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SilasBarta comments on How to Be Happy - Less Wrong
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Not to sound ungrateful about the list, but isn't there some dissonance between 3 and 14? Avoid consumerism, but buy lots of the expensive clothes in these mass-market consumerist guides?
Consumerism is buying in the vain hope that the act of purchase will bring happiness, or failing to see that many advertised items will bring you low value compared to their price. Being anti-consumerist doesn't prevent you from buying useful tools after evaluating their price to be lower than their value to you. Many geeks underestimate the value of good looking clothing as a social tool.
Now, you can argue that our society would be better if we didn't judge people by their clothing, but you live in a society that does - and so for you, clothing is a tool to alter how you are judged. The ideal clothing may not be the most expensive or the most trendy, but most of us on this site probably buy clothing that is insufficiently trendy.
It is also worth note that you can often get nice clothes for about the same price as less fashionable clothing, if you look in second hand stores. (although this may require more time shopping, and be dependant on where you live)
I wasn't disputing the importance of clothing (and a PUA was my guide for shopping in NYC), and I certainly wasn't trying to argue that it would be better if people weren't so judged as a reason not to wear better clothes!
I was disputing whether you need to spend at that level, buying from and heeding the very marketers lukeprog despises in 14. And the justification you gave, that "spending on lot in this area is different because it will really bring me happiness", is not distinguishable from what people are thinking when they are consumerist.
At this point I think it might be productive to taboo "consumerist"; the connotations seem to be getting in the way.
What I've gotten out of the conversation so far is that (a) buying things based on an exaggerated estimate of their future value tends to make people less happy; (b) buying things based on an accurate estimation of their future value tends to make people happier, and (c) rationality techniques are helpful in deciding which is which. That seems entirely consistent to me, and using mass-market consumer guides to help estimate social capital while trying to ignore the actual marketing seems sane if a little risky.
I'd also be willing to entertain the possibility that a lot of people in the central LW demographic cluster are buying less than the optimum for their happiness. I'm almost certainly guilty of this; most of my net worth lies idle in my checking account, where it does no one any good.
Well, I'm not sure what concept -- whatever the name -- lukeprog is carving out when he warns about consumerism. His advice amounts to "don't blow large amounts of money thinking that the stuff you buy will make you happy ... unless I approve of it". Whatever failure mode he was trying to encompass by talk of consumerism surely must cover buying straight out of a fashion magazine.
The fact that it "really works" is no defense -- all acts of "blowing large amounts of money to be happy" seem like that!
Some people buy things just because they think buying things will make them happen, which is what the consumerism stuff is about. From your words I suspect you don’t quite grokk this, probably because it’s a very silly state to be in and you’re lucky enough not to be in it. (I’m having a bit of trouble with the concept myself, though it does happen to me too.)
The point about the clothing (“stuff he approves of”) would perhaps be more precisely expressed as “it’s a good idea to be dressed/accessorized/etc close to whatever silly thing society decides is ‘current fashion’ because this improves your interaction with other people”. The article expresses this as “buy fashionable clothing” because “buying” is the usual way of owning fashionable clothes. You can satisfy point 3 by making your own clothes or wearing (inconspicuously) cheap knock-offs or any other method; buying is not necessary, it’s just the usual method.
The apparent contradiction between 3 and 14 is a bit like the apparent contradiction in an (imaginary) article about digital photography that advises to pick a camera with at least 4 megapixels (i.e., worse than that is probably too low for good photos), but that you shouldn’t give in to the hype about megapixels (i.e., it’s not the only thing that’s important, and you hit diminishing returns way before whatever is “top of the line”).
The kind of consumerism I advise against is the kind of consumerism that seems to make people unhappy according to the specific research papers I cited.
Also, for men at least you don't have to buy very many clothes at all. You just have to buy the right ones, and know how to wear them.
That's not very helpful (and warpforge should not have been modded down for his/her reply if it was by one of the participants in this subthread -- that would be kind of petty). I'm pretty sure the research papers don't specifically carve out an exception for expensive clothes shown on models in high-class fashion magazines. Feel free to use your deep knowledge of these articles that you did read to prove me wrong though!
Alternatively, you could just admit that this is an exception to your general warning against consumerism -- that buying expensive clothes shown in the glamorous magazines in the hopes that it will bring you happiness actually works.
Unless you're planning on wearing the same $500 suit appearing in these magazines and can find hairstylists that make you look like them, yes, you do.
Yes, but that truth could have been discerned from a dictionary, without any empirical research.
This post was a whirlwind tour of happiness research. Those who are interested can follow what I've been provided to learn more. It sounds like you're not interested enough to do so, which is fine. It took me more than 15 hours to research and write this post, and not everyone has that kind of time.
But I do plan on doing more posts in the future to elaborate on some of the topics and methods I rushed over in this post. Perhaps I'll eventually do one specifically on consumerism, so you won't have to read the papers yourself.
Luke, if you actually read the articles you're relying on, it shouldn't be that hard to explain the relevant parts in this context. If you don't have an answer, all you have to say is:
"I'm sorry-- I didn't notice the dissonance before. I'm sure there's a way to follow expensive fashion advice without falling into the trap of consumerism, but I really only read the abstracts so I can't quite explain how to walk the line."
That's it! That's all you have to say. It's not hard, and it avoids the need to get snappy and shift blame to others.
Okay, in brief: what the research seems to indicate is that materialistic goals (ends) may lead to unhappiness, especially if they lead to ever-growing desires for material goods (which they often do). Also, those focused on financial success tend to derive less satisfaction from other aspects of life (the Nickerson paper).
So that is why I recommend (at least) two things: Get nice clothes because it helps your social life, but also beware the threat of consumerism. Beware the pursuit of material goods for their own sake. Material goods are often of value, but don't let them run away with you. And certainly don't make money the focus of your efforts and passion.
"The time [sic] of consumerism I advise against is the kind of consumerism that seems to make people unhappy according to the specific research papers I cited."
When writing an essay about achieving happiness, it's not very helpful to define a term as inherently causing happiness or unhappiness, even if you can point to the literature for clarification. You end up with the tautology that "doing X -- which is defined as causing happiness -- makes you happy" or the inverse.
The rest of the essay is a rather nice survey of achieving happiness; I'll be sure to point some friends at it.
Sorry if this was unclear. Nobody is defining consumerism as causing unhappiness. It's an empirical claim that certain kinds of consumerism cause unhappiness, and those are the kinds of consumerism I'm advising against.
I fixed the typo, thanks.