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Viliam comments on Crazy Ideas Thread - Less Wrong Discussion
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Poorer people are happier. Alternatively, even when the aggregate or average level of happiness is not higher, some factors in it are higher, while other hugely negative factors (i.e. actually being poor) reduce the average or aggregate greatly.
The positive factors are strong social bonds. The problem is that middle-class people are trying to form friendships through just hanging out with people or trying to find common, shared interests. This is not strong bonds.
Poor people need to help each other, it is a basic necessity, and they form strong bonds this way. They move to a different village, start to fix up the fence, realize they need some tools, borrow it from the neighbor. Next time the neighbor asks some help etc. they bond this way. If you and your neighbors basically never need a service, a borrowed item etc. from each other you will probably not form strong bonds.
Should we somehow make ourselves poor to achieve it? I mean, it is relative, everybody is poor compared to the mega-rich, so how could you be - at the same level of income and net worth - not middle-class but the poor-of-the-mega-rich ?
Can you imagine examples of how well-to-do people can put themselves into situations where they need to borrow items or services / help from their neighbors?
Should they just aim high? If a poor person has a 60 m2 village house in bad repair, and a middle-class person has a 100 m2 village house in good repair, and a rich person has a 300 m3 village house in good repair, should the middle-class person instead buy a 300 m2 house in bad repair, and if the neighbors are doing something like that they all would help each other, so basically they would be not typical middle-class but the poor-of-the-rich and this way form the same bonds through helping?
Maybe this idea has merit. The essence of poverty is that you cannot just buy all the things you need, you sometimes need to make them yourself or borrow. If middle-class people aimed high and basically buy big mansions in bad repair, buy old yachts and sports cars and restore them, could they simulate that?
Any other idea?
While I disagree with your description of happy poor people, I admit that the idea of creating stronger social bonds is appealing. Well, of course they would have to be social bonds with people I like, who would not abuse me... but then, doesn't the mere possibility of choosing people to bond with already reduce the strength of those bonds? Okay, we don't have to go to the very extreme, and still can try to increase the strength of the bonds, without necessarily maximizing it.
There are things people need help with, even if they are not necessary for survival. If you want to make a big project, you need people to cooperate with. So, have a dream, make it public, find people to cooperate with... and if you all feel strongly about the project, you will have the bonds. Just start an NGO.
If you want to compare with the mega-rich, find a group of people willing to found a cooperative, in a spirit of "together we all get rich; no one gets left behind". As opposed to usual startups where people try to do things alone or in very small teams; and hire other people as replaceable pawns. (Note: in the cooperative, you can still hire the pawns later; many cooperatives do; you will only have the strong bonds among the local aristocracy, but the aristocracy can have dozens of members.) Now you are competing against the rich companies, and the economical situation of each of you depends on your mutual cooperation.