It seems like there’s a certain type of person who spends most of their time living in extreme satisfaction. I bet this is negatively correlated with drive/ambition though, and maybe even intelligence, but I believe people when they describe their experience.
Yeah, I think there's a lot of lift in attributes like this and "happiness set point" types of things overall - it's certainly traits I'd be targeting if gengineering were a thing anywhere, and these people are certainly better off than most due to their biology.
I buy a likely negative correlation with ambition, too. Accomplishment takes effort, and effort is driven by dissatisfaction, with the limits your typical neurotic Type A executives.
When I was younger, I hit a rough patch in life and really doubled down on yoga and meditation. I got to a point where I could handle pretty much anything with equanamity and the circumstances and environment of my life didn't bother me at all, no matter how difficult. I had conquered suffering, just like they said you could!
I eventually deliberately dialed it back, because being able to be content in any circumstance is great and all, but you need some dissatisfaction to be driven to change things, or at least I did.
I'm sure real yogis and practitioners would tell me I was doing it wrong, though. There's surely some state of being entirely content with everything AND being strongly motivated to take actions and do things in the world based on your surpassing love of all living things or whatever.
A problem to widespread adoption: in modern society, there are almost no role models in the vein you're articulating. Most famous and powerful people don't behave like this. Among the big areas: business (top dog: Elon, ketamine addict, probably never lifted anything heavier than a videogame controller, poorly socialized, seemingly no good familial relationships, more sperm-donor than father); politics (Trump, obese, junk-food obsessed, multiple divorces; Bill Clinton pretty much the same story just not as extreme). Celebrities can be metabolically pretty healthy but a total mess otherwise.
The kind of person you're holding up as a model tends not to be especially famous. They might be "well known" in certain circles--especially high-SES circles, which are definitionally elite. Regardless, the average person doesn't have the slightest insight into these people and how they live and spend their money and time.
It's a bit unfair to the average person, really. Either they follow the past of least resistance (Fritos + Facebook), strive to become an "influencer," or model themselves after a big-name celebrity, CEO, or politician. And all of those paths--even if successful!--lead to pretty unhappy lives.
In a way, you _can't_ have a role model of the kind you're describing, because part of a happy life is being ensconced within a social circle of smart, interesting people with whom you share a mutual respect and walling off unpleasant things. Intelligent people find it loathsome to mingle with annoying people and have to pretend to enjoy pedestrian things (a guilty pleasure of mine every four years: watching politicians' being forced to eat corndogs in Iowa--even the best ones can't fully hide their disgust at the food, the people, the whole thing). The kind of people willing to undergo that sort of ritual humiliation tend to be unbalanced in other ways that make them less happy and, again, poor role models.
Same goes for extraordinarily successful businessman (I mean the absolute top-tier who become famous like Bezos, Musk, Gates, etc.): capitalism does an amazing job channeling these people's talents into building things, but it doesn't help that they tend to immiserate themselves in the process.
It's not a criticism---just an observation about how difficult it is to "get the word out."
> In a way, you _can't_ have a role model of the kind you're describing, because part of a happy life is being ensconced within a social circle of smart, interesting people with whom you share a mutual respect and walling off unpleasant things.
Man, this is a great point.
I've always kind of thought about "hard problems" like this - diet, exercise, a life well lived, how to have good relationships - as being largely a discipline / execution problem versus a knowledge problem, because you can just look around at the people you admire, who are doing it right! The knowledge is free!
But I guess I hadn't thought deeply about how selected social circles are - per Scott's article where he talks about the naive odds of literally never meeting or interacting with a creationist even though they make up half the country, all of our circles are incredibly filtered.
So where CAN average people see fit, successful people modeling happy relationships and good lives and good choices? You're completely right it's not in celebrities, or most businessmen or founders, or influencers.
If their parents aren't that, then their parents' friends aren't, their teachers probably aren't either (same geography and SES), and on down the line.
I think this used to be "church" and maybe still is for the ~40% who attend at least monthly - but even churches are highly filtered by geography and SES, and good examples are probably correspondingly rarer as you go down the SES line. And for the 60% who don't, what avenue do they have?
It really seems like the increased filtering, polarization, and atomization in our world has done a major disservice to a lot of kids growing up - arguably the vast majority. Harsh.
And of course, as schools increasingly suck, the best / most caring / most successful parents will be opting out in greater proportions entirely - I know I'd never send my kids to any public school.
I guess this just gets back to my "we are differentiating into castes" argument.
Love the politician corndog vignette - that's high comedy, and harks back to a simpler time when "who I'd rather have a beer with" was a factor in who got votes.
As Goethe said: How sweet to hear one's own convictions from another's lips!
If I have one quibble (and I honestly expect that you wrote this in an effort to help convince a certain type of person) then it would be this:
>if you were rich, how much would you pay to be able to take a pill that gave you all that stuff?
If one could take steroids, grow into a beast of a man, only to spend all the time on the couch, that guy would never know the joy and pleasure of using his body. Same with the mind. Ask any bright guy about his happiest intellectual moments, and it will likely involve constructive arguments with friends and colleagues at one end, and eureka moments at the other. A healthy body and a health mind both want to ACT! And I suspect that any virtual life of a pure mind would only be half a life. Our bodies are gifts to be treasured. But not treasured as if some race car placed in a museum, but rather taken out to the track every day, put through its paces, and then well maintained.
> A healthy body and a health mind both want to ACT! And I suspect that any virtual life of a pure mind would only be half a life. Our bodies are gifts to be treasured. But not treasured as if some race car placed in a museum, but rather taken out to the track every day, put through its paces, and then well maintained.
At a shot, you have hit upon both my personal physical philosophy, as well as my "anti-trailer-queen" fun car philosophy. :-)
Completely agree - if you've got it, USE IT.
Don't just keep that body cooped up and never pushing itself, what's the point of having it?
Don't keep your fun car garaged and flawlessly waxed and polished but never take it out, what's the point of THAT?
Get out there and have some fun, and put those miles on!
I've been thinking, somewhat relatedly, about how we will start responding as a society to thinness, since that can now easily be purchased. My strong suspicion is that it'll stop being a particular differentiator---more akin to makeup and lipstick (well *obviously* I take my glps) than something actually attractive. It's attractive now because it signifies some combination of good genetics, physical activity, diet, conscientiousness, etc.
But once it becomes something anybody can acquire, then it signifies almost nothing (if it were only available to the top 1% or something, it could retain the status in a different way, but that's not the case).
So, prediction: something else related to physical accomplishment (my vote would be musculature) will become much more "attractive" in the coming decades. The appeal of "heroin chic" era will fully end.
> But once it becomes something anybody can acquire, then it signifies almost nothing
Totally, just like being well fed in the Ruebens era stopped being high status when food was cheap, or being pale in the time of agriculture stopped being high status when everyone was locked in offices indoors 9-5 and a nice tan meant you wintered somewhere warm.
> So, prediction: something else related to physical accomplishment (my vote would be musculature) will become much more "attractive" in the coming decades. The appeal of "heroin chic" era will fully end.
Oh, we've been there for a while if you just look higher up the ladder - much like the BMI caste chart, the "Pilates princess vs muscle mommy" body hierarchy already exists. 😂
>My strong suspicion is that it'll stop being a particular differentiator---more akin to makeup and lipstick… than something actually attractive.
This is a quibble, and admittedly speculative, but thinness might be seen as akin to having two eyes: normal and healthy, but only really noticed when falling outside the norm.
One of my favorite podcasts is "Lives Well Lived" by Peter Singer & Kasia de Lazari Radek. It answers the opening question of this post, each episode in a different way. The podcast could be a good source of role models.
I don't think they had an episode with a Nobel Olympian yet. There was a Nobel laureate on the show though (Daniel Kahnemann). And a Buddhist monk (Matthieu Ricard) who might be a good example for "being entirely content with everything AND being strongly motivated to take actions".
I might add the genetic disposition to a sort of perpetual wonder at life, described by some of the commenters under Scott’s recent post: https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/the-colors-of-her-coat
It seems like there’s a certain type of person who spends most of their time living in extreme satisfaction. I bet this is negatively correlated with drive/ambition though, and maybe even intelligence, but I believe people when they describe their experience.
Yeah, I think there's a lot of lift in attributes like this and "happiness set point" types of things overall - it's certainly traits I'd be targeting if gengineering were a thing anywhere, and these people are certainly better off than most due to their biology.
I buy a likely negative correlation with ambition, too. Accomplishment takes effort, and effort is driven by dissatisfaction, with the limits your typical neurotic Type A executives.
When I was younger, I hit a rough patch in life and really doubled down on yoga and meditation. I got to a point where I could handle pretty much anything with equanamity and the circumstances and environment of my life didn't bother me at all, no matter how difficult. I had conquered suffering, just like they said you could!
I eventually deliberately dialed it back, because being able to be content in any circumstance is great and all, but you need some dissatisfaction to be driven to change things, or at least I did.
I'm sure real yogis and practitioners would tell me I was doing it wrong, though. There's surely some state of being entirely content with everything AND being strongly motivated to take actions and do things in the world based on your surpassing love of all living things or whatever.
Well said. In my own worldview, biology is supremely important, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/cui-bono/201610/biology-determines-every-thought-feeling-and-behavior
A problem to widespread adoption: in modern society, there are almost no role models in the vein you're articulating. Most famous and powerful people don't behave like this. Among the big areas: business (top dog: Elon, ketamine addict, probably never lifted anything heavier than a videogame controller, poorly socialized, seemingly no good familial relationships, more sperm-donor than father); politics (Trump, obese, junk-food obsessed, multiple divorces; Bill Clinton pretty much the same story just not as extreme). Celebrities can be metabolically pretty healthy but a total mess otherwise.
The kind of person you're holding up as a model tends not to be especially famous. They might be "well known" in certain circles--especially high-SES circles, which are definitionally elite. Regardless, the average person doesn't have the slightest insight into these people and how they live and spend their money and time.
It's a bit unfair to the average person, really. Either they follow the past of least resistance (Fritos + Facebook), strive to become an "influencer," or model themselves after a big-name celebrity, CEO, or politician. And all of those paths--even if successful!--lead to pretty unhappy lives.
In a way, you _can't_ have a role model of the kind you're describing, because part of a happy life is being ensconced within a social circle of smart, interesting people with whom you share a mutual respect and walling off unpleasant things. Intelligent people find it loathsome to mingle with annoying people and have to pretend to enjoy pedestrian things (a guilty pleasure of mine every four years: watching politicians' being forced to eat corndogs in Iowa--even the best ones can't fully hide their disgust at the food, the people, the whole thing). The kind of people willing to undergo that sort of ritual humiliation tend to be unbalanced in other ways that make them less happy and, again, poor role models.
Same goes for extraordinarily successful businessman (I mean the absolute top-tier who become famous like Bezos, Musk, Gates, etc.): capitalism does an amazing job channeling these people's talents into building things, but it doesn't help that they tend to immiserate themselves in the process.
It's not a criticism---just an observation about how difficult it is to "get the word out."
> In a way, you _can't_ have a role model of the kind you're describing, because part of a happy life is being ensconced within a social circle of smart, interesting people with whom you share a mutual respect and walling off unpleasant things.
Man, this is a great point.
I've always kind of thought about "hard problems" like this - diet, exercise, a life well lived, how to have good relationships - as being largely a discipline / execution problem versus a knowledge problem, because you can just look around at the people you admire, who are doing it right! The knowledge is free!
But I guess I hadn't thought deeply about how selected social circles are - per Scott's article where he talks about the naive odds of literally never meeting or interacting with a creationist even though they make up half the country, all of our circles are incredibly filtered.
So where CAN average people see fit, successful people modeling happy relationships and good lives and good choices? You're completely right it's not in celebrities, or most businessmen or founders, or influencers.
If their parents aren't that, then their parents' friends aren't, their teachers probably aren't either (same geography and SES), and on down the line.
I think this used to be "church" and maybe still is for the ~40% who attend at least monthly - but even churches are highly filtered by geography and SES, and good examples are probably correspondingly rarer as you go down the SES line. And for the 60% who don't, what avenue do they have?
It really seems like the increased filtering, polarization, and atomization in our world has done a major disservice to a lot of kids growing up - arguably the vast majority. Harsh.
And of course, as schools increasingly suck, the best / most caring / most successful parents will be opting out in greater proportions entirely - I know I'd never send my kids to any public school.
I guess this just gets back to my "we are differentiating into castes" argument.
Love the politician corndog vignette - that's high comedy, and harks back to a simpler time when "who I'd rather have a beer with" was a factor in who got votes.
As Goethe said: How sweet to hear one's own convictions from another's lips!
If I have one quibble (and I honestly expect that you wrote this in an effort to help convince a certain type of person) then it would be this:
>if you were rich, how much would you pay to be able to take a pill that gave you all that stuff?
If one could take steroids, grow into a beast of a man, only to spend all the time on the couch, that guy would never know the joy and pleasure of using his body. Same with the mind. Ask any bright guy about his happiest intellectual moments, and it will likely involve constructive arguments with friends and colleagues at one end, and eureka moments at the other. A healthy body and a health mind both want to ACT! And I suspect that any virtual life of a pure mind would only be half a life. Our bodies are gifts to be treasured. But not treasured as if some race car placed in a museum, but rather taken out to the track every day, put through its paces, and then well maintained.
In any case, great post!
> A healthy body and a health mind both want to ACT! And I suspect that any virtual life of a pure mind would only be half a life. Our bodies are gifts to be treasured. But not treasured as if some race car placed in a museum, but rather taken out to the track every day, put through its paces, and then well maintained.
At a shot, you have hit upon both my personal physical philosophy, as well as my "anti-trailer-queen" fun car philosophy. :-)
Completely agree - if you've got it, USE IT.
Don't just keep that body cooped up and never pushing itself, what's the point of having it?
Don't keep your fun car garaged and flawlessly waxed and polished but never take it out, what's the point of THAT?
Get out there and have some fun, and put those miles on!
I've been thinking, somewhat relatedly, about how we will start responding as a society to thinness, since that can now easily be purchased. My strong suspicion is that it'll stop being a particular differentiator---more akin to makeup and lipstick (well *obviously* I take my glps) than something actually attractive. It's attractive now because it signifies some combination of good genetics, physical activity, diet, conscientiousness, etc.
But once it becomes something anybody can acquire, then it signifies almost nothing (if it were only available to the top 1% or something, it could retain the status in a different way, but that's not the case).
So, prediction: something else related to physical accomplishment (my vote would be musculature) will become much more "attractive" in the coming decades. The appeal of "heroin chic" era will fully end.
> But once it becomes something anybody can acquire, then it signifies almost nothing
Totally, just like being well fed in the Ruebens era stopped being high status when food was cheap, or being pale in the time of agriculture stopped being high status when everyone was locked in offices indoors 9-5 and a nice tan meant you wintered somewhere warm.
> So, prediction: something else related to physical accomplishment (my vote would be musculature) will become much more "attractive" in the coming decades. The appeal of "heroin chic" era will fully end.
Oh, we've been there for a while if you just look higher up the ladder - much like the BMI caste chart, the "Pilates princess vs muscle mommy" body hierarchy already exists. 😂
https://bodytype.substack.com/p/the-long-con-of-pilates-culture
>My strong suspicion is that it'll stop being a particular differentiator---more akin to makeup and lipstick… than something actually attractive.
This is a quibble, and admittedly speculative, but thinness might be seen as akin to having two eyes: normal and healthy, but only really noticed when falling outside the norm.
Interesting read!
One of my favorite podcasts is "Lives Well Lived" by Peter Singer & Kasia de Lazari Radek. It answers the opening question of this post, each episode in a different way. The podcast could be a good source of role models.
I don't think they had an episode with a Nobel Olympian yet. There was a Nobel laureate on the show though (Daniel Kahnemann). And a Buddhist monk (Matthieu Ricard) who might be a good example for "being entirely content with everything AND being strongly motivated to take actions".
Always interesting to get a possible glimpse into the ether.
https://wkeithcampbell.substack.com/p/the-life-of-the-mind-and-the-importance