US to request that UK release emergency oil reserves

[Mr. Fox]

thing that you notice most is that all the kids are so happy, dirt poor but always laughing and singing...

It's the difference between a high 'quality of life' and a high 'standard of living'.

SoL is readily quantifiable by people in air-conditioned offices (e.g. 'income') and can be and can be grasped easily by morons, whereas QoL is a much more ethereal metric.

With a high SoL but a low QoL, people tend to be miserable.

However, a high QoL and low SoL will tend to keep people happy.

One thing that does tend to make people unhappy and lower their QoL is inequality within a society. Even if you are the one who is benefiting from the inequality, you can't escape it's negative effects on your QoL completely.

[Little John]

thing that you notice most is that all the kids are so happy, dirt poor but always laughing and singing...

It's the difference between a high 'quality of life' and a high 'standard of living'.

SoL is readily quantifiable by people in air-conditioned offices (e.g. 'income') and can be and can be grasped easily by morons, whereas QoL is a much more ethereal metric.

With a high SoL but a low QoL, people tend to be miserable.

However, a high QoL and low SoL will tend to keep people happy.

One thing that does tend to make people unhappy and lower their QoL is inequality within a society. Even if you are the one who is benefiting from the inequality, you can't escape it's negative effects on your QoL completely.

The last time the vast majority of humanity had both a high QoL and a low SoL was before the invention of farming when the psychpaths took over. They've basically been in charge ever since. Consequently, the capacity for any human to simultaneously possess both a low SoL and a high QoL has become vanishingly small.

With 7 billion and rising on a finite planet and with the psychpaths now controlling more or less all of the primary means of production across the entire globe, there really is no escape from the Matrix for the vast majority of humanity.

[biffvernon]

Face facts, the rich have a better life than the poor. Those smiling kids could die early through lack of treatment for common disease or spend their life hungry.

Exactly so - which is why my friend was helping to build them a school room.

[clv101]

Face facts, the rich have a better life than the poor.

Of course, if there weren't advantages to being rich, no one would bother!

[biffvernon]

My point was that, despite the obvious advantages, there are some curious aspects, such as the lack of correlation between wealth and happiness. Once above a certain level of physical poverty, it seems that security and the conviviality provided by the social structure and personal relationships appear to dominate marginal increases in affluence.

That provides some glimmer of hope for our energy descent slide.

[clv101]

There's a big difference in actual advantage and perception of advantage - perception is everything!

[frank_begbie]

There's a big difference in actual advantage and perception of advantage - perception is everything!

Thats what you think!

[Ludwig]

Face facts, the rich have a better life than the poor. Those smiling kids could die early through lack of treatment for common disease or spend their life hungry.

Maybe they are so happy because they have no concept of how good their lives could be if only they had wealth.

What do you mean by "good"?

To you, these people are happy because they think they are wealthy. It doesn't occur to you that there might be a kind of happiness that doesn't depend on weatlth.

Is ignorance necessarily more blissful than enlightenment?

What a joke. The thing you call "enlightenment" is just "having a load of expensive shit you don't need because it gives you a sense of status".

I've spent most of my adult life with an above-average income and all my material needs catered for, and I've been miserable for most of it, largely because I've been living in a society devoid of real human values.

Maybe the cleverest ones had left already just leaving the laughing fools behind.

There's no greater wisdom than knowing how to be happy, however you arrive at it.

[emordnilap]

I'm enjoying myself immensely.

We just turned and combined two large compost heaps. Great fun.

The stars last night were awesome.

Taking a dog for a walk in the rain makes you feel good to be alive.

A meal consisting of your own-grown food (sometimes upward of 75%) is satisfying in more ways than pure nutrition.

Seeing the trees bud would cheer anyone up.

Playing music with friends over St Patrick's weekend was a highlight.

Happiness doesn't buy you money, though.

[JavaScriptDonkey]

There's no greater wisdom than knowing how to be happy, however you arrive at it.

I sometimes wonder if we speak the same language......

My simple point was that happiness and wealth are not linearly correlated. It is possible to be dirt poor and happy or rich and happy.
I contest that it is easier to be happy if you don't know that you are poor; or you don't realise that other people's children don't routinely die at 7; or you haven't been introduced to the delights of urban hygiene and clean water.

The 'enlightenment' is just the realisation that other people have access to so much more than you ever dreamed existed. Does that knowledge fulfil you as you rejoice in their happiness or does it hang like a thorn, constantly reminding you of your own inadequacies? How you approach that issue will be a large determinant in your own happiness.

Would they have been happier in their ignorance or will they be happier if they learn about the world and its riches? It's a question to which there is no answer that is universally applicable.

I've been content with my life for over a decade and have reaped the benefit in happiness despite being at the bottom of the income heap.

I do happiness and I do it rather well.

[kenneal - lagger]

Some of the people who are poor by western standards can see that being poor monetarily doesn't mean they are poor absolutely. Just look at the number of tribes people across the world who are trying to retain their culture, and their monetary poverty, in the face of an assault by western interests trying to turn them into consumers. Many of their children go through education, go into the big wide world and then return home as quickly as possible. They are more wise than we are.

[revdode]

The 'enlightenment' is just the realisation that other people have access to so much more than you ever dreamed existed.

YM "advertising" HTH



I love the way on the internet two people can more or less agree and still fight about it.

[Tarrel]

That's not limited to the internet.

[Mr. Fox]

Some of the people who are poor by western standards can see that being poor monetarily doesn't mean they are poor absolutely. Just look at the number of tribes people across the world who are trying to retain their culture, and their monetary poverty, in the face of an assault by western interests trying to turn them into consumers.

AKA 'Development'.

Many of their children go through education, go into the big wide world and then return home as quickly as possible. They are more wise than we are.

Many years ago, when I was working overseas in a 'developing country', (disgusting, pejorative term, that) I knew a bloke who's Father had been a Government Minister. He was telling me one day about how he had been packed off overseas to a University in the US to study 'Political Science', but had stuck it out for only 9 months, before returning home.

"So why did you quit your course and return early?" I asked him.

"Oh," he said, "They were teaching me to be..." He paused, looking out toward the horizon, searching for the right word: "... a Crook!"

A wise man indeed. He was 19, BTW.

[DominicJ]

That growing your own food makes *you* happy doesnt mean everyone else wants to grow and eat their own food....