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Comment by forthefuture | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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