I’m happy to have read this! This is a well-articulated post about something I’ve been thinking about for a while.
I definitely intuit that it’s more important to reduce suffering than to increase pleasure. I wonder how much of my suffering-focused viewpoint is due to a bias: hearing stories about other people suffering makes me quite sad, but hearing about other people being extremely happy doesn’t tend to make me that happy unless it’s someone I know personally, or maybe someone who has a relatable backstory.
Maybe our sense of empathy is a little biased because as we evolved, it was more important to help others in our tribe who were in danger of dying than to somehow celebrate when they had their needs met. I’m just theorizing here.
I’m happy to have read this! This is a well-articulated post about something I’ve been thinking about for a while.
I definitely intuit that it’s more important to reduce suffering than to increase pleasure. I wonder how much of my suffering-focused viewpoint is due to a bias: hearing stories about other people suffering makes me quite sad, but hearing about other people being extremely happy doesn’t tend to make me that happy unless it’s someone I know personally, or maybe someone who has a relatable backstory.
Maybe our sense of empathy is a little biased because as we evolved, it was more important to help others in our tribe who were in danger of dying than to somehow celebrate when they had their needs met. I’m just theorizing here.
I look forward to checking out the book!