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Comment by AnIdiotOnTheNet | Hacker News Reader

> Software Engineering make me only realize that people are never happy.

I'm not convinced this is an innate property of humanity, rather I think it is a conditioned behavior to keep us buying things. Pay attention to what marketing tells you, what it really tells you, behind the ostensible message. It is not telling you good things about yourself or your life, and it is bombarding you constantly with these intrusive thoughts.

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Even my dog gets tired of eating the same feed all the time or playing with the same toy. It gets excited when I bring new toy and is much more eager to eat when I switch feed to a different type from time to time.

I don’t have a TV so my dog is not watching ads so I expect marketing does not affect it.

Might still be that other dogs it plays with tell stuff “I got a new toy, get your owner to buy you new one too”.

I think it is innate property of living things to need different things/experiences and what not in order to survive/thrive.

I've been thinking about boredom and the need for change for a long time. My hypothesis is that boredom is the baseline of life. From this basis, I feel like whatever we may do we will inevitably come back to boredom: again, the dog chasing his own tail. Wouldn't be better to live with boredom instead of having the illusion of escaping it from it now and then?

So we have opposite baselines. Because for me movement and looking for food or resources is the baseline.

If you are bored and stay in one place you die.

Boredom and being well fed is privilege.

How could it not be innate? One of the most noteworthy properties of humanity is our tendency throughout history to make unparalleled technological progress. Surely something like that requires a dissatisfaction with present conditions.

It seems more probable that marketing, like most things that work well, take advantage of our evolved properties.

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