This is going to be filtered evidence, right? Because many people find their meaning and purpose in authoritarian groups or conspiracy theories. It could be interesting to know how many people find their meaning in rationality, and how many in irrationality, but I am afraid that such result wouldn't exactly be an advertisement for rationality.
Didn't read your article on Soviet Union, but my first guess is: If the society is skewed in one way, of course many people will find happines when an alternative way becomes available. If you have Stalinism, more freedom later makes many people happy. But in the same way, if you have a rational-ish society, a new wave of conspiracy theories will make many people happy. (Debating economics is boring, realizing it was actually all a lizard conspiracy is refreshing.)
The Communist countries tried to organize fun for their citizens, but in my experience, their version of fun didn't seem so funny. However, this could have been me: maybe the fun was optimized for average people, and I just wasn't the target group. It was the kind of fun where you are very careful about not accidentally offending anyone, and where everything must be done under supervision of some politically reliable person. You can easily have simple kinds of fun, such as dancing or tourism, since there is nothing politically dangerous about them. Intellectual hobbies, that would be more dangerous territory.
Regarding the filtered evidence: we have researched and are offering the actual evidence that scholarship in psychology and cognitive neuroscience have shown as contributing to gaining a greater sense of personal meaning and purpose. This includes, as the workbook describes, 3 things: 1) Reflecting on the question of purpose and meaning in life 2) Developing strong community and social bonds 3) Serving others, in a variety of ways.
Different societies, whether authoritarian or democratic, provided opportunities for these activities in different ways. I cer...
We at Intentional Insights would appreciate your help with feedback on optimize a workbook that conveys rational thinking to find meaning and purpose in life for a broad audience. Last time, we asked for your feedback, and we changed our content offerings based on comments we received from fellow Less Wrongers, as you can see from the Edit to this post. We would be glad to update our beliefs again and revise the workbook based on your feedback.
For a bit of context, the workbook is part of our efforts to promote rational thinking to a broad audience and thus raise the sanity waterline. It’s based on research on how other societies besides the United States helped their citizens find meaning and purpose, such as research I did on the Soviet Union and Zuckerman did on Sweden and Denmark. It’s also based on research on the contemporary United States by psychologists such as Steger, Duffy and Dik, Seligman, and others.
The target audience is reason-minded youth and young adults, especially secular-oriented ones. The goal is to get such people to engage with academic research on how our minds work, and thus get them interested in exploring rational thinking more broadly, eventually getting them turned on to more advanced rationality, such as found on Less Wrong itself. The workbook is written in a style aimed to create cognitive ease, with narratives, personal stories, graphics, and research-based exercises.
Here is the link to the workbook draft itself. Any and all suggestions are welcomed, and thanks for taking the time to engage with this workbook and give your feedback – much appreciated!