I would say it's a false dichotomy. To be truly happy, you have to take life seriously.
Taking life seriously doesn't mean taking every single thing you can't control seriously, of course. The wisdom of the stoics is important, but not focusing on things you can't control isn't the same as not taking life itself seriously and taking the things you can control seriously.
I became a father in 2021 after a lifetime of thinking that was impossible. I released my first book about a month before he was born. Most fathers wouldn't publish a novel length book to their son, but I felt like it was important to get started.
Being a father is one of only a few things in my life that have ever made me truly happy, one of the other things being my marriage. These two things are a big part of my life, and I take them both deadly seriously. That totally changes the calculus of things. Going outside, going for a walk, going to the park, they stop just being something you do for your own happiness, and start being something you do because you're serious about your life and that makes it important. By doing the things that aren't fun in the moment, by taking life seriously and treating it like something that matters, you do these things and fundamentally become happier because the things you care about succeed.
Meanwhile, while I got to the park with my son 7 times a week some weeks, I see we're living in ghost world. The sidewalks are empty. The parks are empty. Everywhere is empty. Where are the kids? Obviously there's a lot fewer kids now that we aren't in a baby boom, but the truth is there's still plenty of kids but nobody takes live very seriously so they're just at home playing on their electronics and watching slop videos.
In fact, I think taking life seriously and acting like it matters is how you make sure you're doing the right things and ensuring your happiness continues. Doing the right thing when nobody's watching is serious. Deferring gratification when it can pay off is serious. Raising your kids is serious. Staying connected to your wife or husband is serious. You ultimately end up with what Aristotle called eudaimonia, human flourishing. It's a deeper happiness than just being able to say you enjoyed doing something transient briefly.
I finished my second book and first novel this year. I took writing it very seriously, and spent a lot of time thinking about what sort of world could make people happy. It wasn't a world of fleeting joy and lackadaisical attitudes. It's a world rich with meaning, where people take their lives, their communities, their responsibilities seriously. It's a world where people make commitments to the people around them, and that's where they find joy and meaning. We are free, so we are free to do the right thing that makes the world a better place to live in.
@sj_zero Very inspirational. I find that a mix of stoicism and epicurus is an excellent starting point! There are great philosophical tools to reduce pain and increase happiness in both traditions.
On top of that, I integrate a bit of modern positive psychology, and I think with those three componens, stoicism, epicureanism and positive psychology, most people who are not clinically depressd, will be able to significantly increase their happiness and contentment with life.
@amerika @sj_zero That I think is the key to the transhumanist future.
We need to find the key that unlocks purpose in the common man. If we do not have it, he will forever be in the clutches of politicians, authoritarians, priests, woke priests etc. He has a hole inside, and if he never learns to fill it himself, from the inside, politicians and their relatives will fill it for him, thus making him their slave.
@amerika @sj_zero This is one of the eternal questions. But progress has been made (in my opinion). We now know that it is a subjective value question, so we will never get an answer from science.
Personally I am perfectly content with focusing on long term happiness as my personal "indicator" or guiding light. I define it _extremely_ broadly, so my long term happiness can include things such as spirituality, deep meaning, adrenaline filled highs, the joy of a job well done, the joy of a
@amerika @sj_zero business deal closed. But also other things, such as the joy of contemplating the universe, science and our role in shaping it.
Due to evolution, I feel joy when my loved ones are happy, and I might feel joy, when doing a random nice act for someone such as holding up the door or giving a complement.
All these things, taken together, are the links of my life, that I forge together with joy and long term happiness for a rich and full life.
@amerika @sj_zero Ahh... this is a fundamental difference between us. For me, objective questions are questions which can be answered by science, and are dependent or found in the external world. Subjective question are the ones which relates to values and our own internal states.
I find nothing wrong with the categories.
For me, the fundamental atom is the individual. If we have happy and well balanced individuals, we will also get happy and well balanced societies.
"For me, the fundamental atom is the individual. If we have happy and well balanced individuals, we will also get happy and well balanced societies."
Yep, that's where we split. I like social order, and recognize that not every individual is good.
Interesting how it's a spectrum from Leftist through libertarian to theocracy and beyond that, the Furthest Right.
On the objective/subjective thing, a nihilist says that "truth" is only found within one mind. It cannot be shared.
Thus to say something is "objective" falsely imputes to it a greater degree of universality than it has, and much of what is "subjective" is in fact simpler finer/coarser degrees of perception.
Also for your reading enjoyment:
By suggesting that ultimate value resides in the individual, regardless of their sociopolitical status, the Bible defied some of the world’s most enduring conventions of rank and worth. Genesis declares that adam (Hebrew for “man” or “humankind”) was created in the image of God, thus affirming the intrinsic value of all human beings—a fundamental theme for “peoples of the book,” Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike.
The Bible describes how, for several hundred years, the ancient Israelites governed themselves by tribal councils, maintaining a measure of equality. In a crisis, when tribal councils failed to reach consensus, Israel’s people agreed to choose a king, “like the other nations.” But they also developed methods to resist autocratic power. Those who wrote the Bible well remembered the oppression that Israel’s people had experienced in Egypt and Babylonia.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/11/america-founding-morals-rights-life-liberty/684327/
@amerika @sj_zero Yes, it is interesting. For instance, I find myself in agreement with leftist about global, modern, corporations and that modern "capitalism" is bad. We don't agree on the terms. They believe modern capitalism _is_ capitalism, and I believe it is an aspect of the government. I believe corporations can be good, if the government is removed from the equation, while they do not.
I still do not undersand how leftist can be so critical of people in the private sector, and then
We can never forget that there was no income tax for most people on Earth in 1900. Today, a blue collar guy can be paying 50% tax on the last dollar he earns, and that's before the many other forms of taxation that didn't exist previously. Include all those taxes and that same blue collar guy might be paying 50% tax on every dollar he earns.
@korsier
Solid point. Our economies are thoroughly socialist at this point. What we have is a far cry from capitalism, but the Left will call it capitalism in order to abolish the remaining capitalist elements.
Then again, I doubt a "true" capitalist economy ever exists, because culture is such a huge force. However, it is a far less destructive externality than government.
I have something very much like this is a core piece of something that I'm writing for my next book.
The idea that culture is a mediating force between both the state and capital. The so-called culture war is that you're seeing in my opinion are better characterized as forces outside of culture itself trying to sublimate the power of culture which doesn't need money or a centralized bureaucracy into either the state or markets. It doesn't really matter which side is doing the pulling because it's like two predators fighting over a fresh carcass. Once you realize that culture is the more important and much larger element, I totally changes every question about the world today.
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@amerika @sj_zero Ahh, ok, yes, then I see what you mean.
When it comes to religion, I divide it into the exoteric and the esoteric. The esoteric, is the mystical core, a beautiful and deep experience that someone once had, and wants to share with others.
Then someone realises that this is a great tool for control, and bolts on the entire exoteric tradition, rules, morals, the priestly caste etc. and there you go... theocracy is here and the original impulse is more or less dead. It might
@amerika @sj_zero What science are you not skeptical about?
And why is it incorrectly described?
I know there is an external world, and the proof is my senses and the success of science, which assumes and external objective world to work.
There is also another track for my empiricism, and that is that no one has disproven it, or managed to show that there is something else besides an objective external world.
@sj_zero @amerika I agree with you 100%. No, what we have today is not capitalism. It is a mixed system, but far, far from capitalism. Governments decide, push ideology on companies, companies compete for political favours, thus the entire market as we see it today is distorted.
Probably the most "capitalist" part of todays society is my local market square.
Also note that at that time, when there was no income tax, no passports where required either. Those were the days!
@sj_zero @amerika I wonder if people from those days would look at us today and think that we are slaves?
We cannot travel without permission, and most of us pay more than 50% of what we earn to a government that does very little, if nothing, to improve our lives.
At the same time, the political class seems to be getting wealthier and wealthier.
Time for a revolution soon? ;)
@sj_zero @amerika @korsier The danger here is that culture is such a fuzzy concept. So without defining it in a fool proof way, these types of arguments can easily lead to people talking past each other.
Since I'm libertarian, at the end of the day, I believe that the market (in the form of that unicorn that definitely does not exist today) is stronger than the state and culture, in the long run, since people have needs, and the best way to fulfill them is the market. But, then again, it depen