quote:I disagree. I think they're an entirely separate and altogether less serious category of problem.
I think you're marginalizing them, in essence saying, "My problems are more important that everyone else's, and that's final."
Of course, it's normal to feel that way, which is why there'll never be agreement on this issue. But I'd like to hear the standard by which you judge problems to ascertain their seriousness.
(sorry for bombarding you with 5 dollar words, but I'm practicing the 'use it or lose it' method of vocabulary building)
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:I think they're an entirely separate and altogether less serious category of problem.
And that's where I'll disagree. I wouldn't call it less serious. I'm not sure that there is a single metric where you can appropriately measure which problems are more or less serious. I will say that they are different in quality.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
If you told the average subsistence farmer that they could have a 1 bedroom apartment for them and their 4 kids, their kids could have free school, each parent would have to work 60 hours a week inside, and very basic medical care (emergency care, vaccines, etc.), and everyone could have 2000 calories or so a day, they might think all their "real" problems would be solved, too.
Yet, lots of people in that situation have a lot of "real" problems.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I think its just plain stupid that only problems fixable with money are "real" problems.
Say the thing in the world you most want to do is raise children.
You give birth to two children, and one day you are driving in a car with them, and you get in an accident. You are paralyzed from the waste down, and your two children die, one instantly, and one slowly and painfully while in a coma.
You get depressed, gain weight, your husband leaves you for another woman, and you die alone and miserable.
But none of those problems were "real", because you had a million dollars in the bank.
Tom, you may not be rich, but there are many many millionaires who would look at your loving wife and young child and trade places with you in a second.
Money does NOT equal happiness. Having enough money does, however, make happiness a lot easier to obtain than when you have very little.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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quote:Will you concede that it is HARDER to be happy in times of difficulty, or are you confident that happiness is simply a state of mind independent of condition or environment?
I'm saying that most of the problems that many people believe money can solve, beyond basic necessities, have no bearing on happiness.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:I think it creates a scapegoat that allows people to avoid the real problem. Oh, I'm not satisfied with my life? Obviously, it's because I'm not making enough money. I'm unsuccessful in relationships? I don't make enough money to attract the "right" kind of person.
I think this type of thinking (since we're generalizing here) is sometimes a way of expressing classism and trying to keep people in their place. "See, it's not really a bad thing that I've got gobs and gobs more money than you, because money isn't really important to you and your life."
I'm not speaking specifically to you here pH, so please don't take it that way. But this mindset is one I've seen many times, and I have in fact lived both lifestyles. The lifestyle of having parents provide everything including great luxury, and the lifestyle of being dirt-poor. I've experienced the one much more than the other, but even a brief time was enough to reassure me of something I already knew and have already said here: it's not money that's important, it's the lack of it.
I agree with Tom. By and large emotional and social disorders are problems people are forced to deal with once they're actually higher up on that hierarchy of needs, somewhere above "food, shelter" and other such things. By and large, though, because there are always exceptions. Those problems can (and frequently are) severe enough that even the desperately poor are crippled by them while searching for food and shelter. Many homeless people, for example.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:I specifically noted illness and violence as exceptions
Yeah, I guess you did.
Well, ignoring the more extreme parts of my scenario, would you claim that having your husband leave you for another woman is not a "real" problem?
Or your children hating you? Or having one of your children turn into a rotten person? Things of this nature?
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
Here's another thing: while I'm basically talking about "hierarchy of needs" stuff, there's something else important I think a lot of people overlook.
Time. It's the single most important currency we have. It's the ONLY real currency.
Everything you own, everything you do, can be concretely measured in how much of your life is spent achieving that desire.
Once you get beyond the meeting of basic survival needs, the primary constructive function of money is (IMO) to save time. If you spend all your time making money, you're not gaining much -- unless your wealth allows your family to have more time, in which case you're sacrificing on their behalf.
Now, I know there are little bells and whistles above and beyond this which ALSO come with money -- like the possession of higher-quality goods and the assumption of status -- but the key advantage is that money permits you, if you choose, to have more time in your life. You can trade that time BACK for money (if you want those bells and whistles, for example), but the far wiser plan is Xavier's: to be comfortable, stable, and completely on your own schedule.
I've never said that money can buy happiness. But I believe that TIME is an enormous component of happiness, and money can to a limited extent buy time.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote: Those problems can (and frequently are) severe enough that even the desperately poor are crippled by them while searching for food and shelter. Many homeless people, for example.
I don't think there's any can or frequently about it. I think that not having enough money for things like food and shelter dramatically increases the emotional and social problems that people have. That kind of stress invades all areas of your life. I don't think that being poor is an added problem to a person's issues, it is a multipier. Any problems you have become much, much worse. Having money isn't going to make you happy, but I think it will certainly make you happier than not/barely getting by.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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quote: Emotional problems, as far as I'm concerned, aren't even on the MAP. Those are the problems you play with when you don't have to worry about the real issues.
Emotional problems such as depression, or suicidal thoughts? Would you characterize that as an illness, or merely as an emotional problem? I for one come from a family that is fairly well-off, and yet the majority of my family has been depressed for years. My father went from holding three jobs as a teenager to pay for milk money, to a corporate CEO that can afford to give his family what they need. This made him no happier. And I would think it is unjust to say that his problems are no less real than not having money.
I'm not saying that being poor isn't a problem. I'm not saying that it's not easier when you don't have to worry about scrounging for cash every day in order to feed your family. But I don't think that emotional problems should be discounted as something that "you play with when you don't have to worry about the real issues." Depression is a huge problem, in my book. It always has, and it always will be.
Posts: 1789 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
There is a difference between having money in the abstract and contextually:
Being able to provide for all you/your family's needs is certainly a wonderful thing and the absence or not certainty of that is stressful (especially with legal implications such as debt). If you can provide, in theory, with a little extra to spare, you don't have 'money problems'.
Yet there is also the element of class which I think is crucial. I am reading a book called the Overspent American and it talks about how Americans not only feel like they must provide, but also 'keep up with the Jones' or, ideally move up the social laddder.
This is in no way original, but according to the book, the average salary most people BELIEVE they need is around 100,000-200,000 a year. This huge disparity from the average, in an age where most supplies can be purchased at a relatively low cost thanks to mass production, shows that the desire for status symbols and material goods fuel this monetary anxiety.
Essentially, even if you do have enough money, it doesn't FEEL like you do. So money doesn't buy happiness.
Ehat I am saying is that even if the pure money woes aren't there, there is a whole bunch of comparisons to the majority/your social group/other social groups which dictates a conception of finances which may be stressful and feel like real money problems.
reason for edit: 8 hours of classes=mind goes *poof*
Posts: 484 | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
Kristin, I would largely agree with you. I think that people tend to establish their fixed costs at very high levels in order maintain the lifestyle they desire. But it seems that you're suggesting that can't constitute a real money problem. If you can't make your bills each month, then you have real money issues. The threat of losing your house, even if is $300,000, is a very real money problem. The solution to this is to not take on more fixed costs than you can easily pay, but that advice isn't very helpful when you're choosing between paying the electric bill and buying groceries.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Amanecer, yes true. Good clarification, my brain is fried after school. Status/class anxiety can directly cause real, as well as perceived, money problems. Overspending is as valid a contributor to financial problems as a lack of sufficient income.
I'm just saying, even if you were rich, much of the social problems of not having enough money would still exist, either in order to keep up in terms of status or would persistent in other less related realms (like oh, the need to turn your forehead into a botulism experiment to look young). Of course you wouldn't fear not being able to pay the morgage next month, but I don't think an absence of SOME problems necessarily means happiness, as much I would like to think if I lost 10 pounds my life would be shiny and fun.
Posts: 484 | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
-Money equals security. Which is why I keep hoping to get more, for at least the illusion of security. As I feel so insecure these days... Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Yeah, I'm one of those people that are prejudiced against rich people even though compared with a lot of people I am "rich". I am envious of those people that have all that money that they can worry about trivial problems like they didn't get the beemer their parents promised them, when my problems would be that I was sick and couldn't work last week so how am I going to get the money to pay the rent? So yeah I can be a tad sarcastic about people telling me about those sorts of problems.
And if your parents didn't give you a beemer when they promised it, get over it!!!It is just one broken promise of many that you will have broken in a lifetime and in this case it's not even that important. The parents probably had a good reason, ever think of that(like wanting to teach them a lesson about not taking the money for granted...)!
BUT,
Having said that, if I did have that kind of money then hell yeah I will be buying a beemer and all sorts of luxuries that go with that sort of money.
Posts: 315 | Registered: Jun 2002
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posted
Yep. That's one of the reasons I find MMORPGs completely unfulfilling as games. And playing a MMORPG or two actually helped me recognize the importance of time as currency in any environment where all else is held or assumed to be equal. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Yep. That's one of the reasons I find MMORPGs completely unfulfilling as games. And playing a MMORPG or two actually helped me recognize the importance of time as currency in any environment where all else is held or assumed to be equal.
You recognized the value of your time by wasting it playing a video game?
(says the college student at 4am on a thursday)
J/k Tom, I like video games too. My roomate got Godfather this week, I'm an addict already. It was 35 bucks at Costco, that's just an offer you can't refuse.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote: You recognized the value of your time by wasting it playing a video game?
Yes. It's because video games make transparent the connection between time spent on an activity and achievement at that activity. By default, in a MMORPG, if you spend time doing something -- even if you die, a temporary setback -- you get better at it. Period.
This link is not quite as obvious in the real world, so we don't usually say "well, I COULD go to Hatrack and farm my typing speed for the next hour -- but I really need another point or two of Strength, so I'm going to work out instead."
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Part of the problem is tha IRL, you lose things if they aren't maintained. Is it worth it for me to do some strength training today if I don't think I'll do it again for six months?
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Extending that analogy, is it worth it for me to stay strong now when I know I'll lose that strength in my sixties?
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Reducing ones quality of life to disposable time is flawed for different reasons than reducing ones quality of life to disposable money.
The worth of time is variable in a powerful way. I think that this is why the snooze button is so popular. Two minutes when you are on hold is different than two minutes when you are on a cross country trip, which is different than two minutes when you are swimming.
As an aside, time, as measured precisely by clocks, strikes me as unnecessarily empirical and an unbecoming lord of human affairs.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote: As an aside, time, as measured precisely by clocks, strikes me as unnecessarily empirical and an unbecoming lord of human affairs.
You're an idealist, Irami. Your mind recoils from the thought that comparative utility can be measured by anything other than the finest product of the mind. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Rigourous attention to time has an appropriate place, but I think we have over-prescribed accounting time as a solution to human problems. That mentality bleeds down to the suspect practices of dividing pregnancy into trimesters, college in credit hours, and understanding full citizenship to begin at 18.
Instead of cultivating a thoughtful culture in which every task gets its due, we risk spawning an accounting culture where every job gets a certain allotment of time. The risk, of course, is that we lose the ability to think about the task and determine its due.
Over-prescribing time accounting is similiar to over-prescribing antibiotics or painkillers, to where the body develops a dependency on them and can't do the simplest functions without their influence. This is the case because if a culture of clocks destoys this culture of thought, the culture of clocks becomes required to make sure anything gets done.
just kidding! Your absolutely right. Especially about the college credit hours and the "adult" thing. I am constantly amazed by the energy some students put into gleaning credit points and grades out of their teachers rather than... duh, learning something. I know people who check in at the beginning of class, and check out at the end, and that's it when it comes to participation. there is no being part of the community, no effort to involve yourself in your work, just the bare minimum. Because there's "no-time?"
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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First, to disclose, my Grandfather was a small-time industrialist and efficiency expert, ending up with three smallish brick factories. Not exactly Bill Gates, but rich enough to set up a trust fund for my education.
My parents are both pediatricians, generally the lowest-paid of all doctors, but still an upper middle-class occupation. Their tuition for the first year of medical school was $500, by the second year it was ten times that. Even though that is nothing by today's standards of tuition (this was the late eighties/early nineties) and even though my dad had already worked for ten years, this was a financial strain on them. Thus, I grew up lower middle-class for the first five years of my life (we lived in an ancient duplex until I was three, and then in a KB Homes equivalent neighborhood until I was eight.)
I was and am poorer of the rich children at my prep school, while many of my friends live in haciendas and gothic mansions, I live in a nice largish cottage-type house in a less than fashionable suburb. I do not have a car, and this is not just because I can't drive, but am in the amiable position of not having to work until I graduate from college and of being unlikely to have a great debt.
However, I would like to move back to my parent's tuition for med school. It cost $100,000 then to educate a doctor, with the $80,000 being paid by the State of Texas. Why? Because Texas, not known as a bastion of Socialism, realized the value of doctors in the state. The only requirement was that each graduate do some work for the government, almost always in a military hospital, this being San Antonio.
Would not our society be better if the state were willing to invest in students this way more often? Education is an investment, and generally a profitable one, not a charity.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Vonk: i'm not rich, but my parents do have enough money to send me to school. what should i have done? said, no thanks mom, i'd rather pay for school myself. no thanks dad, i really didn't want a car, i'll take the bus. like anyone is gonna do that.
Erm. I did. I took the "free" ride for a year, dropped out of college, started a business, paid off the $30,000 in student loans, saved enough money to complete the rest of my education over the next two years, and refused my parents attempting to buy me a car.
I still take the bus.
It's the attitude of entitlement, rather than Rich Kid status, that irritates most people.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
I'd agree with erosomaniac. It may or may not be a morally superior position, but when people complain about not getting ENOUGH free stuff handed to them, it's pretty grating on people who work their butt off.
If someone tells a drowning man that she's SO frustrated that his splashing has ruined her expensive leather shoes, you can't expect him to feel to bad for her terrible situation.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
Well, they were awfully nice shoes. Jimmy Choos. My space pony gave them to me.
But seriously - look how rational everyone's being! And articulate! It warms the cockles of my heart.
I'm a closet socialist, I'd like to see everyone receiving health care and food and some kind of roof over their heads. Free plastic surgery which is non-reconstructive and especially nice accomodations - no. But health care? And food? And shelter? Yes.
posted
I don't know if the term, "Spoiled Brat" is one that people tend to throw around all that much. What I mean is that if you call someone a butthole, they may or may not actually be one, maybe you're just upset or they did something that upset you. I can't think of a lot of times that someone has been called a spoiled brat when they have not been acting like one. I suppose the real trick is not to act like a spoiled brat.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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You've mentioned a few times that you started your own business- a pretty cool thing to do. You've probably said what it was before and I missed it, but what does the business that you started do?
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:It's the attitude of entitlement, rather than Rich Kid status, that irritates most people.
Amen, brother. If I could sum up in one word what's wrong with America today, it would be that word: entitlement.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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