i would like to believe in god because i'd like to think someone gives a shit

[apiphile]

I suppose at least all my frustration at feeling so comprehensively STUCK (weight, transition, employment, the trifecta of "things I have no fucking control over") is being channelled into lengthy and dramatic updates to the book, and now that I have my fitbit replaced can be supplemented with angry purposeful walks around the disgusting winter

Comments

[wolfy_writing]

Not being able to take a bath or get hot food makes everything worse. Even in warm climates, when I couldn't get a bath I'd be completely irritable and gross-feeling all day, and when it's cold out? So much suck.

That's an interesting plan. I've heard that in the most socially functioning countries, the rich make something like 20 times as much as the poor. Also, a study I read on the correlation between money and happiness said that in the US, more money correlates with more happiness up to about 100,000 dollars a year, and after that, it doesn't actually seem to have an impact. (There's a trade-off where having to wait and work for stuff that genuinely is a luxury makes you enjoy it more, but the same doesn't apply for stuff like necessities or financial security.) So there's a lot of potential benefits for having basically everyone on a scale from "Getting by" to "comfortably well-off".

[apiphile]

ENTIRELY SUCK.

Well that scale was the one proposed by Orwell and in this matter (as in his descriptions of effective writing) I agree with him entirely. You need to have a scale by which people can aspire to something greater - and I read the same thing you did about the cut-off point of money/happiness, I think.

[wolfy_writing]

I think it'd be interesting to research what the optimal ratio was, but the basic idea is really good. If everything's doled out on a precisely equal level, that's bland and discouraging, but at the same time, we don't need ultra-wealth and abject poverty.

[apiphile]

Exactly, one of the counterarguments to flat communism has been that people have an instinct to strive to be better than their neighbours. Personally I think that attainment doesn't necessarily need to be financial, it could be spiritual or power but this does away with the financial concern anyway!

[wolfy_writing]

Yeah, people want to compete and one-up other people, and while money isn't the only way of doing that, it's likely to remain a major one. (It's readily quantifiable, and connected with access to a wide variety of material goods.) But you can moderate financial competition without resorting to North Korea-style "Here is your government-issue food, clothing, and home. If you want a television, please apply to your neighborhood committee."

[apiphile]

Precisely!