A Culture of Envy
lemire.me
lemire.me
Nowadays the way to demonstrate you are a good person is to express sympathy and empathy for various approved groups. You can even express some hostility towards your own group to show how noble and virtuous you are. Unfortunately, in the west, this narrative is deeply flawed - the most of the approved groups only suffer relative to others. They don't suffer absolutely at all.
If you give up envy, you take away people's ability to show what noble souls they are.
There are rewards to being first. On some axes, it is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.
Further, in some cases humans actively create finite games for others to play. You used to be able to hunt buffalo and live off the land. Not anymore.
I'll make some not-so-brave statements, and then I'll make some brave (and, in my opinion, useful) ones.
Not so brave:
1. Life is a finite game. Over the long term, and on varying resources, Malthus was right.
2. We've gotten a lot of great stuff from having humans play finite games. This "market" one is pretty neat. Idealists imagined the rectangle I'm using to type this, but pragmstists financed its development.
3. Finite games can do horrible damage to people, causing them to starve, isolate themselves, and harm others. That's the short list.
4. "People" should "find" a "balance" that's "right for them."
Brave(r):
1. A finite game can sometimes be transformed to an infinite game by projecting it over time. Startups perform this alchemy all the time by considering lifetime customer value rather than just initial revenue. Horatio Alger, as long as he spends less than he makes, is a source of infinite money.
2. In a unpredictable and uncaring universe, one should carefully guard one's main source of sustenance---even if that's a finite game, save value, and then make small risky forays into more desireable territory. This is the operating principle of the financial world.
3. Sometimes big investments are necessary (so, maybe not so brave).
Uh, modern people prove they are good in a variety of ways with PC-politics being just one, feel-good charity another, tough-love realism another and so-forth. And modern people also prove they are strong and successful and sexy and what-all else, it's a Vanity Fair out there.
But a clever jump from the problem of envy to the problem of "sympathy and empathy for various approved groups."
That's always been around, but it feels like it's become much more intense online over the past year or two.
I think it may have been an inevitable phase of moving the world online, when I step back and try to look at it objectively. Suddenly billions of people are talking to each other and getting a sense of their place in the world. Naturally, they're trying to establish an identity in that mass of humanity. Staking out their territory.
Part of that is aligning themselves with a tribe. Some of the old tribal leaders (politicians) are extremely adept at that game and have been successfully pulling people into the highly (and quite intentionally) polarized divisions that serve the leaders' goals. You can see this at work when you see the masses parrot whatever the approved outrage of the week is (and this applies to all extremes on the political spectrum).
The key point is that these outrages are specifically selected for their ability to divide the populace into neat little tribes. A lot of political issues are chosen for focus because they serve as a Sorting Hat, if that makes sense. That benefits the people who are already in charge of those Houses.
I'd like to think this is just a phase, though. We're very early on in the game. People are just getting used to an idea that they can establish their identity in the big global world, and so far they're leaning on the old structures. Maybe in years to come they won't have to, maybe they'll find other ways to establish identity. At least I hope that's the case.
Anyway, this is kind of rambling. I should try to organize these thoughts a little better.
Here in India, you can actually say "look, starving children." "Look, these people need water." "These people need power." If I hadn't been stuck in a hospital for the past week or so, I'd have seen several people each day for whom empathy is a natural reaction. But it's pretty hard to inspire empathy for Indians or Africans.
In the US, it's far harder to find such people. No one would consider me a deprived person or particularly deserving of empathy (ignoring a temporary medical condition), yet I have far fewer goods and services than even most of the poorest Americans. This poses a conundrum for those who want to appeal to empathy.
That's where envy comes in. Don't feel bad for people because they have too little, feel bad because others have more.
1. Instagram - completely based around lifestyle envy and like count.
2. Pinterest - envy my "good" taste
3. Facebook - envy my life and my baby
4. Twitter - envy my wit and follower count
5. Linked.in - envy my job and connection count
6. Gmail (before open access) - envy my domain name for my email address.
7. eBay - Envy my sellers badges and review ranking
I think social networking in particular has a strong correlation to using envy as being a "dark" social pattern exploited for growth and stickiness.
Envy is so much part of those services that it has even been played in comedy routines - or even in drama:
The others OK, but that's a little far fetched. Who gave a flying fuck if you had an early access Gmail account? Geeks? And I don't think it was some kind of envy generating strategy -- just the usual practice of an "invite only" beta.
> ...stop taking finite games seriously.
> 22,800 followers
> 900,000 views
edit: no insult meant to the author, and I appreciate the sentiment. I just found the advice and the bean counting to be ironic when appearing together.
I've decided that I won't make money the #1 factor in my life and I do try and put it into practice. I have more savings than my friends who do earn much more than me.
Lately its occurred to me that such idealism may have some negative consequences in the long run. In a society where everything is predicated on how much money you have - the healthcare you receive , the education your kids get , the college they go to , I can't practically avoid playing society's finite games.
My dad is a guy who's never played any of these finite games. And the end result is that not a day goes by when my mom doesn't complain about him and his ways. It's hard to find other people who share such a world view.
And personally too , it's been very tough. It's a pretty common feeling but I have it too , that I lost my way somewhere and now I'm at some place where I can't motivate my self to find a way out. And frankly , I'm not asking for too much. If I got a decent job with some interesting work I'd be thrilled.
It's natural feel envy and snobbery. Especially towards the folks who grew up with you. I don't envy Elon Musk because he was never a part of my life. But if I were a smart kid in his class who grew up with him , maybe I'd feel a tinge of envy :P . Because you both came from the same place you feel that you could have done it.
You should never ever feel sorry for yourself. Easy enough to say but I can't seem to do it. And that's destroying me.
EDIT: Someone who actually walks the walk on this: http://heuna.tumblr.com/post/2415073898/kim-ung-yong-a-child...
To be able to make enough money to not have to be thinking about it all the time, but to forego the opportunity on idealistic grounds seems to be a painful shot at my foot; I will have made myself constantly worry about money out of my disdain for it.
Yes, it is common for people to measure themselves against folks they consider their peers. Some of them got it from their parents who said to them, "oh, he's the best in his class" or "look at how clean and tidy your friend is, go wash up." Some of them got it from a desire to have a score with which to compare. Some got it from girlfriends or wives who complained to them in reference to a comparison.
And then again, a lot of people have moved past that and started defining their values not through comparison to others but to their own internal values.
It might be an age thing, or maybe a maturity thing. At some point you realize in the end you are going to be dead, and killing yourself so that folks who are still alive will remember you, is not really a 'goal' that lends itself to a full life.
For a simple example, when I visit friends' houses, I am often taking little notes. "Oh, I love this sink. Hey, the placement of the washer is great." It gives me ideas, real-life-examples, for how I could improve my house to my own liking.
The same can be done at a personal level. Anything you admire about someone can be taken as a role model. Not because you want to outdo them. Rather because you want to be more like them.
Others may disagree, but I find other people very handy for "window shopping" life decisions and lifestyles. Does this guy seem fulfilled? Does that guy have trouble making rent? Which one do I want to end up like?
The key difference is that the reference standard is rooted in your internal values. So "you love that sink" as opposed to "everyone thinks that sink is better than mine, time to upgrade my sink."
Role models are good too, if you are evaluating the values that you believe in. But the key there is that you adopt your values because you believe in them, not because others think you should believe in them.
Like the author who was pursuing fame as a researcher because he felt others saw that as valuable, only to come into conflict with his real values which were that his family meant the world to him. In my opinion, letting yourself be driven by values external to your world view will always end up with you feeling very poorly about yourself in the long term.
http://www.amazon.com/Finite-Infinite-Games-James-Carse/dp/1...
For some reason, the article mentions the author but does not explicitly mention the title of the book.
Perhaps a more moderate summary of his message is "don't take the game too seriously, and know when to leave it". Or maybe this is just taking something that both the author and those he criticizes view as being binary, and viewing it as a real.
This entire blog post can be summarized in one short sentence: "let them eat cake!".
Seriously, "Take the regular jobs."? What the fuck do you think the vast majority of people lucky enough to have a job are doing?
"Avoid conspicuous consumption." Well thank you very fucking much for that bit of helpful advice to the majority that have no fucking choice.
Envy is the standard lame excuses of the privileged that don't want to bother thinking about the consequences their privilege has for others.
His "finite games" are non-optional within a society of structurally growing inequality. You stop playing, you lose everything. Maybe not dramatically in one individual's lifetime (if, like his one and only example, you're lucky enough to be pretty fucking privileged to start with), but bit by bit, generation by generation, until there is nothing left but scraps.
That's what Piketty and Occupy Wall street were talking about, not about whether or not people can "choose" to buy a fucking BMW. Inequality is a growing cancer that gradually takes all choices away.
Invidious Consumption is meant to divide people. Conspicuous only means some aspects of it stand outside the realm of 'utility' (which to Veblen includes aesthetics).
I'm sure there are plenty of people that buy them due to envy, but to state that everyone who buys one is envious, or wants to evoke others' envy, is more than a little ridiculous.
Perhaps you like to play fast and loose with the definitions of common words like "almost" and "certainly", but there is a wide gulf between "many people" and "almost everyone".
Probably the kind of people who have never heard or entertained the notion of diminishing returns, and think that spending $200,000 or $300,000 on a car will get you much more comfortable and "bleeding edge technology" than spending, say, $60,000, and not just an extravagant design and the envy factor.
(I'm also not sure why buyers of luxury cars in the US in particular want "powerful" sports cars in a country where the maximum speed limit we get is a kindergarten level 70-75 mph).
(Btw, and whenever someone writes "everyone" for a social group, he means "the majority of them". No need to point out some exceptions to "disprove" him).
Because handling and acceleration are useful and FUN even if you aren't red lining it.
> than spending, say, $60,000
The original author specifically denigrates BMWs, which you can purchase for less than $60k.
It's all relative, I guess.
A $60,000 car is still, by all objective standards, a luxury car.
Mercedes-Benz, founded by the inventor of the automobile, Karl Benz, has consistently been the leader in automotive innovation, particularly in safety features. http://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/benz/innovation
Top speed is not the only desirable attribute of a powerful car. Accelerating to 75mph in 4 seconds is an enjoyable experience in its own right. Additionally, does the speed limit actually stop people from driving as fast as they want? Where I live, the speed limit most accurately describes the lower limit, not the upper.
"Everyone" may, perhaps, be construed as an overwhelming majority, but not a simple majority. A majority of voters selected Barack Obama as President of The United States in 2012. It would not be accurate to state that everyone selected Barack Obama as President.
Such capacity is the only thing I ever envy about others: the power to craft their environment and sculpt their own experience to fit their desires, regardless of content. The relative difference is entirely incidental, since I primarily notice only others who are further up the hierarchy.
Is it just me? It seems like a major fallacy to think that in general people desire power over other humans as an end in itself.
Perhaps it's the technocrat talking, but the ideal situation seems to be Unenvied Power: pure power over one's environment, with zero conscious representation of that power in others' minds.
That cannot happen as long as you want humanity to exist. Reproduction is the driving force, shaping everything from our behavior, including the search for status, which is an important mechanism in mating. If people didn't signal [http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Signaling], evolution would be a lot slower (or maybe could exist at all?).
Now, status doesn't necessarily need to be related to wealth, however for the past centuries, that was a reliable indicator.
This is really basic evolutionary psychology, and I encourage the author the check it out.
It's not like fast or slow or no evolution make any difference when it comes to the heat death of the universe. Evolution does make "progress", but not really towards anything in particular; it isn't going anywhere. The universe, for all we know anyway, is a tightly sealed container we will not get out of and die in no matter what we evolve into -- so we might as well spend the time intellectually honest and compassionate.
> Now, status doesn't necessarily need to be related to wealth, however for the past centuries, that was a reliable indicator.
On what planet? Make a list of the greatest minds of the last 100 years, and find out how much they cared about, or even despised, wealth. I know it's subjective to a degree what constitutes a "great mind" - but that still beats the circular logic of defining success as material wealth, and then saying material wealth is a good indicator for success.
Maybe at the same time he could check out dowsing, homeopathy, and all the other pseudoscience.