Quote from: K-DogObjective measurement reveals happiness is strongly tied to inequality. People are social. Unequal societies put up barriers between people and isolate them from each other. Studies reveal that happiness is largely determined by healthy social connections. Isolated people die sooner. It is a fact.
I agree that happiness and freedom are parasitic on substantive equality, i.e equality in the holistic, classical meaning of equal decision making power on all levels of socialised production. As opposed to mere redistribution/welfare/charity. Nowadays both mainstream and alt media are cynically peddling the latter as one of the solutions to the crisis of our capital system. But 'more equality' is not and can never be equality.
Besides which, the point you made is precisely why these happiness studies are bs. They consistently erase class and even when not, elide its role into other stuff like 'perceptions of corruption' and 'feeling less supported by family'. So while I'm def with you on equality=happiness, I also think these positivistic studies are pseudo-scientific. If next year's report shows rebounding 'happiness' for the US or any other country, would that indicate actual improvement? Nope, it'd mean their data sets (borrowed from other, actually useful UN agencies) lined up a certain way; sanctioned astrology.
Quote from: REAlways a pleasure when an old timer finds us again. :) Since we didn't launch the original doomstead Diner until Feb 2012, I'll assume by "2010s" you are talking about the whole decade. Unless you were with us on my Reverse Engineering Yahoo Group, which I began in around 2009 I think after being booted off of the PeakOil.com website and a couple of others as well. Do you remember the ScreenID you used bacck in those days? I don't recognize your current one.
Definitely not the whole decade, like 2015 to 2018. I meant the collapse scene in general - economicundertow, ourfiniteworld, and of course your channel and forum. I remember your youtube streams with Steve from economic undertow and others, good times. I'm mostly catching up. Ourfiniteworld is still very active, as is energyskeptic. Not much going on over at economicundertow seems like. Any news on good ol Steve btw? I guess now that 'collapse' is reality, there are a lot of people talking about it but within different paradigms, all/most of which are often deeply flawed. Like a lot of online 'discourses' these days people agree on a distorted version of reality, then disagree on the particulars. The resource depletion and energy cost based approach is still a niche apparently. My thing has always been to combine Marxism with those two.
Anyway I don't think I was registered to the forum, or I was but never posted. I did occasionally post on ofw and undertow, as did you. We probably never interacted directly, so it's a pleasure.:)
QuoteCan you own a McMansion, have 2 late model carz in your garage and have enough money left over to pay your medical insurance, college tuition for your kids (at least helping them out if not fully paying for it), cover emergency expenses like major car repairs or a new roof on the McMansion, and take the occasinal vacation or go to a nice restaurant once a month? Do you have 6 months worth of money to pay your bills if you lose your job? Are you actually happy with the job you do have even if it is reasonably secure?
The last item on that list easily applies to the top 10%. And the (objective) answer to the rest would depend on location and various circumstances. Are mammy and daddy helping out somehow, and are you expecting a windfall when they finally kick it? What kind of job? How many kids? How many ex-wives/baby mamas/sugar babies? Which college and discipline for your menagerie of tots? These aren't new considerations, but were somewhat uncool to discuss in the broader culture. Nowadays people discuss them but indirectly. For example, the nexus of mammy and daddy, family connections, peer group etc = 'support system'.
Anyway so I'm not really focussing on whether people's lives are worse (duh), rather that the happiness crisis type stuff you're seeing in the news is feeding into a new cultural thing where going through hard times makes you cool and real. Performative trauma as it were. I've seen 'studies' where people earning >150k are saying they're barely getting by apparently. Of course shit is fucked, and the trauma culture is part of and stems from that, but it's also not a good basis to understand that.
And since you mentioned marriage, let me point you to what imo is solid objective social science:
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/middle-class-marriage-is-declining-and-likely-deepening-inequality/
Actually they sort of misrepresent their own findings. They say middle-class marriage rates have declined since the 80s but if you look at the excel files with the raw data for each year they've included under the graphs, the marriage rate for the 2nd highest wealth quintile (20 to 40 %) has been stable at ~75% since 1990. And for the highest quintile it has increased (~76 to 80 %) during that time. For the lower quintiles the gap and progressive decline since the 90s is precipitous. Also note that they specifically controlled for 33 to 44 y.os so that things like generational difference and teen mom aren't relevant.
Let's be honest, the middle-class was never the literal middle, even in the west/USA. Idk if marriage is happiness but the ability to be married at 33-44 y.o is definitely happiness versus 'my girlfriend is an anime character on my pc who talks to me via an AI language model' which is where a lot of the poorest 60% are at. Like I know you old timers aren't necessarily enamored by the trans thing (personally I'm fine with most of it) but that's not even on the radar of why most people are miserable. Nor is worrying about the college fund (they wish they were in that position). There is a sharp 40-60 (maybe 30-70) split that I believe is more important than 10-90 let alone 1-99. Of course, if you're talking globally I'd agree it's a 10-90 split.