophy you don't really learn anything. It's not that applicable to life. Why is the practice of contemplating my existence really important?"

Here's the thing...previously before the advent of the Internet, people who knew a lot of facts were thought to be "smart". If you could recite the encyclopedia or the dictionary or pass off random facts, then you were "intelligent". Today it's different. What the hell does it matter if I know the capital of everyone country in the world? I can look it up in 2 seconds on Google. Today we have tons and tons of information at our fingertips. To me, in the evolution of our society, "intelligence" is going to change to be the ability to synthesize that information and use it effectively for one's use. Therefore, given a set of facts or information you need to use your logic (what a concept) to formulate a conclusion.

Philosophy is the basis of having a solid logical base in one's mind. If you cannot understand philosophy, then you cannot be logical. Everything in philosophy flows from a set of premises and arguments to a final conclusion. So if you cannot rapidly analyze an argument or a set of data to make an inference about it, you fail. Nobody cares anymore if you know tons of shit that you can look up on Google. It just doesn't matter.

So today in our high schools there is no philosophy. We're too busy teaching kids about math, reading, history, etc. Now some of those are important. You need a solid math base. A solid reading base. A solid writing base. But besides those basics, NOBODY REMEMBERS ANYTHING AFTER AWHILE. You just remember the general tidbits. I took a class on Texas history in 7th grade. I can't tell you jack shit from that class. Davy Crockett went to Texas somewhere in there. Other than that, I don't remember anything. And I actually paid attention in class. I can't imagine the people that don't.

So my proposal is that everyone needs to learn some philosophy. Because learning about philosophy is just learning about how to analyze an argument and be logical. That's it. That's a lot more useful than all these random ass facts that teachers make you memorize and somehow that's "learning." That is NOT learning. Multiple choice tests have fostered this culture of just cramming and then circling letters on a test to indicate learning. You need oral essays and presentations and writing compositions. Instead of shoving facts down kids throats and telling them to regurgitate them back, you need to ask them, "what do YOU think about it?" That's real learning. And we don't do enough of it.

On Homosexuality And It's Naturalness

Time and time again I hear the same argument from people about homosexuals.

"It just doesn't seem right. It's not 'natural'. How would we have gotten here if everyone was gay?"

This argument is really bad.

For example...condom use is a relatively recent phenomenon (apparently they were first invented 400 years ago). Everyone uses condoms and other forms of contraception because they don't want a billion kids running around. But condoms aren't "natural" either. They are preventing a male's sperm from entering a woman to continue our species. If everyone used condoms or other contraceptives (correctly) then we would have no more kids.

You end up at the same question, "How would we have gotten here if everyone used contraceptives?"

The point is, just because something is not "natural" means nothing to whether it is a morally permissible or "correct" action. Obviously there are other arguments against homosexuality (all of which are equally bad), but the next time someone tells you homosexuality is not natural, just slap for me please.