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Comment by thesuitonym | Hacker News Reader

If society shouldn't try to make everyone's life better, what's the point of society?

There are many other ideals, it borders philosophy actually.

For example I can think of (obviously exaggerated) example: everyone lives absolutely happy as they are, but climate worsens so much than no one survives. In about 500 million years oceans will boil anyway. But fixing that will require many people to be unhappy.

PS: > what's the point of society?

Survival? Space expansion? Ubermensch / AI? Why, as you say, hedonism is the ultimate goal?

Who said anything about hedonism? How about just making sure everyone has what they need to live comfortably?

I'm probably using exaggerated word again, sorry, not native speaker.

I'm just questioning why "Live comfortably" is an axiom. It's a natural human desire, yes, just as other animals, but I'm not so sure we should maximize that as a society. Many exciting and proud things I did in my life were outside my comfort zone.

E.g. a lot of drug addicts can vouch that their current comfort zone is not what they would want, but there's no one around to force them through tears and sweat to change it. Same thing can be said about sugar or, I dunno, comfortable cars. (I'm exaggerating again :)

I think what you're alluding to is the distinction between eudaimonic and hedonic wellbeing.

"Comfortably" doesn't refer to comfort zones here, but is used in the "without major difficulty" sense (that is, one's needs are met to the point they're not stressed about food/shelter/medical care/etc.)

Make most of the people's life better.

Everyone is an impossible target.

Maybe make the life better for more than the alternatives

This seems to cozy up to Utilitarianism, which has it's own problems. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism#Criticisms_and_...

I was trying to reply to the Everyone part in:

If society can't make everyone happy, what's the point.

Right. Depending on the take, your aligns with the utilitarian perspective as well. You don't need to make everyone happy, as long as it leads to the "greatest good" (rule utilitarianism) or the "highest average happiness" (average utilitarianism). My point is that this perspective is not devoid of philosophical problems.

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