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Harrison Bergeron

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Everything posted by Harrison Bergeron

  1. A recent study from the California Institute of Technology (lay explanation here) seems to bear that out: Fear really is contagious, and scientists say having more people around you for support won’t help. So much for “strength in numbers.” Researchers from the California Institute of Technology used a haunted house experience with 17 rooms containing various spooky threats during their experiment. They found people were actually more scared when the group walking through the house was larger. The team also found that their fear built up and increased as people moved from room to room. Scientists say when faced with fear, people are more likely to have a heightened physical response when other people are around. This “phasic effect” involves rapid changes the body experiences as it responds to an event and is more likely to happen when other people are dealing with the same thing. I agree that most people lack the ability to historically or globally contextualize their situations - virtually everyone always thinks of the bigger home than theirs and not the mobile home down the street. However, I would offer we do ourselves no favors by going "Spinal Tap 11" on every issue. At least around politics and culture, every issue seems to be couched as a crisis and risks global thermonuclear war. I agree with you that inequality matters, but I am not sure how much. I did a quick Brave search, and there are some interesting articles: Europe and Americans - In Europe, inequality is a more significant driver of happiness, particularly among the poor and those on the left. In America, inequality's relation to happiness is more a function of being rich and less impactful among the poor. Global Study - Not really sure how to digest the country rankings ... Uzbekistan ranked #1 feels odd. Happiness is not a result of comparison I'm probably wrong, but I think happiness ultimately is a function of looking inward than outward. Suicide rates seem to bear this out, assuming suicide rates are a measure of ultimate unhappiness. There is not a correlation between inequality or economics and rates of suicide ... I'm too tired to Brave it, but I IIRC it actually is the opposite: suicide rates tend to be higher among the wealthy.
  2. There are going to be a thousand boomers trying to figure out how to get their Crazy Horse records to play on The Serious.
  3. So true. In the historical and global context, 2022 America is not a bad place to be for 95% of the population, and for the 5% similar circumstances in most every other place in the world would be exponentially worse. I think there too is something that when there are not real things to worried about - in a historical / global context - we have the free time to contemplate reasons to be miserable, angry, unhappy, etc.
  4. Attempting to be serious ... I hear "executive presence" a lot, which I have always interpreted as "articulate."
  5. That is how I read it. The press release was wonky as it said "first wave," but reading the footnotes it looks like all the exhibits were from that period.
  6. This is me 100%. At least from my lived experience, my most unhappy friends are those that watch cable news daily. CSB Warning:
  7. Butchering the quotation, but I believe a man wiser than me said something like "The problem with the Church is it is run by Christians."
  8. And research has bourn this out: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/31/are-religious-people-happier-healthier-our-new-global-study-explores-this-question/ I think it is fair to say (the prosperity preachers notwithstanding) is that virtually every religion has contentment and a focus on the eternal as key components, and those naturally should impact happiness.
  9. It could be a 1000-page conversation, but I wonder if social media is the cause or a symptom. I certainly do not have an answer just posing the question. I wonder if deeper factors catalyze the effects of social media, and it simply exposes and exacerbates the "root causes." An analogy might be the effect violent video games or music have on violence: is a violent video game going to turn a non-violent person violent or just stoke an already internally violent person to act violently. Again, don't have any answers just asking questions. Of course without question social media enables everyone to feed those particular addictions (anger, jealousy, lust, envy, etc.).
  10. I also think it is impacted by both the decline of religion in the U.S. as well as for many its being replaced by politics, and some approach politics and culture war crap with the fundamentalist fervor frequently found among some religious groups. The tone of conversations have shifted from a discussion of policy differences to some type of mythological struggle between good and evil, life and death, light and dark where every question or disagreement is an existential threat.
  11. Snyder should have trolled the world and gone with Washington Wetbacks.
  12. I glanced but did not see any demographic information of much detail. Survey were done in English and Spanish, but I did not see a bunch of detail on age, HHI, or other demographics.
  13. University of Chicago annual report on American happiness: In the midst of the coronavirus outbreak, the public’s happiness is at a five-decade low despite most Americans being satisfied with their financial situation, according to a new survey from NORC at the University of Chicago. The study highlights how Americans’ outlook and emotional health compare to nearly 50 years of trends in public opinion data from the General Social Survey (GSS), an ongoing project which NORC has conducted since 1972. The historical context reveals unique impacts of the outbreak on public sentiment: An all-time low in people saying they are very happy (14%), combined with an all-time high in people saying they are satisfied with their family’s financial situation (80%). These contrasting findings suggest that people are comparing their happiness to their own psychological well-being before the pandemic while assessing their finances in relation to the millions of fellow Americans who have lost jobs, wages, or investments following the outbreak. The results also illustrate how Americans are reacting differently to the coronavirus pandemic compared to previous national tragedies. For example, fewer Americans report crying or feeling dazed than after either the John F. Kennedy assassination in 1963, or the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001—but more report having lost their temper or feeling bored during the pandemic.
  14. Washington Welfares alliterates and works on myriad levels.
  15. I think the argument can be made that high school recruiting is barely relevant these days. Why spend a bunch of time and energy on a 17/18-year-old, unproven kid when you can get a freshmen or sophomore with a couple years experience, in the weight room, maturity, etc. That's what's so funny about aggy acting like it won the NC and printing recruiting shirts ... odds are 50% of that class is gone before they hit the field.
  16. I am in for the Stingray spinoff ... he opens Cobrai Kai Katy and shenanigans ensue.
  17. If you want to wasted 10 minutes, here is a good interview with some of the key players: https://www.si.com/college/2016/08/16/big-12-expansion-oral-history-big-8-swc-merger CSB warning:
  18. I mean if you can get past a reasonably good looking 18-year-old dude falling in love with a road hard, put up wet 60-year-old psychopath you can believe anything!
  19. This is really interesting. I had never heard the Stanford story before. I do recall the stories around the early 90s about Texas to PAC and aggy to secsecsec, but I did not realize Stanford had vetoed.
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