I have been doing some research lately into the Aristotelian ethics, so thanks for the additional sources of reading material!

>> ^Ariane:

I agree with what she is saying totally, and the scientists and researchers in "Positive Psychology" would agree. We have been led to believe that having a positive attitude will bring about positive change and there is no data to support that. Its a lie started in American theology called the "prosperity doctrine" and then secularized and adapted by the new agers.
If you want to learn what will really make us happy, start with Dan Gilbert, then move on to Dr Barry Schwartz and Dan Pink, and Carol Ryff. Their seemingly strange conclusions about what makes us really happy are backed up by scientific research. The conclusion that they draw is that the whole "American Dream" is a piece of fiction that will ultimately lead to misery.
What we need is a "meaningful purpose", and we need to work with others on that purpose. Our endeavors do not even have to succeed, as long as our purpose is clearly defined, we are able to see progress, and there is some hope for success, it will lead us to eudaemonia as Aristotle called it or lasting "well-being" and contentment.

This is what i was thinking.



>> ^messenger:

Dan Gilbert doesn't understand Daniel Bernoulli's theory. He has over simplified it and removed the value of expected utility. Poor people make much better usage out of a lottery winning than rich people do. This utility value has to be factored into any equation placing a value judgment on an investment, even a lottery ticket.
When Dan insults lottery players, from a strictly numbers point of view, he's right, of course, but playing the lottery is not a strictly numbers kind of game; it's about utility. He doesn't take into account the actual value of winning and losing to the people who play.
Here's a demonstration of the difference utility adds to the simplistic equation of expected value:
You bet on a coin toss against an outstandingly wealthy opponent. If you win, your opponent will instantly triple your net worth, including your cash, assets, and salary. If you lose, you lose everything, including your job and employability.
The odds of winning are .5, and the reward is 3. Multiply these together, and you get 1.5, which means that you are getting 2:1 on your money. Looks good on paper. But of course not even economists would play this game --not even if the reward were raised to x10 or x100-- because the consequence of losing everything, though less in monetary value than the reward, is unthinkable, even compared to the relative gains from having x100 your wealth. The expected utility to you of your first "net worth" far exceeds the utility that the second and third would give you, so it's a bad bet.
Back to the lottery: if you lose a dollar, you don't noticeably lose any economic power, even if you play every week and lose $52/year. In other words, you lose a negligible amount of utility. You may even get $52 worth of enjoyment out of waiting for the results to come up, talking about it and bonding with your pool of coworkers, or daydreaming about the good life and getting distraction from the reality of your trailer park McJob life. But if you win something big, it will instantly end all money troubles for you and your whole family, maybe for generations to come. In other words, massive utility. It's not a stupid decision at all to buy a lottery ticket if you factor in utility.
Edit: Oh, and now that I've actually watched to the end, I see that someone in the Q&A made one of my points, but they both still missed the boat on the strictly financial utility of losing $1 to winning millions when you're poor.

I agree with what she is saying totally, and the scientists and researchers in "Positive Psychology" would agree. We have been led to believe that having a positive attitude will bring about positive change and there is no data to support that. Its a lie started in American theology called the "prosperity doctrine" and then secularized and adapted by the new agers.

If you want to learn what will really make us happy, start with Dan Gilbert, then move on to Dr Barry Schwartz and Dan Pink, and Carol Ryff. Their seemingly strange conclusions about what makes us really happy are backed up by scientific research. The conclusion that they draw is that the whole "American Dream" is a piece of fiction that will ultimately lead to misery.

What we need is a "meaningful purpose", and we need to work with others on that purpose. Our endeavors do not even have to succeed, as long as our purpose is clearly defined, we are able to see progress, and there is some hope for success, it will lead us to eudaemonia as Aristotle called it or lasting "well-being" and contentment.

This video has been declared a duplicate; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof declared by burdturgler.

*dupeof=http://www.videosift.com/video/The-misguided-Pursuit-of-Happiness-Dan-Gilbert-TEDTalks

*dupeof=http://www.videosift.com/video/The-misguided-Pursuit-of-Happiness-Dan-Gilbert-TEDTalks

^We're not talking about the same thing. You're saying in your opinion playing lotteries is detrimental to people's future wellbeing because without it, they might focus on more realistic ways to get out of poverty, like education or a career path whatever. Fair enough. I've got no comment.

I'm saying they're not stupid, which Dan Gilbert asserted. I'm saying that there's valid reasons in those people's minds for playing the lottery, and in terms of Bernoulli's equation (expected utility) as presented in the vid.

Dan Gilbert doesn't understand Daniel Bernoulli's theory. He has over simplified it and removed the value of expected utility. Poor people make much better usage out of a lottery winning than rich people do. This utility value has to be factored into any equation placing a value judgment on an investment, even a lottery ticket.

When Dan insults lottery players, from a strictly numbers point of view, he's right, of course, but playing the lottery is not a strictly numbers kind of game; it's about utility. He doesn't take into account the actual value of winning and losing to the people who play.

Here's a demonstration of the difference utility adds to the simplistic equation of expected value:

You bet on a coin toss against an outstandingly wealthy opponent. If you win, your opponent will instantly triple your net worth, including your cash, assets, and salary. If you lose, you lose everything, including your job and employability.

The odds of winning are .5, and the reward is 3. Multiply these together, and you get 1.5, which means that you are getting 2:1 on your money. Looks good on paper. But of course not even economists would play this game --not even if the reward were raised to x10 or x100-- because the consequence of losing everything, though less in monetary value than the reward, is unthinkable, even compared to the relative gains from having x100 your wealth. The expected utility to you of your first "net worth" far exceeds the utility that the second and third would give you, so it's a bad bet.

Back to the lottery: if you lose a dollar, you don't noticeably lose any economic power, even if you play every week and lose $52/year. In other words, you lose a negligible amount of utility. You may even get $52 worth of enjoyment out of waiting for the results to come up, talking about it and bonding with your pool of coworkers, or daydreaming about the good life and getting distraction from the reality of your trailer park McJob life. But if you win something big, it will instantly end all money troubles for you and your whole family, maybe for generations to come. In other words, massive utility. It's not a stupid decision at all to buy a lottery ticket if you factor in utility.

Edit: Oh, and now that I've actually watched to the end, I see that someone in the Q&A made one of my points, but they both still missed the boat on the strictly financial utility of losing $1 to winning millions when you're poor.

I would recommend reading Daniel C. Dennetts book "Freedom Evolves". Free will is both possible and real, thanks to the evolution of our mental ability to simulate future events based on previous experience. Our will is constrained, of course, but it is free enough to allow for praise and blame in moral terms. I used to be a hard determinist when I studied philosophy, but this book changed my mind (and my life).

Dan Gilbert presents this concept very neatly in this video on happiness and choice from TED Talks:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7822696446273926158&q=ted+talks&total=1146&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=5

Enzoblue, I think his argument is that the singularity advocates are proposing large modifications to humanity based on the assumption that it will amplify every positive aspect of the human condition and stretch it out over eternity. He challenges this assumption through thought experiments that suggest the singularity might not make us happy; in fact it might make us miserable by robbing us of our most cherished sources of transcendence. At the very least, he argues, we don't know what the new human experience might be like after the singularity because it will be so alien to the current human experience.

I don't think he is saying that all advancement should be targeted towards making us happier. But if a piece of technology's appeal is based on its promise to make us happier we should take the time to think through its ramifications (especially in cases like this which can shake everything to the core) because we certainly have difficulty predicting what will make us happy (e.g.,
http://www.videosift.com/video/Malcolm-Gladwell-on-spaghetti-sauce-happiness-TED-talk http://www.videosift.com/video/The-misguided-Pursuit-of-Happiness--Dan-Gilbert-TEDTalks).

He is championing the case for restraint before we smash the atom so to speak. I also think his usage of the word 'happiness' encapsulates more than the pedestrian need to maximize our individual dopamine levels; it also encapsulates notions of transcendence, meaning, altruism to the extent that our selfish genes will allow us to derive happiness from these 'higher' ideals.

Dan Gilbert's TED talk about happines is better IMO

http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=d_gilbert

http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/
For all the other TED talks