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[that everyone agrees, in some little attic room of the mind where the rationality lies forgotten]


premise: everyone will agree that, if a govt committed the enormous injustice of taking 90% of income & fortune permanently off 90% of the population & gave it to 1% [so that 90% wd now have a 10th for the same work, 9% wd have the same as before, and 1% wd have 82 times as much for the same work] that that action would cause a giant increase in violence, social unrest, anger, etc and decrease social happiness [peace, safety, etc] - by a factor of say 100

corollary: and thus everyone agrees that reversing that policy wd decrease violence disturbance poblems etc and increase happiness by the same factor

premise: we humans have such injustice - a worse level of injustice [pay/hour from 1000th to a million times average, 1% getting 90%, etc]

conclusion: everyone knows [in that tiny rational corner] that we can be, like, 100 times happier

is being happier relevant to us?

2006-11-18 14:33:30 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities Philosophy

4 answers

Your corollary is where your premise is severely flawed. You conjecture that "everyone agrees that reversing that policy would", and there in lies the flaw to this premise. If a government who had not committed the enormous injustice of this method you bring in variables. Your premise is too filled with variables to even have a consistent outcome when run through to completion time after time. What is considered social unrest? If this were to come about would being overly happy lead to social unrest? What scale or benchmark can you hold emotions like anger up to? Is there an anger meter? And if so would this anger people? See?

2006-11-18 14:41:51 · answer #1 · answered by trans fat is good! 2 · 0 0

being happier is relevent to humans. but I don't know if such policies would necessarily make you happier. Nor the definition of happiness is necessarily the right one.

You see, money, has a "decreasing marginal returns" the more you increase, the first 1000 you earn, is not the same as the 22nd you earn...

not only psychologically, but also, physically...

you can only buy so much with money...after that, money and the things you buy, do not give you the same satisfaction---yea, the first jump from living in a box under a railroad, to say, a middle class income and house...is a big step...but from there to high middle class its a lot less.

its not really happiness more like security...the more money you have, the more security you feel.

furthermore, think about, what would happen, if you decided to reverse that hypothetical policy..

first of all, the goverment example does not make sense...the equilibrium is reached through random events (luckiness factor, merit factor, connections factor)...which make a "game" and "surprise" (adventure element) which makes life worht living...because you never know what might happen...

iHowever, it does make sense in the following

(1) the ratio factor in many cases, is overvalued...people at the 1% are not getting that because society values them "that" much---its just a reflection of numbers in the economy--what you could do...to make the values more "fair" would be to trimline the salaries of CEO's/....after all, CEO's...at times make billions of dollars...

and as I said before...MONEY HAS DIMINISHING MARGINAL RETURNS AS FAR AS HAPPINESS..
think about it...is that 1% guy, going to care whether he was 250 million or 2 billion (example)?

not really..its the kind of thing you "prefer" but it does not make any difference...he can get ALL he wants + more with that kind of money


so you make it so the "happiness" factor FOR ALL GROUPS makes a NET BENEFIT or same...not only in terms of numbers, but in terms of monetary relativity.

You trimline the salaries of CEO's and the 1%...but you don't give ALL BACK...you just give back that which does not really increase their happines...you trimline...so that you still supply the incentive of the market...but to the point that it reduces their influence in the goverment (to make things more equal--after all, human democracy is about the "people" not the lobbyists of economic influence of large corporations--representing the 1%--basically turning it into an "oligarchy") by trimlining salary...(not decreasing their happiness that much)...but INCREASING the happiness of the majority by a lot...

This is the strategy....not the extreme..

otherwise the people at the top are REALLY unhappy, and then they just screw their companies...which in turn, just screws you, the majority...

furthermore, it woudl give less incentivity to YOU, the majority, to rise to the top---

socialist and capitalist components...remmember can live side by side..

you can have a socialist labour force...that lives in socialist communes. ...which are HIRED by capitalist components such as corporations...
you just have to be smart about it...and you have equity and incentive---

you have to reach a point where the HAPPINESS factor is maximized, not REVENGE factor on the "rich class" as done in south american ignorant countries....nor the 'MONEY' equality...cuz then you often start promoting that which you resented..these are irrelevent factors...

and as you said...happiness was the main factor...and it is, --it is relevent to you. "don't hate, lets all be happy" was once the motto of the tiberian race in their early 21st century.--maybe you could follow that sort of practical approach instead of extreme concepts like communism

hope that helped.

2006-11-18 22:54:26 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

no one cares if your happy, or if anyone else is happy as long as they are. if enough like minded people ban together, theres your 1%. the rest could do something about it, but they dont. the solution to the problem is being able to say no. if enough people said no, every one would be much happier except for the 1%.

2006-11-18 22:54:55 · answer #3 · answered by chris l 5 · 0 0

What about all the ones that think it is noble to be a poor drunken slob that beats his wife and whips his kids....would he be happier?

2006-11-19 01:02:22 · answer #4 · answered by auntynoall 4 · 0 0

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