How else would you quantify happiness? Check how much dopamine is in their brain.
After you hit a certain threshold (55K per Jordan Peterson) money doesnât matter anymore.
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Well yes. But todayâs âclassical liberalsâ are what used to be called âconservativesâ. The term âliberalâ seems to have been coopted by people who read Socialist Worker and have purple hair.
Modern political terms are mighty confusing, imo.
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Liberal is one of those words like victim or violence. However, I know what it means as you do.
The only conclusion I could reach from all of that craziness was that people on the left really, really hate hearing that we have our own agency and are ultimately responsible for our own lives. It sounds like a simplistic and trite conclusion, but I remember being in the thick of it at the time as a fervent left-winger getting sucked down the JP rabbit hole trying to make sense of the completely hysterical and disproportionate left-wing reaction against him. So, of course, if your entire worldview is predicated on the idea that you have no agency of your own and are a victim of society, then youâre going to be a miserable bastard like I used to be.
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I would say a lot of my recent joy is from caring about other people and doing things thatâs in my control. Iâm not going to fix the world, but if I fix my life, I can help fix problems around me. Iâm now able to hire people and give them a respectable wage. My recent hire is a single mom that really needed a job. She came in yesterday for the first day and hustled hard.
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Interesting how many of you apparently didnât read the article(s). 
One partial answer provided is the question is a bit of a self licking ice cream cone - conservatives, basically by definition, like the status quo more than liberals. Another part is family and religious connections - conservatives get married
younger (and more?) and go to church more, providing more people connections.
The kicker is âonce we control for marriage, parenthood, family satisfaction, religious attendance and community satisfaction, the ideological gap in happiness disappearsâ
Alternative, cynical take: Mormon newspaper and school advocate families and church. News at 10.
Thereâs a misunderstanding between classical liberals and progressives.
Yes! How can we condense this for a T-shirt, like? Maybe just wrap it around a few times.
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Actually, there has never been a time in human history where there has been greater wealth inequality than today. Do I think thatâs the concerns of a âliberalâ? No, itâs the concern of everyone, because, unless youâre Bezos, Musk, Buffet, or Gates, the difference between you and the top is beyond anything you can ever imagine. Even slaves in Ancient Egypt were more equal to the pharaoh than people in upper-middle class USA are to the people at the very top today. But that is due to republican policies, 100%. Because republicans believe that today they might only be making $7.25/hr, but tomorrow theyâll be able to easily buy a seat on a commercial space flight, so theyâd best support policies that keep them at the bottom so that, when they say comes where they make $7,250/minute, they wonât owe taxes on it.
. Ever hear the phase âmoney doesnât buy happinessâ? It stems from the fact that you will never be satisfied, no matter how much money you have. Why else would the rich men that keep blasting penis rockets into space need to blast penis rockets into space?
Iâd rather be middle class in the USA than a PharaohâŚ.would you not? I damn sure rather be middle class than a slave in ancient Egypt.
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I wasnât asking what you wanted. I was pointing out wealth inequality being the greatest it has ever been in history. When everyone is able to contribute to society, it contributes much more than when the majority of the population is just struggling to make enough money to feed itself, let alone house and feed itself. People working three jobs just to support their family are not working to their full potential, so theyâre not contributing what they could to society. But the people at the bottom also donât have time or the education to realize that they cannot âpull themselves up by their bootstrapsâ (mostly because pulling yourself up by your bootstraps isnât going to get you anywhere, not even to standing up). So people on the bottom donât understand that republication policies act only to keep them in their place while the rich get richer.
From what a lot of people are saying about âcaring too muchâ, âIgnorance is blissâ, so keep people ignorant and they will be happier. This thread is certainly not wrong in that respect, especially given academic outcomes and potentials in red states vs. blue states. If we only all got Mississippi-quality K-12 public education, weâd all be so much happier!
You might rather be in the middle class than a pharaoh, but anyone who thinks the world is more equal now than then is delusional.
I think youâre the perfect example of what this thread is about. Elon Musks wealth doesnât impact my life nor does his attempts to colonize Mars.
I am concerned over my life and the life of people around me. Helping myself succeed has put me in the position to help my friends and family and give respectable salaries for my employees to feed their family. I now am a net positive benefit to society. And I can help others be the same.
That is my concern, not thinking of grandiose ideas of inequality when the reality is that there has never been a better time to be alive. I canât imagine anyone being happy if thinking people launching rockets are the issue.
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You only think Elon Muskâs behavior doesnât affect you. It effects everyone. Have you thought about how Bezosâ behavior affects literally everyone on earth? You want cheap goods from Amazon, slaves make the cheap goods, slaves pack the cheap goods, slaves get the cheap goods for you and slaves deliver the cheap goods to you. So you can save a few bucks on some piece of crap that you probably donât actually need. All those people working to get that to you are making sooo much less money than you, in order to support unsustainable consumerism and help Bezos make more money than you could ever imagine. Such a wonderful, equal society we live in
I was born working-class to a single mother on benefits, but due to various quirks of Conservative government policy, I got a good education and was encouraged to do well. I did well because plenty of adults who cared about my wellbeing told me: look kid, nobody gives a shit about whether you succeed or fail, but if you turn up and put in a little bit of effort, thereâs zero reason for you to fail. I suspect a lot of other kids ended up stacking shelves in supermarkets because some well-meaning adults told them: itâs OK if you fail, itâs not your fault, itâs because of the patriarchy.
I get your point about the influence of the rich and powerful on the state of the world, but what exactly do you propose to do about that? Let Bezos play with his big willy. Taxing him out of existence would probably not make any difference.
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So little of what you said here actually makes sense. Most notably the part of failure being the fault of the patriarchy. Arenât you a man? If so, your failure cannot be due to the patriarchy. As for education, do elaborate on how the âconservative governmentâ got your great education please, while your classmates ended up stocking supermarket shelves.
Yes 
Iâm in e-commerce. Amazon is sort of my competitor as in I use my own platform to sell products. I hate Amazon. But I control my life.
What makes you think you know how the world should be like? Serious question. Iâve realized running a company how difficult it is to make everything work. Itâs given me fresh perspective that maybe I donât know how best to run the world just yet.
Iâm looking mostly at he happiest countries on earth being ones where there are high taxes = high social spending. The US is so far from being anywhere near the top of the happiest counties on earth list for a reason. Iâd like to compare the so-called happiness of conservatives to the happiness of people from Nordic countries, see just how wide the gap is
You misunderstand me. I was mocking those who railroad kids into a lifetime of failure by giving them excuses for failure. Itâs prejudice dressed up as âcaringâ. I did encounter teachers who looked down on me as a poor mixed-race kid from a council estate who would never amount to anything, but I thought they were idiots and ignored them.
The government at the time was very keen on meritocracy. Kids who had good academic results were given funding to attend public schools (Britspeak for private schools). This was an exceedingly strong incentive for a kid to put in a little bit of effort. The subsequent labour government was very keen on âequalityâ, and therefore took steps to ensure that every kid received an equally crap start in life.
Iâm not suggesting public school is the only route out of poverty: all my cousins, born into similar circumstances, also did well, despite having a mediocre State education. Reason being, we all seemed to have a similar attitude to life: nobody is going to go out of their way to help you except you.
Iâll also add that being âpoorâ has its upsides. There is a certain appeal in having a position in society which is beneath the notice of the middle classes. There is freedom in it. And I didnât feel either unhappy or materially deprived as a kid, apart from one particular aspect: being hungry. That sucks.
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