<And some (natural gas) answers are expensive The Oil Drum DrumBeat: July 9, 2008>

61 comments on TED: Dan Gilbert: Why are we happy? Why aren't we happy?

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Kiashu on July 9, 2008 - 1:56am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Or it could be that you're in denial... about human nature.

Those are the results of their surveys. People have a sort of natural level of happiness they gravitate to as individuals. If you're a miserable bugger, you'll be a miserable bugger no matter what; if you're a cheery chappy, you'll be a cheery chappy no matter what. Events may make you leap up or plunge down for a short while, but a year or so later you'll have drifted back to your natural level of happiness.

You can disbelieve it if you like but that's the observation of generations of counsellors, the results of heaps of studies, and so on. Each of us has an individual nature, and we follow it.

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BrianT on July 9, 2008 - 6:39am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

To a certain extent, but these studies are flawed if their representations are as simple as you state. Other stats show that suicide rates are different at different ages-highest for old white men. IMO nursing homes and senior residences have a level of visceral unhappiness that to a certain extent brings his lecture into question. I have met a few really miserable buggers, and IMO they don't age well-they have a lot more to be bitter about.

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step back on July 9, 2008 - 8:16am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Good point. If someone is of poor health & in constant pain, it's kind of hard for the happiness synthesizing part of the brain to make the real pain go away.

There's a point where reality trumps our virtual synthesized lives.

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Kiashu on July 9, 2008 - 9:40am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Wel, he's not saying that your happiness never changes, merely that the big things we seek and fear don't have the lasting effect we expect.

I don't know of studies of it, but my feeling is that as people get older, their minor personality traits get squeezed out by their major ones, which grow.

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BrianT on July 9, 2008 - 9:49am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

It is funny-the guy reminded me of one of those techno cornucopians who advocate paving over the rain forest to make a huge parking lot. What he totally misses is that although brain chemistry can be altered, we are social creatures and dependent on and affected by our environment to a great deal. Happiness is less prevalent in some crack ridden neighbourhood in Motown than it is in Waikiki, which makes it easier for the average person to be happy in the happier vibe place. We don't stand alone no matter what his "studies" say.

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LoveOregon on July 9, 2008 - 1:23pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

People tend to "revert to type", as my grandmother used to say.

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710 on July 9, 2008 - 10:11am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Suggesting that people have a natural level of happiness toward which they gravitate is missing the elephant in the room: the surrounding environment.

You don't "gravitate" toward anything unless there is a massive force, like gravity, which externally attracts you there.

How can someone be a miserable bugger unless there is something external about which to be miserable? I find the prospect of die-off and ecological destruction miserable, real but miserable. I don't find eating chocolate, walking on sunny days, or watching pretty women to be miserable.

It's almost like saying people have a natural level of hunger that they reach, when you are ignorant of how much food they eat. Are starving people at a satiety equilibrium?

How many previous cheery chaps were singing in the streets of Hiroshima or Nagasaki after the bombs were dropped?

Was the last Native American in a tribe to survive smallpox-ridden blankets laughing as he gasped his last breath?

"Human nature" does not exist independently of the surrounding environment.

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61 comments on TED: Dan Gilbert: Why are we happy? Why aren't we happy?

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