I've read a great comment on fark.com, back when the whole Occupy movement was still going strong, that, while does not add much to the topic in terms of content, does help us see how people feel and act when it comes to "success"

"It's difficult for me to figure out my position on this whole Occupy thing. I was really worried about employment out of school (CS degree) and I'm very thankful to be where I am with zero student loans or debt of any kind. Also, I agree with some of the above posters that a few of the people I've seen at the 99% thing holding signs could work plenty of livable jobs (comfortable livable, I think) at least out here, and I think the angle that some of this is taking reeks of entitlement from those who haven't really put forth an effort and are trying to benefit from this in a class action sort of way. However, I'll just say that I find it really hard not to empathize with the 99% movement when I get on Fark or turn on the TV and hear all the dismissive, hateful people disregard the whole thing based on their preconceptions because they got theirs already. I'm lucky to have my lot in life, but I know how easily I could've ended up in a worse predicament. So even if all the kids on TV come across as whiny spoiled brats, you know the rich dudes/smug people would be acting the same if they were the have-nots instead of the haves and the fact that there's so many people acting like their shiat doesn't stink makes me sick". - Electromax

This is more of a question than a comment, but here it goes: what do y'all think about Steve Pavlina's blog ( http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/ ) , when it comes to the issues raised by the OP?

I'm not sure speed alone, by itself, is a solution. If you speed down a game by, say, 70% there would probably be no difference than if you sped it down by 90%, since there's a limit to what the character can do in a given second. Mario, for instance, once you jump, there's not much to do until he actually lands.

Suppose the same would happen if we had the capability to speed down time in our actual lives. Sure you could dodge bullets and win F1 races from time to time, but the actual day-to-day tasks, that take the majority of our time wouldn't be improved much. If you need to eat lunch, eating it in an optimal way won't give you much advantage in comparison to regular people that don't take the fork to their mouths following a perfect parabola.

It is said by some that intelligence is the capability to adapt, to change, while rationality is doing the most logical thing. For instance: a computer that makes investments by itself - a rational computer, using logic to maximize profits. A computer that invents something - a smart, intelligent computer, that has developed some level of intelligence and is using that to chang its environment instead of merely working on it.

Apart from the fact that they wouldn't say anything (because generally animals can't speak our languages ;)), nature can be pretty bloody brutal. There are plenty of situations in which our species' existence has made the lives of other animals much better than they would otherwise be. I'm thinking of veterinary clinics that often perform work on wild animals, pets that don't have to be worried about predation, that kind of thing. Also I think there are probably a lot of species that have done alright for themselves since humans showed up, animals like crows and the equivalents in their niche around the world seem to do quite well in urban environments.

As someone who cares about animal suffering, is sympathetic to vegetarianism and veganism, and even somewhat sympathetic to more radical ideas like eradicating the world's predators, I think that humanity represents a very real possibility to decrease suffering including animal suffering in the world, especially as we grow in our ability to shape the world in the way we choose. Certainly, I think that humanity's existence provides real hope in this direction, remembering that the alternative is for animals to continue to suffer on nature's whims perhaps indefinitely, rather than ours perhaps temporarily.

My guess is the second greatest good would be the best option. Taking into account that these are mortal beings and you don't know how long will these people live/be healthy, the best choice would be one that is not the least rewarding (first greatest good) neither the slowest to come.

Think of it as spending your life savings: you don't want to spend it all on your youth and be poor the rest of your life and you don't want to spend it all in your nineties either, when you'll be too old to enjoy it. The answer is somewhere in the middle.

is there something else I should do?

Find out how your brain went wrong, with a view to not going so wrong again.

My brain spontaneously generated an argument for why killing all humans might be the best way to satisfy my values. As far as I know it's original; at any rate, I don't recall seeing it before. I don't think it actually works, and I'm not going to post it on the public internet. I'm happy to just never speak of it again, but is there something else I should do?