Englands Austerity Plan

[Humodour]

Increasing production per person I think. Tech and education usually help.

 

But do they? Some of the most productive peopel I've ever met have been barely high school educated, and work with little more than hand tools. And some of the biggest wasters have been fully tech enabled PhDs.

 

And some rapists are teachers. Enough anecdotal evidence - a few data points don't make a trend. I believe strongly in the point Atreides made.

 

And Morgoth: Incorrect. Jobs are not a zero-sum game, because you can always move into the knowledge economy (research and development, and the related services industries that pop up around these, such as information technology - which is itself a gargantuan with few limits on growth in sight).

 

Your statement might be true for the commodities and manufacturing sectors, but frankly I think that's a good thing because it means more people getting jobs that use their brains rather than their hands (not that I dislike manual labour, but you can't deny the superior benefits of a job that engages your mind).

[Humodour]

When the economy is booming here, there are always labor shortages. Automation doesn't have anything to do with it, not until you can actually completely replace a human being, automation just creates different jobs.

 

Exactly!

 

One thing I really don't understand is, there must be some sort of baseline in business ecology. Some economic activity which actiuvely creates wealth, and doesn't just move it around.

 

What is it? Manufacturing? Mining?

 

Interesting question. The answer must necessarily (to my mind) be that the services industries create wealth by increasing productivity in the manufacturing and commodities industries (can generate wealth faster) and value-adding to the manufacturing and commodities industries (e.g. a restaurant turns raw food into appealing food dishes - clearly the product has been enhanced beyond the original ingredients, is now worth more, and thus 'wealth' has been created.)

 

Or e.g. a programmer turns 1's and 0's into a useful tool - in this instance the commodity being enhanced is knowledge/time/effort, and the product and the product is only likely to generate wealth if it increases productivity. Although we must remember that things like entertainment/games also increase productivity indirectly by decreasing stress.

 

I guess a lot of economic growth is illusory, too, right? It's called inflation - so a lot of economics probably IS just about moving wealth around. And even ignoring inflation, you've still got economic growth produced simply by more humans being born (and thus producing wealth... although this is real economic growth or wealth creation, it is also mitigated somewhat by the increased demand/strain this extra individual places on society).

 

And further to that, as long as economic growth per capita after inflation is not negative, frankly I don't see a problem with wealth not being created by the things we do - we're reaching a stage in human society where we need to start lying back and enjoying the fruits of our labour, because what the heck is the point of it otherwise? Money fundamentally exists to make us happy - this is the basic reason capitalism is a force for good in the world. Money for money's sake is pointless. That goes for money in all its forms - wealth, gold, investments like shares, whatever.

[Walsingham]

Hang on. Money does more than make us happy. It also does things like provide security, seed growth for the future and so on.

 

Also, I object to the notion that brain work is better than physical work. We are apes, and brain work stresses us out without burning stress chemicals. Until I hurt my back I always tried to do brain work mixed with exercise of one sort or another.

 

And no, mkreku, not THAT exercise.

[Humodour]

Hang on. Money does more than make us happy. It also does things like provide security, seed growth for the future and so on.

 

And what happens when we feel secure? Anxeity is removed. We can focus on other aspects of our lives. We feel happier.

 

Money -> Security -> Happiness.

 

Also, I object to the notion that brain work is better than physical work.

 

Object away - it was not the core theme of my post, though. In fact, it was one line.

[Moose]

Cortisol isn't 'burnt off'. Exercise promotes serotonin and dopamine, which is why you may feel better. Actually what many people over look is thought isn't free. It too requires energy.

[Walsingham]

What happens when we are secure is we don't get stabbed in the cheeks. Methinks you've strayed a wee bit far from real lif, mate. Happy? HAPPY?

 

Go sit in the corner and think about what you said.

[Humodour]

What happens when we are secure is we don't get stabbed in the cheeks. Methinks you've strayed a wee bit far from real lif, mate. Happy? HAPPY?

 

Go sit in the corner and think about what you said.

 

You facetious bastard.

 

But here is a question for you: do you usually feel happy, content, joyful, or positive when you feel unsafe or threatened?

 

Feeling unsafe is a stress trigger, and it has all the negative emotional implications associated with stress. Removing that stress trigger removes stress, paving the way for a positive mood (and for many people a positive mood is their baseline state, so removing stress 'produces' happiness).

[Monte Carlo]

China is interesting. A decaying, corrupt Communist autocracy goes capitalist yet manages to retain the internal discipline and party machine to keep the whole ship running ruthlessly towards epic growth.

 

But.

 

With prosperity comes tension. Propserity brings with it the ghost in the machine of freedom and democracy. That is the very thing that will form the seed of China's economic destruction as it currently stands. The place is going to turn into a post-post-modern corporate bordello in the next fifty years, with interesting (to say the least) consequences for the region and indeed the world.

[Walsingham]

Feeling unsafe is a stress trigger, and it has all the negative emotional implications associated with stress. Removing that stress trigger removes stress, paving the way for a positive mood (and for many people a positive mood is their baseline state, so removing stress 'produces' happiness).

 

I take it then that you don't follow the Yerkes-Dodson notion of optimal stress, as an inverted U shape?

 

Also, happiness is a byproduct - a want have not a must have. Moreover, the achievement of it constantly shifts. Rich people want less possessions, married people want to be free, lonely people want to be married. I want an ice cream. The pursuit of happiness as if it is something real is (so I appear to be arguing) a shifting phantasm. And teh pursuit of happiness is as doomed as the effort of shooting a tortoise.

[Humodour]

Feeling unsafe is a stress trigger, and it has all the negative emotional implications associated with stress. Removing that stress trigger removes stress, paving the way for a positive mood (and for many people a positive mood is their baseline state, so removing stress 'produces' happiness).

 

I take it then that you don't follow the Yerkes-Dodson notion of optimal stress, as an inverted U shape?

 

What I do follow is Maslow's hierarchy of needs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

 

If an individual cannot master the initial needs (e.g. security, physiological needs) then the mind will rarely bother with the higher, more meaningful needs.

 

Yerkes-Dodson says NOTHING about happiness - only performance. But considering the negatives of increased stress, I can't see how a moderate performance increase from dopamine and noradrenaline release would be worth the trade-off to health and happiness, especially for somebody who is already content with their performance.

 

No matter how much you might think you can thrive on a certain level of stress, it's just not that good for you at all: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nation...article1778188/

 

Also, happiness is a byproduct - a want have not a must have.

 

We are living in civilised society now, we're not clawing for our survival like those in Africa. I believe happiness is a must have, and why not? Especially considering its interaction with our mental and physical health - science allows us to live so long now, it's important we're still intact towards the end or there's little point extending lifespan. Stress is good for evolutionary fitness, but evolution doesn't give a **** how healthy you are once you reproduce, and that's starkly evident in how stress impacts on our long-term health. Evolution takes care of the first third of our lives, after that we start to rely on human ingenuity more and more to maintain ourselves. Part of that human ingenuity needs to involve mastery of our mood.

 

Moreover, the achievement of it constantly shifts.

 

But the methods of achieving happiness don't really change.

 

Rich people want less possessions, married people want to be free, lonely people want to be married. I want an ice cream. The pursuit of happiness as if it is something real is (so I appear to be arguing) a shifting phantasm. And teh pursuit of happiness is as doomed as the effort of shooting a tortoise.

 

Judging by your posts on these forums I'd classify you as an inherently cynical person, Wals, and by the sounds of it you've learnt to be comfortable and content with that - I imagine you like the stability. I'm not content being cynical, unhappy, or just neutral, subsisting from day to day on whatever situations life throws at me to elicit emotions. Many other people out there aren't either, and I bet if you COULD be consistently happy (whilst preserving what currently makes your life enjoyable and worthwhile) you'd choose to be. And if I'm wrong and you are consistently happy then you've no right to question why others would seek to achieve happiness.

 

Mastering how your environment (including your safety, and your interactions with other people) alters your mood is the first step towards that happiness, the next is partial mastery of our own hormone and neurotransmitter release (aka the chemical basis of happiness) - and this can easily be achieved (yes, without drugs - e.g. sleep patterns which allow the full schedule of brain cycles, good nutrition, exercise, seeking out and eliminating your sources of anxiety), so I don't see why we shouldn't do it.

 

For example, here is a layman's guide to endorphin release (not the only happiness agent in the brain) which I posted in another thread which is also relevant here: http://www.ivillage.com/endorphins-101-you...oria/4-a-108211

Edited November 18, 2010 by Krezack

[Humodour]

The pursuit of happiness as if it is something real

 

Happiness is something real - it's an achievable mental state with you can clearly distinguish from being unhappy or emotionally neutral. You can measure it subjectively by stating how your feel, and you can measure it objectively by examining electrical activity at certain brain locations (which is just a fancy way of measuring neurotransmitter activity).

 

You can even manipulate this electrical activity to profoundly manipulate mood (through drugs, implanted chips, or doing things you know will change levels of a neurotransmitter), so yes, happiness most certainly is something real.

[Walsingham]

Hang on, isn't that confusing the biological concomitant with the mental experience? I'm saying that the architecture sustaining happiness is so ephemeral as to render it a wil-o-the-wisp. Not that the squelchy mess of glands and neurons is.