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Conversation

I grew up low class, and expected my life to be hard - only I didn’t process it as “hard”; it was just how life *was.* I was going to have to spend the rest of my life doing minimum-wage physically-hard labor, and then getting pregnant. That was the plan, but more importantly-

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I didn’t register this plan as a bad one, a sad one. It made the “I need to set aside my feelings and use my willpower” part of my brain very active, a dominant way of being. The pain in my legs from being on my feet all day was just the *way life was*. And I was grateful! -

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I’d grown up reading stories throughout history and was intimately familiar with how new and different my current lifestyle was. I was happy I wasn’t working in coal mines, or under threat of war, and that there was no famine. I viewed it as a normal feature of human existence-

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That you had to set aside your feelings and use willpower. This is the way everyone had to live in history, this was a default of existence - and anything more than this was luxury. I felt hyper aware of how unusual our state of civilization was, how luxurious my life was already

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And this is why I feel a little confused when people get really angry at stuff like the minimum wage, or having to work two jobs and live in a shitty apartment. People are complaining at working conditions that I went through with actual gratitude.

7:52 PM · Dec 17, 2020

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It seems very clear to me that the issue is not absolute working conditions and living standards, it is narrative and contrast. People have been much happier with much less, but these people are less happy with more. And I can’t help but think - have you tried being grateful?

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Nobody had to give you your job. Nobody owes you anything. You are incredibly fortunate to be living this far into an advanced civilization at all. This is a matter of perspective - and sure this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to improve your life, but the entitlement is bizarre.

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Maybe not bizarre. Just as I was grateful by paying a lot of attention to the state of past humans, I think a lot of the dissatisfaction with living conditions comes from paying attention to the more fortunate. We have some idea that inequality is *inherently* wrong.

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There’s a good chunk of people who would like to lower the wealth of the very rich even if this benefited nobody else, even if the wealth didn’t get redistributed at all!

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What were your social conditions like? I'm very curious about the relationship between social embeddedness or connection and material dissatisfaction...

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What do you mean my social conditions? Like, how many friends did I have?

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You can feel gratitude about literally anything as long you're not actually dead, that doesn't mean you should or have to. Why should it have to be those who want society to be more equitable? Why shouldnt the rich who oppose minimum wage be more grateful for what they have?

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Stalemateable Čhepulis • • •

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Expectations and shame. I was brought up with heightened expectations of achievement and with a deep shame for being broke. I still fight "get rich or die trying" mindset and insecurities over living conditions. "guys really do be living like this" memes hit hard :–)

Brian Bi believes borders should be open

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So you conditioned yourself into accepting a life that contained more suffering than joy, and now you think other people also should do that?

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You can make the best of any situation - that doesn’t mean you should accept any situation as immutable. If you understand the concept of working to improve your living conditions, why does the concept of working together to improve everyone’s upset you?

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