968 Happiness

<p>There is nothing more subjective than happiness, which is probably why it has the most amount of trite cliches to describe it: contentment, pleasure, satisfaction, cheerfulness, gaiety, joy, joviality, glee, blitheness, carefreeness, gladness, delight, good spirits, light-heartedness, good cheer, well-being, enjoyment, felicity, exuberance, exhilaration, elation, ecstasy, delirium, jubilation, rapture, bliss, euphoria, beatitude, delectation, jouissance, and it goes on. In fact, there’s an entire pseudo-scientific field of “happiness” literature that appears from the outside to be legitimate, but looking into it makes an objective person shake their head. It’s part of the anti-scientific principles movement currently underway by people who wish to make science about them.</p> <p>Supposed science conducted by biased researchers interviewing biased subjects about their biased feelings can’t possibly turn out well, but the motives are actually more sinister than just getting paid for sloppy, unsupervised work that generates unwarranted acclaim; the actual goal of happiness research is to upend the political order. Existing Western values focus on ambition, meritocracy & accomplishment, and a lot of people, by definition, half, those below the average, fair poorly under those conditions. It’s to every loser’s benefit to change the rules to benefit them, and nothing is more compelling for change than being able to determine the values which produce the most happiness. What good is walking on the moon if you’re not happy about it? The question is easy enough to answer: any feeling that can be generated by sniffing cocaine or shooting heroin shouldn’t be one that guides society.</p>