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Comment by hguant | Hacker News Reader

Right, but the core principle underlying all that is that human happiness is a good in and of itself, and a virtuous and stable society is good only in that it allows for the greatest potential growth of human happiness.

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If your grandkids are less happy because you destroyed the environment in order to increase your happiness is that a negative or a positive in this philosophical framework?

it was unthinkable in the original Aristotelean framework. They had no notion of being capable of destroying the environment in the way that we can now.

I don't think that's true at all. They could have easily over-fished, exhausted the land through improper farming, or cut down all the trees in a particular area. And they had a very good idea that they could do this and screw over future generations.

I don’t think that model takes ignorance into account. You would be unhappy if you knew you were doing a disservice to future generations, but you might accidentally do something stupid that screws things up for generations to come.

That sounds intuitively plausible; Aristotle's systems in general tended to be bad about modeling human ignorance.

My grandparents did everything within their power to "destroy" the environment, and I'm perfectly fine.

I see that we're not that familiar with various versions of the anthropic principle. Okay then.

A negative. Just ask G.K. Chesterton!

Well I'd much rather have Advancement over Happiness. We can be happy our entire lives but if everyones dies before 100 and humanity never goes anywhere I wouldn't consider that a successful society. Happiness is masturbating 24/7 until you die. If you truly believe that is the goal of humanity I can't help but disagree.

are you serious? that reads like satire.

I guess I'm coming from the wrong side. I think happiness for its own sake is really meaningless. I'd much rather struggle and advance than be happy doing nothing until I die, but I guess I'm in the minority. Happiness, to me, is a choice to not let negative things make you unhappy. You can acknowledge negativities and not be consumed by them.

Fighting for happiness is like fighting for peace. You win by not fighting anymore.

I'm sorry if this opinion somehow reads like satire.

well, that's not what you said. you said "Advancement over Happiness". I think most people would agree with "to be happy, don't struggle for it, just be".

Your original post, the one that seemed satirical to me, sounded like it was endorsing some notion of material accumulation at the expense of human fulfillment.

Oh, yeah I didn't mean it to sound that way. In that context I'd say that I believe that moving humanity forward provides more fulfillment than just being happy.

that's just it, ask 100 people what "advancement" and "Moving Humanity forward" and you'd likely get 100 different definitions. Same goes for hapiness.

Fulfillment is part of the definition of being happy! Stop this circular logic!

I didn't get the impression that Advancement == material accumulation. Advancement could be making the world better, gaining knowledge, or maybe advancement to a depressed person is finding happiness. Pretty broad meaning. But the same could be said for happiness. Some people find happiness in gaining knowledge.

I would argue advancement ultimately begets happiness, eg, you cure cancer, you save lives, which makes those lives, and the lives that love them, happy.

If the advancement does not serve a purpose that brings happiness, what's the point of advancing?

> I'd much rather struggle and advance than be happy doing nothing until I die

Clearly you’re not capable of being happy doing nothing; otherwise, you would prefer it over anything else.

I read it as totally sincere show of support for continuous technological advancement. My belief is that ultimately humanity will take full control of their existence. Science & technology is what will lead us there.

How do you define "advancement" without happiness? What are you advancing toward?

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