Thanks David I do definitely agree with this. How can we as complex beings have a reliable sense of the “hedonic balance” of our lives, if we can even comprehend what that means exactly to us (I certainly can’t)
I would bet though regardless that most of my friends, many of whom you @MichaelStJules might consider very poor, stressed and living in discomfort have extremely net positive lives even just looking straight hedonically. The joy of their families, cooking, time with friends. The joy they find from the non-hedonic meaning itself. From hope for the future of their kids lives (who have more education than they do). Etc. etc.
The frustration and the pain is there, but apart from maybe people here with severe illness or severe depression (a minority), it seems very net positive to me on any metric?
I can’t read the “hedony meters” of those around me here, but I would take their subjective wellbeing as a better approximation of it than almost any other measure I could imagine (and I’m aware there are others).
FWIW I don’t begrudge any of these opinions and think this is a very reasonable conversation :)
Thanks David I do definitely agree with this. How can we as complex beings have a reliable sense of the “hedonic balance” of our lives, if we can even comprehend what that means exactly to us (I certainly can’t)
I would bet though regardless that most of my friends, many of whom you @MichaelStJules might consider very poor, stressed and living in discomfort have extremely net positive lives even just looking straight hedonically. The joy of their families, cooking, time with friends. The joy they find from the non-hedonic meaning itself. From hope for the future of their kids lives (who have more education than they do). Etc. etc.
The frustration and the pain is there, but apart from maybe people here with severe illness or severe depression (a minority), it seems very net positive to me on any metric?
I can’t read the “hedony meters” of those around me here, but I would take their subjective wellbeing as a better approximation of it than almost any other measure I could imagine (and I’m aware there are others).
FWIW I don’t begrudge any of these opinions and think this is a very reasonable conversation :)