Science Forums 2

[HydrogenBond]

The movement toward critical mass is not just a function of physical resources but also subjectivity stemming from cultural influences.

Let me give an example. In terms of physical things and resource requirement, the average poor person in America has more that the lower middle class did 50 years ago. Nobody had a computer, three TVs, $100 sneakers, cell phones, energy usage, etc. fifty years ago. Those people didn't feel exactly poor. If you were to transport the lower middle class of 50 years ago, forward in time, what they subjectively felt was a descent living, would now feel subjectively different. To get the same feeling, they now need to use much more resources. Relative to the earth's resources this subjectivity requires we use resources at a faster rate.

Theoretically, if you could make a person feel happy with a piece of string, the amount of resources required is much lower and the earth could support more people much longer. But if cultural philosophy needs to maximize external resource requirement to achieve the same level of subjective happiness, then the population has to be lower or else the resources are used up too quickly.

If you look at China, which has lasted the longest of all civilizations and also has the most people, it was never an extroverted culture with a high material requirement. It is more introspective with subjectivity needing to be satisfied in other ways. This does not subjectively feel right to cultures who have a higher subjective resource requirement. It makes like sense.

One way culture deals material requirement in a way to lower resource requirement is with prestige affects. Instead of 10 pairs of shoes to feel happy, one can buy one designer pair of shoes. This one pair is as good as ten pairs, but only uses 1/10 the resources. There is something good to be said about the subjectivity of snobbery If people didn't buy into that social subjectivity, but based subjectivity the amount of resources, they would buy 10 pairs of cheap shoes. Objectively you get more but not subjectively.

That is part of the trick for helping poor countries. We can increase the standard of living and subjectively make people feel better off with less resource requirement. In other words, it is often possible to make people feel better off just by socially giving more subjective weight in a way that is not as resource intensive. For example, the farmer with the stick will feel rich with a shovel, unless we make a big deal and say the tractor is better. If we do that, he now needs a tractor to be happy. Where the prestige affect comes in is a designer shovel affect, that can make you feel better, almost like the tractor. This is not being cheap, but it addresses how so you increase the standard of living with least resources needed to make people feel happier.

Do atheism and religion have different resource requirements in terms of the happiness subjectivity within the philosophy?