"The Science of Why You Should Spend Your Money On Experiences, Not Things"

"You don't have infinite money. Spend it on stuff that research says makes you happy."

(http://www.fastcoexist.com/3043858/world-changing-ideas/the-science-of-why-you-should-spend-your-money-on-experiences-not-thing?utm_source=facebook)

I’ve just read this post, which is quite interesting. But now I'm pondering. Is a book (or an e-book even) an 'experience' or a 'thing'? What about a (nice) bottle of wine (extra points if Chilean, because it takes me back to memories of some lovely people and a devastatingly lovely country). Or my marvellous MacBook - because this 'thing' (which is beautifully made) gives me access to a world of 'experiences' in the form of tools (spreadsheets, created documents) and information (facts, history, poetry; images of people, places and other 'things'). 

It’s true, as the article says, that you’re more likely to enjoy talking to friends about shared ‘experiences’ (a show, a holiday) than you are comparing ‘things’ you own (my car, home, computer is better than yours), but your 'experiences' will die when you do whereas ‘things’ outlast us (a flint arrowhead - or a Picasso - will always fascinate).

Perhaps I'd substitute 'stuff' for 'things' in the heading. Stuff - commoditised 'things', like more clothes, more cosmetics, more (too much) food. I'm not keen on branding or fashion - they just get you to buy 'stuff' when you def don't need it. After you have ‘enough’, quality is better than quantity whether in 'things' or in 'experiences'.  Life in the West has become more about 'quality' than 'quantity'. Art not kitsch. Skill not mindlessness.

I say ‘in the West’ because in some parts of the world mindless thuggery, perpetrated by people for whom religion has caused cancer of the mind, has reduced whole populations to terror, abject poverty and want of all the ‘things’ that inhabit the lowest regions of Maslow’s Triangle. What they very much need is more ‘things’ and less ‘experiences'.

Like most options that the media likes to put before us, in the end it isn't 'one thing or the other', it's where you find the balance. And the answer isn't the same for everyone - we find our own individual answers - the ‘experts’, too often second-rate academics, are not always worth listening to. ‘Research’ is too often poorly done, misleading, or does not stand up to scrutiny. Everyone, including second-rate academics, wants a piece of our time, to grab our attention, to get more ‘hits’, have an audience be a celebrity. It’s their (our) lives and careers. It’s stroking and stoking our own egos. All resources, whether ‘things’ or ‘experiences’ are limited, and they all have an impact on the planet. It seems to me we should just choose thoughtfully.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

"What is faith?"

Responding to Gini Dellow's post on Facebook on “What is faith?”, I wrote:

Faith, as I see it, is believing in something although you can find no tangible evidence for it, believing in something because someone tells you "that's how it is - trust me". As there is no tangible evidence it often leads to disagreement - conflict: "I am right and you are, therefore, wrong" - Sunni v Shia, etc . 

Avoiding conflict is important. How to do it? The best way is, I believe, by basing actions on facts not fancies, and a consideration of human rights. Faith often does not leave room to do this. Like you, I had religion inculcated into me by loving parents, and it took me more than 60 years to see beyond it. 

As described in the Gospels, Jesus of Nazareth was a heretic, railing against the religious authorities of his time (he called the Chief Priest, the Pharisees and the Sadducees 'hypocrites' and 'you viper's brood'), and preached to the downtrodden, attracting crowds and becoming widely talked about. That threatened the authorities and they had him framed so he could be put to death by the Roman secular power (Pilate - who didn't believe a word of the charges and therefore washed his hands  of all responsibility).

That was an end of Jesus - except that as a remarkable man of his time he lived on in memory, as do Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, and a multitude of others. The idea of a resurrection is fanciful and unnecessary. Happy Easter - the time of rebirth of the Earth, a welcoming of spring, evidence of which is all around us. No faith needed there then!

Murdoch no match for Benedict in the 'unfit to govern' stakes

This comes from the National Secular Society weekly 'Newsline' for 11th May 2012. Too good to miss. Please feel free to pass on the link:

http://du112w.dub112.mail.live.com/default.aspx#n=1482218471&fid=1&mid=64e92c45-9b4c-11e1-88ff-00237de4a1b0&fv=1

By Alistair McBay 

I have been particularly exasperated in the last few days, in common with many others I'm sure, as a result of the unfolding scandal at the Leveson Inquiry. Like me, you may be astounded at the extent to which the British Government has plumbed new depths of hypocrisy.

Consider the evidence. The non-resident octogenarian Rupert Murdoch is accused of allowing his organisation to conduct gross invasions of personal privacy, and of being personally and directly complicit in covering up these crimes over many years. Murdoch is cross-examined before a committee set up by the Government, his testimonies televised worldwide along with those of his victims and some of his senior staff are arrested. He is accused by a separate Government committee of being "not a fit person" to run a major international organisation which is deemed to be guilty of "huge failings of corporate governance", and whose instinct had been "to cover up rather than seek out wrongdoing and discipline the perpetrators". Murdoch, they said, had "turned a blind eye and exhibited wilful blindness" and "wilful ignorance" to the crimes being committed.

But at least Rupert did admit there was a cover-up. Yes, celebrity telephones were indeed hacked.

Now cast your mind back to September 2010 when another non-resident octogenarian visited the country. Pope Benedict (for it was he) also stands accused of allowing his organisation to conduct gross invasions of personal privacy and of being personally complicit in covering up these crimes over many years, not least when he was plain old Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Did he oversee a culture of 'wilful blindness'? Was he guilty of 'wilful ignorance' of what went on in his organisation? Was the instinct of his organisation "to cover up rather than seek out wrongdoing and discipline the perpetrators?" Purely rhetorical questions all.

But unlike Rupert, Josef was welcomed to Britain at enormous cost to the taxpayer, feted by politicians and royalty alike and revered as a great moral leader of our day. Not one question is put to him about his organisation's record of child abuse and covering it up, far less his own direct role in the cover-up on a global scale and over the decades. No Government committee or independent inquiry calls him unfit for purpose, far less calls him to account to answer charges that the culture of cover-up 'permeated from the top', unless Baroness Warsi challenged him on these matters on her recent Vatican trip. Somehow, I suspect the topic never cropped up – too much mutual respect and admiration getting in the way. In April, the victims of priestly child abuse called for a Government inquiry into his organisation's activities, but the Government silence has been deafening. Wilful blindness? Or it could be that Josef has only admitted to 'errors of judgement' being made by his people and not to an orchestrated cover-up. Maybe Murdoch missed a trick.

So we can draw no other conclusion than this: that the British Government sees hacking into celebrity telephone mailboxes as a greater crime than the brutal and systematic rape of innocent children, and its cover-up, by those entrusted with their care. Religious privilege? Don't get me started!

Caught flat footed...

Sorry I've been away so long - (just in case someone cares) - it's been a question of keeping the home going while my nephew was staying, and coping with other demands on my time. But I hope the blog will prosper.

What's got me going again is John Humprhies, the doyen of BBC Radio Four, interviewing a senior police officer this morning, following rioting in Tottenham over the weekend. 'Don't you think the police were caught flat-footed?' aked Humphries. 'No, I don't' (in effect) said the officer, and continued giving a measured response to the questioning. The next BBC Radio Four news bulletin headlines included 'The police denied they had been flat-footed in dealing with the riots' (I'm paraphrasing a bit, but you'll get the gist of it). Anyone switching on for that news bulletin hears the words 'flat footed' associated with the police response to the rioting and may well go through the day talking to friends and acqaintances about the police apparently being 'flat footed'. Next off there may be those who justify what went on by saying 'Well, how can you blame people for protesting when the police are so flat footed!'. And so it goes.

Seems Humphries couldn't get a good headline out of the police officer, but that hasn't stopped either him or the BBC. Well, I'd like to thank him for providing such a nice little example of cheap - but dangerous - journalism.

Resources and Public Resources…

I recently had an animated conversation with the son of a friend – a young Brazilian with a public-sector job as an administrator in the local Emergency Services. In pretty sharp contrast to his father, who works in the private sector, he is a self-declared socialist. We had a pretty wide-ranging session, running, inevitably, out of time before we had exhausted the topics of interest. We didn’t even get round to religion!

Bob – that is what I’ll call him – talked about use of ‘public resources’ to promote social well-being in Brazil. And I’ve since heard the new President, Dilma Rouseff, refer to the fact that Brazil is a huge exporter of soya while part of its own population goes without enough to eat. These are emotive issues that all responsible people would like to resolve. Of course, the government could just buy up soya (or rice, or beans, or maize, or beef) and distribute it to the hungry. But Bob, and no doubt others, want to go further. Bob wants the government to provide education, healthcare and improved transport links to people who live in isolated rural communities. “How else can these people be helped?” he asked. I told him I wasn’t sure how to answer that question.

I asked Bob what was the difference between ‘public resources’ and plain old ‘resources’. My point was that all resources ultimately derive from the private sector (where wealth is created). What was strange is that he refused to answer. Clearly in his mind it is legitimate to spend ‘public resources’ but he was in denial about the origin of those resources. All ‘public resources’ are taken in taxes from the private sector – clearly Bob thinks it’s fine to confiscate some private money although he was fairly clear that it would be wrong to expropriate all private sector resources. Bob certainly wants to be a Socialist, but he wouldn’t dream of being a Communist!

As a humanist I would certainly like to eradicate poverty, but I’m not about to sanction the plans of Brazilian socialists. For one thing, everyone I speak to in Brazil accepts that the political system is corrupt from bottom to top. The problem is not as bad as in much of Africa, where political systems do not function, but it is a constant drain on the nation. The beneficiaries of the corruption are the politicians themselves (and their families), friends of politicians, businesses with government contracts, and the government apparatchiks in Brasilia. Boy, does money flow in Brasilia!

So, if we take R$100 from private resources into ‘public resources’ and then spend it to help the rural poor, it looks like only (say) R$60 or R$80 ends up doing any good. Hmm, not ideal – but then perhaps some help is better than none? The trouble with corruption is that it’s the hard-working, less-well off, who end up footing the bill. So, is there a viable alternative? I’m not sure.

What I do know is that my own (Brazilian) parents-in-law (and many other relatives of their generation) were once the rural poor. They were barely-literate agricultural workers but learned to sew and make clothes. This allowed them to move to a local town and, after many changes in search of a better life they eventually succeeded in allowing all of their children to get enough schooling. Four went on to higher education. Along the way my in-laws were sometimes without food and/or shelter, they suffered from ill-health and had sometimes to rely on money earned by their young children. I think that most of what they achieved was done without many ‘public resources’, and they were respectable, hard-working and honest people. I can’t help feeling that the difficult road they travelled is a better one than would have been achieved had they been the beneficiaries of socialist good intentions. It’s good that Bob wants to have a view on these things, but I find it ironic that he’s the beneficiary of a safe job and is paid out of ‘public resources’.

Chinese whispers…

A Brazilian friend just told me he doesn’t much feel like making an effort to reduce his ‘carbon footprint’ because he keeps reading that China is pushing out more and more CO² from the burning of fossil fuels.

The Chinese are certainly industrializing at breakneck speed and building coal-fired power stations at a prodigious rate. And this at a time when the biggest macro-political problem the world faces is said to be global warming. Western governments are committing their economies to reducing carbon dioxide output by forcing through technological changes and increasing taxation on their populations without any specific mandate through the ballot box: I was never yet offered the choice of a political party that would impose CO² restrictions on me and one that would not.

Yet Western governments seem to swallow the hype that the Chinese should be allowed to pump out rising quantities of CO²: when Western countries industrialized, it’s said, that’s what they did so it’s ‘only fair’; the Chinese are only ‘catching up’.

No one seems to point it out, but this is absurd. Let’s see why:

When Britain (for example) was industrializing there was neither awareness that carbon dioxide emissions might be harmful to the earth’s atmosphere nor was there available any mitigating technology. Early industrializing nations had to inch their way forwards to scientific knowledge and technological innovation. Vast amounts of both are now available as a common heritage of mankind to currently industrializing countries effectively at no, or minimal, cost. These great boons allow them to industrialize rapidly and efficiently. Furthermore, western-based companies are falling over themselves to take the latest technologies into the newly industrializing countries in an effort to continue to grow profitably.

China is a political dictatorship with a market-based economy and Chinese leaders make fools of western bureaucrats and politicians with specious arguments about CO² emissions. Why is there such a silence on these matters in the western media? My friend is clearly smarter than the average bear.

Atheists, Deists and Theists.

In debates between atheists and the religious, the latter often cite the existence of scientists who are said to have religious beliefs as some sort of rebuttal of atheism and justification of religion. Particular names are mentioned and statements made suggesting that a significant proportion of scientists adhere to one or another religious faith. I think this approach misses the point.

Atheists, and I note Richard Dawkins as an example, are often careful to state that they cannot prove the non-existence of a god, or gods, partly because proving a negative is practically impossible in itself and partly because they recognize that at the start of time conditions were so extreme that science has been unable to gather sufficient evidence about what took place.

Religious believers can broadly be considered under two headings – deists and theists. The former believe, or are prepared to believe, that a Creator set the universe in motion, but then left it to run on its own, the natural processes of cosmological, planetary and biological evolution leading to the universe as we know it today. The latter believe that after initiating the Creation their god continued to exercise an influence on the processes, intervening when thought necessary. Theists believe (or assert they believe) that to this day their god can be induced to change the course of events in response to prayer or other representation.

Innumerable sects of theists exist, each maintaining that only their own sect has ‘the truth’, each collecting financial or other contributions from its adherents and each seeking control over the lives of its own faithful.

Deists can understand, though they lament, the occurrence of natural disasters (such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods and hurricanes). Theists are forced to make awful excuses about why a divinity who is capable of changing the course of events should allow such catastrophes to happen.  

When the existence of a god or gods is under discussion, it seems to me that the real division is not between the religious and atheists, but between theists and those who simply do not believe in the existence of a spirit that intervenes in the natural order of events, be they atheists or deists.