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jaim38

Well-known member
Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice | Video on TED.com!

Very interesting talk. I never thought of choice as a bad thing, until I came across this.
He talked about depression and suicide:

Clinical depression has exploded in the industrial world in the last generation. I believe a significant -- not the only, but a significant -- contributor to this explosion of depression, and also suicide, is that people have experiences that are disappointing because their standards are so high, and then when they have to explain these experiences to themselves, they think they're at fault. And so the net result is that we do better in general, objectively, and we feel worse. So let me remind you. This is the official dogma, the one that we all take to be true, and it's all false. It is not true. There's no question that some choice is better than none, but it doesn't follow from that that more choice is better than some choice. There's some magical amount. I don't know what it is. I'm pretty confident that we have long since passed the point where options improve our welfare.
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Very well stated. I think he's onto something about our society.

Barry and I came to the same conclusion: that having low expectations makes us happier. He mentions he could have done better in terms of finding a partner or getting a new pair of jeans, but he's satisfied/thankful for what he has currently. So gratitude and low expectations makes for happier lives in a society that has so many choices to choose from?

In a world of unlimited resources, having more choices might make one happier, but of course that's not the case. We have to make tradeoffs for everything that we do.
 
awkwardamanda

awkwardamanda

Well-known member
theslowesthand said:
I now recall last week a thread i was "watching" just disappeared .. can't recall what it was. And like you, i had no idea why it was deleted. Another possibility is that the poster of the thread deleted it - they have thier own idiosyncratic reasons for doing so.

Oh yes, with google, you have to find the cache of the page (try clicking the down arrow at the right of site's address .. should pop-uip with mini sub-menu containing "Cached .. Similar .. Shared" --> click on "Cached")

Edit: Found the thread that disappeared. It was Religion yes i went there (this was the original page address, with approx title; now it no longer exists, nor could i find it in google's cache at the time, possibly due to being only a day or so old)
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I was referring to a different thread but it has since reappeared. I have no idea whether it was undeleted or there was some sort of glitch or what the hell.
 
hoddesdon

hoddesdon

Well-known member
^ Actually, I did too.

If our friend Mr Abbott wins as expected, that means the barbarians are back and a Neanderthal as Prime Minister.
 
hidwell

hidwell

Well-known member
BlueDays said:
^ I know he often does not seem like the Rhodes Scholar who studied at Oxford that he is, but "Neanderthal" is a bit harsh, hoddesdon.
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The best name for Tony Abbott is the 'Mad Monk" because he obviously belongs in the middle ages.
 
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