Explorations of the Mind: Well-Being with Daniel Kahneman

[@barrymcmahon905]

The thing I really like about Kahneman as compared to other popular psychologists that I can think of (and see in the sidebar) is that he seems to be slower and more careful in drawing conclusions. It seems to me that this is far closer to a scientific approach than many self proclaimed 'scientific' psychologists out there who seem to think they have to know the important answers to be considered good psychologists.

[@tcpaa]

The mind is such a complex thing to analyze and look at. It's pretty great to watch a Nobel Prize winner talk as an added bonus.

[@sketchywilly]

Here's a potential explanation: I've seen some papers that suggest that highly successful people tend to have certain personal qualities that make them prone to higher levels of stress (and other problems). As history progresses, perhaps we ALL become more like those successful but troubled people. So perhaps its just that we are ALL increasingly stressed as we get better at acquiring wealth - this results in lower happiness as wealth goes up.

[@tracik1277]

William Chee When you don’t have something you can always look forward to getting it; when you have it, not only can you no longer look forward to getting it,but you have to safeguard losing it.

[@AnHebrewChild]

Traci K A timeless principle, and very well stated. Or, one might say, restated; _When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes? The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep._

[@marileesteele1804]

Problem is the category language or definition of “highly successful” -. impossibly subjective, he concedes, composition of much of talk today. It means nothing, an imagined fantasy in the individual’s mind, a narrative peppered with anecdotal evidence or examples, highly imperfect measures not adequate for data analysis. Use money, a house, what you spend, your job if you must work, income stream, or ownership of property, etc., etc. Categories help humans imagine order amid randomness of all experience which is highly faulty when assumed from memory. One individual brain is not equipped to sort the information data we must navigate to live, hence we need means to create our own individual self algorithm to help us filter out the avalanche of noise - to truly become curator of self. Most algorithms exists as an attempt to sell us beliefs in systems that exist on very shaky ground (some would say nefariously fraudulent). With income inequality growing as fast as CO2 in the atmosphere, most in poverity & unable to have stable shelter & nutrition, how can we focus on happiness except for those who can buy clean air, water, soil and land that resembles what was familiarly natural in our past?

[@weestro7]

Is the Easterlin paradox somewhat explained by the fact that income inequality has grown a great deal since the 1970s? So if only a small fraction of the population grows more and more rich, boosting GDP overall, the fraction of all people who are very happy would not be influenced. In fact, people may become discouraged in a highly stratified society.

[@boiledelephant]

I'd like to know how awareness of other nations affects those last statistics, for example societies with very little cultural exchange, global communications and visible presence of foreign cultures in their country vs. those with very high cultural exchange and a high routine awareness of other cultures. It's plausible that the low experienced well-being in pakistan actually came about with globalization and the common awareness that they're economically lower on the global scale.

[@inertialcapacity]

The cause of personal unhappiness is the deperate hurry to be happy. Therefore happiness is the cause of unhappiness. If there are three steps to the ultimate goal, the unhappiest person will strive for the goal in a hurry and thereby neglect the full completion of steps one and two. Thus we can see the correct behaviour that leads to obtaining a goal with satisfaction is like a pyramid in 3 parts: one at the bottom, step two above and then three the tiny pinnacle.

[@kitcat6053]

Being religious won't make you happier. Knowing something is better than believe in something.

[@bhuvaneshwarjoshi3683]

The results are greatly influenced by the design of test and questionnaire we choose,besides the sample size being representative.Finally percentage comparisions (favourate of U S researchers) d be the last straw on camels back.Todays more direct coghitive tests of human brain responses pe4haps reduce the relisbility of results or find8ngs.

[@marileesteele1804]

Craving simplicity of past. Highly consolidated & haphazardly regulated systems of control (requires faith in laws, definition & distribution of wealth by a government) of food, health & care, air & water quality, waste disposal, land &; resources, roads & transportation, etc. No one individual (or group) can navigate the choices required to live without massive resources for support of specialists deployed within these impossibly outmoded, complex systems. There is very little we can do or know to educate ourselves to freedom from the choas of existence of consolidated control over our daily lives. The only truths are stability of currency & money, GDP expansion, daily worship of the stock market, accumulation of land & property. Makes dictatorship ripe when fraud, colllapse & chaos reign.

[@samu141082]

someone sad it's common sense. Why common sense is not used and people is considered as a robot in some sciences? Great presentation for public domain