Come on, human nature? Designed to keep striving? I've heard this referenced as "keeping up with the Joneses" when it's about matching consumption to your neighbors'.
I never thought "keeping up with the Joneses" is part of my human nature. Or even my culture.
The 'societal overlords' from previous posts you have now ascribed to human nature (??) are really 'society', perhaps influenced by some ultra-elite cadre, sure.
Re:“People simply empty out”
by dalek_cannes on Friday August 16, 2013 @05:04AM
(#6222924)
If anything, Homo Sapiens was designed (read evolved) to be flexible because species that hard-coded their responses to the environment went extinct when the environment changed. So the only thing that could be coded into human behavior was to try to be "better". Better than what was left intentionally blank. At least, that's how I see it.
There is a popular TED talk on motivation, he postulates that growth is one contributing component of motivation. This may be his anecdote, but this guy has helped many people get back their motivation.
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
Being "poorer" does not necessarily mean you are worse off. There's a big difference between living in a mud puddle with AIDS and building a modest life outside of the rat race. Most of us living in those middle class suburbs are also burdening ourselves with payments for garbage we don't really need. We are burdening ourselves with larger houses to put all that garbage in.
>and no threat of being killed by a warlord today (unlike many people in Africa, for instance)
Another stupid American misconception.
Re:“People simply empty out”
by kristiandupont on Monday August 19, 2013 @07:25AM
(#6236572)
How is this a misconception? Clearly there are countries in Africa where people do in fact live under such threats?
"Many who try to climb it fail, and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some are given a chance to climb, but refuse. They cling to the realm, or love, or the gods…illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is. But they’ll never know this. Not until it’s too late."
It is not healthy to constantly compare yourself with people who are worse off. Sure, it induces a sense of gratitude to know that you have clean drinking water and no threat of being killed by a warlord today (unlike many people in Africa, for instance), however if we settled for that, there would never be any incentive to improve our situation further. Imagine what would've happened if every inventor and scientist in the history of mankind had that attitude.
Also, not everyone on this board lives in Silicon Valley and works for a startup that spoils him stupid with catered lunches, scheduled massages and a 150K/yr salary. A lot of us are just normal middle class people living in economies that aren't that prosperous and the prospect of losing a job can really threaten our financial security. Also, if you work for a shit company that takes advantage of that, you can be in for a pretty miserable experience. So get off your high horse already.