[RE]

Happiness is so subjective that you could make a case for just about any percentage, so any kind of study trying to determine such a thing isn't very useful anyhoww.  I mean, if you supply a heroin addict with enough supply and he had a nice place to shoot up safely, he's gonna be happy, right?  then there was that book back in the 70s, the "Happy Hooker".  Are any prostitutes happy?  The expensive Call Girls who only take the best clients and only have to flatback a few times a month to make a 6 figure income?  Maybe they are happier than Elon Musk's A List Vagina wives who work as baby factories for him?

Even dieing young doesn't necessarily mean you were unhappy.  Some folks live by the motto, "Live Fast, Die Young, leave a Good Looking Corpse".  Gven the divorce rate and the fact that rich men often go through several wives indicates they are never really happy either.  Money doesn't buy happiness, but neither does poverty.

The best you can do are look at some statistics on objective things, like how many mass shootings there are, how many suicides, how many homeless.  While there may be Happy Hookers out there, I don't think anyone who is homeless is happy about it.

Far as the rest of the collapse blogosphere goes, we've discussed that here and for the most part the old websites are gone or they've become repetitive in their content.  I try to keep things fressh by looking at the latest trends like the falling birthrate and the gender dysphoria that seems to be on the increase.  There's always some new manifestation of collapse popping up, so you don't have to stay glued to one concept and beat it to death, as some trolls like to do.  lol.

RE

[TDoS]

Money doesn't buy happiness, but neither does poverty.

Takes the sting out of being poor though.

Define "sting"? Those of us born into the condition didn't even really think about it, or consider ourselves that. In part because there was also someone poorer down the block. By comparison, with a working man in the family at a factory rather than just a farmer, we had a TV and some rabbit ears and sure looked "rich" to some other in the holler. They only had a radio. Nobody had health care, black lung was knocking off the miners regularly so we attended family funerals couple times between the age of 10 and 15 that I remember, what college educations handed out with unlimited loans to anyone who wanted them, so they could major in ethnic studies or symbolism in prehistoric art of whatever passes for upper level education nowadays. We were 14 years old and most already smoking because it was cool. You want protein? Here is a trap and a gun..go figure out how to get some meat or go hungry.

American changed as to even what "poor" means. Look at what "not poor" means to RE. To heck with that, folks feel poor if they don't have the newest iPhone. Whoa is me...I am poverty stricken. So a lifestyle that today might seem Third World in modern America isn't even what "poor" is nowadays. 

So what is the sting of modern poor? Not living up to the lifestyles of the rich and famous, or poor as in how some of us grew up that wouldn't even be recognized by modern welfare recipients? Collecting mailbox money and cards, provided health care, job training, education benefits and help, able to afford TVs and heat and electricity not provided mostly by woodstoves, FOOD STAMPS. We knew some people we referred to as "reliefers", I think that meant they collected something government wise that was terribly embarassing, now THOSE folks were the poor. The rest of us started at age 10 with the trapline, firearms at 12 and were damn proud of helping to support our families because we weren't none of them damn "reliefers"...whatever that ephiphet meant. I just knew it was bad to be one.

Yeah, collapse is a sum greater than its interconnected parts. I see it (the phenomenon itself) as a critique of the capital system.

I think collapse is just the result of humans being human, the way we treat each other, our economic and social systems, the things we strive for and turn to bad ends, the dismissal of the collective good in favor of the individual gain, and all the other mechanisms that have encouraged us to be selfish, mean spirited, dogmatic, anti-science, conspiratorial and just outright self centered "me first" humans. 

[RE]

Nobody despises poor people more than poor people who got rich.

Yeah, back in the day, poor people were really poor.  Today's poor people have it too easy.  They get their tents from Walmart.    MKing slept in a cardboard box when he was a poor kid in Appalachia.  Today's poor kids get SNAP cards and school lunches.  In Appalachia, the poor kids ate bugs and chicken feed.  Alcoholic homeless people today get to drink brand name liquor,  MKings dad drank moonshine made from pigshit.

Yup, we need to go back to the good old days when it meant something to be poor.

RE

[RE]

Sometimes an egg is just an egg.

Interesting response.  You have now met our long time Diner Troll, who will no doubt take this opportunity to pontificate on his generally misanthropic POV and worldview.  I'll be interested to see how much patience you have for it.

RE

[TDoS]

Define "sting"?

'We' didn't write this post, you did. And it's pretty clear you thought about it a lot.

I wrote my post. Asking a simple quesiton and then putting a frame of reference of around it. I didn't come up with the idea of somehow being poor comes with a "sting" to it, only asked, and to some extent answered, what someone might think that is.

You just don't know what to do about it (for good reason) and rationalise that impotence into some kind of special superpower that you imagine wielding over people who 'don't know what poor is'.

Oh, I know what to do about it. And then did it. Solving current "poverty" (as you didn't answer what the sting of it was about, to you) might need to involve a serious redistribution of American wealth with the controls necessary to make it work. Not popular among the oligarchs.

Special superpower? Is that what people who survived being born into poverty have? You might have to elaborate on that one.

Which is patent bullshit.

Good thing it wasn't my idea then. Any reason you would suppose poverty is a special superpower and then blame me for it being bullshit? It was your idea.

I think collapse is just the result of humans being human...... 

There is no innate human nature. If there were, the earliest modern humans woulda created and destroyed industrial civ tens of thousands of years ago. The conditions and processes of social organization which led to surplus accumulating slave society, the one we inhabit, are also the ones that created the potential for a universal humanity. But just because something can happen doesn't mean it will. Just because eggs can lead to chickens doesn't mean they always do. Sometimes an egg is just an egg.

So no innate human nature is quantified by what we ultimately became and are? Cool. Sounds same as innate to me. Collapse is also part of the consequences of that innate human nature.

[Knarf]

A related question that could be pondered is it's opposite, or what makes us unhappy, especially in 2024 which factors seem to be increasing, causing increased unhappiness.
 
  There is a significant amount of economic uncertainty and financial instability, especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Increased homelessness, going further into debt, and fear of not having a sustainable life.

There is a large increase in social isolation and loneliness, which have been exacerbated by the shift towards remote work and social distancing measures. K-Dog has nailed this one down.

There is constant political polarization and increasing civil unrest, that create feelings of anxiety, fear, and division. This makes any "future" for us very suspect.

Then there is environmental concerns, such as the climate crisis and natural disasters, which can lead to feelings of helplessness and despair, because it is causing such major issues with all of life's sustainable aspects. See Maslow's pyramid of human necessities for happiness. Food and shelter being first.

  Which brings us to unhappiness which makes us unhappy, or mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety, which affects anyone regardless of their circumstances.

As resource depletion continues at a rapid pace, the general atmosphere of living for the majority of humanity is very uncertain. The volatility index is very high.

[TDoS]

A related question that could be pondered is it's opposite, or what makes us unhappy, especially in 2024 which factors seem to be increasing, causing increased unhappiness.

And the definitions of those factors, be they "unhappy" or "happy". To some, food on table twice a day is a happy factor. To others, eating out twice a day at nice restaurants is happy, bologna sandwichs unthinkable, and if the personal chef doesn't show up at least twice a week, they are miserable.
Relative terms make the measurements sketchy without a bunch of definitions and explanations in advance of the question, and that is before screening out natural bias, or physical bias, or socio-economic bias.

There is a significant amount of economic uncertainty and financial instability, especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Increased homelessness, going further into debt, and fear of not having a sustainable life.

Or fear of not sustainable their once "fine" life. Times of change, regardless of why, generate uncertainty among the populace, and no one likes change. People suffer fear of the unknown no different than the cavemen did. There is some innate stuff right there.

There is a large increase in social isolation and loneliness, which have been exacerbated by the shift towards remote work and social distancing measures. K-Dog has nailed this one down.
There is constant political polarization and increasing civil unrest, that create feelings of anxiety, fear, and division. This makes any "future" for us very suspect.
Then there is environmental concerns, such as the climate crisis and natural disasters, which can lead to feelings of helplessness and despair, because it is causing such major issues with all of life's sustainable aspects. See Maslow's pyramid of human necessities for happiness. Food and shelter being first.

There is certainly change in the air. Concerns. And I agree with Maslow! The food part of those necessities was occasionally dodgy when I was young, never thought of it as unhappy though? More like....desperate? Hungry...which taught its own lessons, mostly had a roof over my head though except with I was homeless for about 4 months once. But that was more of a plan, rather than some weird combination of circumstances that just landed me on the street.

Which brings us to unhappiness which makes us unhappy, or mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety, which affects anyone regardless of their circumstances.

As resource depletion continues at a rapid pace, the general atmosphere of living for the majority of humanity is very uncertain. The volatility index is very high.

All of which is true. But another dynamic, particularly on this website, is we all appear to be old. And I never hear about fears discussed in terms of fears for our children? We aren't a sample size of much of anything representative of the world nowadays maybe? Raised in different eras, with different fears, and some of us with obvious predilections and irritations because "I want my end times and I want them now!" has been a mantra going back into the last century.

[K-Dog]

There is no innate human nature. If there were, the earliest modern humans woulda created and destroyed industrial civ tens of thousands of years ago. The conditions and processes of social organization which led to surplus accumulating slave society, the one we inhabit, are also the ones that created the potential for a universal humanity. But just because something can happen doesn't mean it will. Just because eggs can lead to chickens doesn't mean they always do. Sometimes an egg is just an egg.

The problems are.  For one not, everyone is the same and that by itself nullifies the innate nature claim.  In the same circumstances one person thrives and another becomes a misfit.  The only thing innate here are the differences.

The biggest problem I have with this conservative defeatist attitude is.  Ok if there actually is innate human nature, what is it?

Society changes people.  What is 'innate' in one society is different than what is 'innate' in another.  Fish can't see the water they swim in, and humans can't know what innate  nature is.  Society changes who we think we are in ways that we can't explain.  What people call innate in their social sea is indistinguishable from what social conditioning has created in them.  Swimming in the 'sea' there is no way to tell the difference.

Years ago John Michael Greer introduced the idea of 'thought-stopper'.  Greer described the idea as statements or thoughts that stop people from talking about things. 

I realized the concept has greater significance.  Some more than others, brains are thinking and consuming resources.  Sugar specifically.  An unsolved problem consumes a lot of resources, and a half-assed solution to a problem can pass for a satisfactory solution to stop thinking which is not reaching conclusion.  Thinking which is consuming energy for no good reason.

Saying something is 'human nature' is one of the most effective thought-stoppers out there.  Right up, there with the world is always changing.  The amount of drugs I would have to consume to make 'the world is always changing' or 'It's just human nature' sound profound would make me very sick.

[RE]

We aren't a sample size of much of anything representative of the world nowadays maybe?

Given the aging demographics globally, actually we are fairly representative of the world at large.  The percentage of seniors populating all the industrialized countries is increasing in tandem with the falling birthrate.  We also have Monsta and NF from Gen x & Gen Y I think and Cam who is a millenial though haven't heard from him in a while.  Also, not only our own perspectives are discussed here, recently I posted an article about the overtones of doom running through the Millenial sub-Reddit.  Collapse is definitely not isolated to old folks with their individual collapse issues.  Most of the 1000s of Homo Saps populating the refugee camps at the Mexican border are Gen z & Millenial and their kids, who are Generation Alpha.  Obviously since none are members yet we only hear their perspectives in the articles and videos we put up for discussion, but I think most of us are capable of empathizing, though not all of us are capable of that I am aware also.

So, while it's true that there are aspects of collapse that are subjective and age does play a part in how you see things,  I don't see that as a huge issue here for most of us.  I may not think quite as fast as I used to, but the direction of my thinking today is not that much different than when I was younger.  The problems I have have changed, but so have the problems of the world around us.  You adapt.

RE

[TDoS]

I wrote my post. Asking a simple quesiton and then putting a frame of reference of around it. I didn't come up with the idea of somehow being poor comes with a "sting" to it, only asked, and to some extent answered, what someone might think that is.

I get it, you're a troll whose idea of a conversation appears to be preschool tier 'no i said that you cant say that' word salad diaper tantrum. RE noted this and also wondered how long I could tolerate interacting with you. I can answer him right now.

RE called me a troll decades ago for informing his old website and others at peakoil.com that peak oil in that timeframe was a crock. So sure, if "troll" in his world equates to "capable of precognitive smarts beyond the pale on this topic", okay.

All I did was lay out my version of "sting". And ask what yours might be. Do you not know, or are we supposed to guess?

[RE]

e a troll decades ago for informing his old website and others at peakoil.com that peak oil in that timeframe was a crock.

Nonsense.  I identified you as a troll because of your behavior, not your choice of subject matter.  You have a single topic you drop in on and post endless repetitive bullshit on while claiming to be a world class expert who won't identify himself while simultaneously dismissing as idiots any number of other people  in a list so long I can't remember all the names who have published material he doesn't agree with.  Hubbert is only one of this list.

Besides using appeal to authority as his primary gimmick and self justification in arguments, he's an insulting, self important, narcissistic and misanthropic braggart whose only excuse for living is that he's inbred Appalachian white trash who was repeatedly beaten with a tire iron by his father for raping his sister before dad took his turn after he got home from work at the coal mine.

His role here on the Diner is the Dog we keep around to kick because he loves any attention he can get and he's a really easy target.   He's totally predictable and can be relied on to drop in and demonstrate hisutter lack of understanding of concepts outside his own narrow specialty, which whether he's right or wrong makes absolutely zero difference to how collapse is progressing along.  He's a broken record with a track that started skipping back in 2006 and keeps playing the same 3 bars of music over and over again.

When I get bored enough of kicking him, I'll delete his posting or give him another ban to cool his heels for a while and come up with a better purpose for living than to troll a website that has close to zero people who read it and of those who do, each and every one of them thinks he's a complete asshole.  Unfortunately, he's like Cool Hand Luke, and no matter how many times you beat on him, he never gets the message.

RE