Monet can buy “stress free lifestyle” which happiness is a byproduct
Apparently there was a study done and your happiness levels out. Like if you got a big pay bump you’d be happier for a while but then back to baseline.
My boss used this to say that we don’t need raises. I asked if we could prove it and me and her swap pays. She laughed and brushed me off.
There have been studies that claim there is a max on what money can buy you in terms of happiness. Before it was said to be 70k (of course depends on the country), now it might be 500k.
Yeah, cost of living has been shot in favour of profit optimizing algorithms
Money buys you the luxury of beeing in the position where money can’t contribute to your happiness any longer.
Money can’t buy you happiness. But it can damn well enable it.
Money does buy you happiness. It just has diminishing returns.
So the best way to maximize happiness is to take the money from those that have maximized its effect and give it all to the poor.
Silence doesn’t buy you peace of mind.
Peace comes from within. Inner calmness is practiced.
It just so happens that silence significantly helps people reach peace of mind.
For the money doesn’t buy happiness types: what does bring happiness? And how might money aid in that struggle?
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
How does one obtain food, shelter, healthcare, a basic sense of security by having a stable and safe living space?
Oh thats right, you obtain all that with money, obtaining those things without money is either functionally impossible for the vast majority of people, or literally a crime.
Yeah, adding an infinite amount of money to one person doesn’t meaningfully impact their ability to get those first two layers figured out.
Distributing money such that everyone has those two base layers… is quite literally the foundation for a happy, stable, productive society.
Liquidate the billionaires… assets, of course.
The
Spawn more Luigis
This is off topic of the main thread but the chart was eye-opening to me about the order of love/belonging and esteem. Much of my insecurity drives from not having a girlfriend or any intimacy, but the only way to get that is be socially adept, but I’m not because being socially adept is a lower priority on the hierarchy of needs than intimacy.
Many, many people feel pressured to get a partner because it basically is a status symbol that conveys that you are successful, likeable, desirable.
…That isn’t how healthy relationships work.
People are not commodities you can buy, they are not a reward at the end of a video game questline.
You have to be at a point where you you feel secure enough in your own life and your own personality that you can actually have a successful relationship where both people respect each other’s boundaries and don’t become resentful.
Ironically, most people who are seeking a mate… because that is a status symbol, because they feel pressured to, because they think that will fill some hole in their life…?
That is actually a major sign of immaturity and insecurity.
Those kinds of people are more likely to end up in unstable, totally transactional, or even abusive relationships.
…
Don’t feel insecure or let people bully you because you don’t have a mate.
Become ok with yourself first. Stop hanging around people who mock or belittle you, they are bullies, and bullies bully people because they view putting other people down as a way to make themselves feel better about themselves, to gain social clout amongst other likeminded bullies.
I know its especially hard to find in person group activities these days, but there may be some … sports, in person tabletop groups, volunteer at a food bank or shelter, book clubs… these things do still exist, and if your goal is just general social experience, maybe make a few friends, they can help you out with that.
Good old Maslow. This is correct. The first two require money. As a single person without children, I’ve generally got the first two covered. I can not cover the third and I also feel like any amount of money will not help me either. This is why people with money say you cant buy happiness… because it is presumably at the top of this pyramid when you achieve it all.
Liquidate the billionaires… assets, of course.
If it were that simple, then we should just liquidate the billionaires with rifles. They deserve no respect.
Unfortunately, they’re just the symptom of systematic issues of capitalist political economy, so without solving that, new billionaires will emerge.
No one earns a billion dollars. They steal it from those that create wealth.
That’s what government is supposed to be for. To regulate. Capitalism is like a car, or a train. When under control, harnessed, maintained, directed, it is an amazing engine for accomplishing things. When out of control, it’s deadly.
Capitalist markets are built off of the idea that people are inherently self serving and the ensuing competition will benefit people with lower prices, better products, etc to meet their own selfish needs. Capitalism uses capital to gain more capital, and is exploitative by design. When a company acts in a way to maximize profits, and appease shareholders, they’re doing it selfishly, with total disregard for others or the environment, in a system that rewards their actions. This is quite like psychotic, or sociopathic, behavior.
I just think trying to control this is a losing battle, and what we really need are foundational changes to values, motives, and what gets rewarded and how.
Capitalist markets are built off of the idea that people are inherently self serving
You think they’re not?
I think people are more than that. The point being that nothing is inherently wrong with making individualistic self serving choices except when there is disregard for others. But people can also be compassionate, alturistic, giving, and cooperative, so how about a system that rewards the better parts of human nature?
The point being that nothing is inherently wrong with making individualistic self serving choices except when there is disregard for others
Historically, individualism hasn’t been a good survival strategy. I agree that self-interest isn’t inherently wrong, although I believe much of the things we consider self-serving are ultimately only sane to do once our basic needs are met, and depending on where you are and who you are, those may be at risk soon. There’s a reason why people historically formed tribes and villages to survive, individualism is only possible when you have the privilege of an advanced enough society. The capitalist market system, in fact the market system altogether, couldn’t come into existence prior to civilization, where society was strong and safe enough that individual enrichment was a viable survival strategy.
This video makes the point I’m getting at more concretely. Can start at 15:55, when they begin talking about historical materialism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nPVkpWMH9k
(tagging parent commenter @Cryophilia@lemmy.world because this also addresses their reply about people’s inherent self-serving)
Interesting theory but not particularly relevant to capitalism here and now?
Out
But by giving the poor money we’d be robbing them of their ability to reach self actualization by creatively solving their own problems! (/s obviously)
I’m all but certain the whole “money can’t buy happiness” shtick is just classist propaganda to keep the peasants poor by trying to build some kind of weird pride in staying poor.
Money can buy freedom, and while freedom doesn’t guarantee happiness, it’s a pretty fucking important ingredient.
Amazing how few people question this statement though.
It’s usually used in explaining that a rich person can be sad, rather than to say all poor people are always happy.
In my experience, it’s used to spitshine poverty.
“Money can’t buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.” - Spike Milligan
“Money cant buy you happiness, but it can buy you a jetski. Have YOU ever seen anyone crying on a jetski?” - me.
OMG, Daniel Tosh is on Lemmy!
You’re argument is very convincing. Guess I have to buy a jetski with the money I hav… Oh wait
Money absolutely does buy happiness until you’re in middle class and in a fulfilling job. (If you’re rich but in a shit job, it means you might have the option to work less or look for a better position.)
Money does not buy you happiness applies to people who are already rich and are looking for money to fulfill needs way high on the Maslow hierarchy. In fact, much of the tyranny and cruelty within stratified social systems comes from miserable rich people believing they should be happy due to their vast wealth and power yet are not. And our capitalist society has messages everywhere that promise that a new car, (yacht, vacation, lover, religion, etc.) will totally fulfill them and they don’t.
I mean we’ve had three billionaires shoot themselves into space. If that’s not an obvious plead to the gods or the cosmos for a taste of nirvana I don’t know what is.
Curiously, this is a thing that Jesus (and every other divine-ish wise guy) knew about: If we give away our vast fortune and live simply with that experience and wisdom, fulfillment comes. But it means overcoming greed for wealth and power, which is quicker, easier, more seductive.
As the saying goes, money can’t buy you happiness but a lack of money can buy you a lot of misery. Enough money for a comfortable lifestyle, anything over that and we enter ego validation territory.
The one I heard is money can’t buy you happiness but it can buy you a helicopter, which is almost as good
I do have terrible crushing problems money can’t solve.
but I would be a hell of a lot happier with lowish 6 figures a year.
Yes. Financial independence would give ample time for me to escape abuse but alas, I’m trapped under family’s false insights and paranoia.
A few years ago I was stealing water from a construction site so my partner and I could flush the toilet. Parked in a development lot in the middle of the night, watching for security guards while I filled a bunch of plastic organizer bins in the back of a van.
We were several years into a total financial crashout from a combination of major health problems, deaths in the family, and a floundering job market. Things are better now, but I can say at least that I know now what it feels like to lose everything and claw your way back out of the hole. I don’t recommend it, it sucks.
Our nation doesn’t want you to succeed. Remember that. In order for the wealthy to stay wealthy, there has to be a class of people who have less or nothing so that money retains value. We’re the richest fucking nation that’s ever existed, many times over, so if we really wanted we could end poverty, we could end hunger and disease and make a glorious world where everyone is comfortable and able to aim for their own dreams without risk of losing everything and having to steal water to flush the fucking the toilet.
We’re not in that world for the simple reason that a tiny fraction of people want to have things and they want other people to envy them.
Money probably really doesn’t make you happy. Most of the things that make me happy have nothing to do with me being able to buy crap I don’t need.
But that dumb sentiment hides the fact that a lack of money can definitely make you miserable.
Only people that never had stress over dentist of vet bills say that money isn’t a massive factor in determining your quality of life.
