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Comment by jonathanstrange | Hacker News Reader

What is needed minimally?

- a loved and loving partner, a sane and fulfilling sexuality

- enough income to not have any substantial worries about the future

- absence of other justifiable existential worries and anxiety about the future such as cataclysms, threats, oppressive social, political and work environments, political instability, etc.

- a decent amount of recognition in work or private life (one of them suffices, both are optimal)

- good mental and physical health

Beneficial is also frequent contact to about 3-4 close friends.

That's what I've gathered from what I've heard on the Net during the past 20 years or so. If any of the above is missing, the life will not really be good.

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Is this sarcasm?

Because this seems like a list of "pick some, but not all"... I'd say that 99.99 percent of humanity has not hit all of these goals ever in the history of humanity. If this is the minimally required list, then depression is way, way underdistributed.

Should have added that if a person is sufficiently in denial about negative externalities and risks, black swan events, etc it would be possible to achieve the feeling of accomplished that list, even without having in fact accomplished it... Just as good?

Also, one might have all those things but be fully occupied by the very realistic fear of loosing any one of them at any moment, cancelling most of the happiness.

It certainly wasn't meant sarcastically. I agree with you and others that maybe only ticking off some of these points might suffice to some persons to feel overall satisfied, and that it's what they believe/how they feel what counts, not whether these criteria are objectively fulfilled.

There might also be a semantic issue here. For me as a philosopher, leading a good life is not the same as leading an acceptable, overall satisfying, or mostly good life. The way I understand "good life" sets the bar relatively high.

Not sarcasm perhaps but I sense a confusion between “having good life” and “feeling happy” - there’s a huge difference between those.

And here I am, a single-by-choice hermit, with enough money to get by from a below-average-salary-for-my-position job, and no real achievements to be recognized for (which doesn't bother me, since I don't care what others think of me), and no real worries until I have something to worry about and deal with it then. And yet I feel perfectly content with my life in general, and happy 99% of the time.

If I was single with no dependents, I would also be happy with very little security. But with kids and a family, I now feel obliged to make sure I’m doing all I can to ensure their security, at least until they are adults.

With kids and a family, I wouldn't be happy. I was just illustrating the point that "minimally good" is subjective, as a response to OP attempting to objectively define "What is needed minimally?"

This seems like a pretty good list. I'm sure it's possible to debate the details, but it seems to hit the big points. What I think is interesting about it though is that aside from "enough income to not have any substantial worries about the future", none of these items can actually be provided by society / government. Government certainly can't provide a loving partner, fulfilling sexuality, good mental and physical health, or work/private life recognition. And as 2020 has seen with COVID, it also can't provide absence of existential worries due to cataclysms.

While a government can't necessarily provide these, it can certainly deny them.

A government's environmental policy has an objective impact on every measure of mental and physical health.

Urban design, whether you're stuck two hours in traffic to get to work, whether you work 35 or 60 hours, whether you can take a walk in your neighborhood at night in peace...

The percent of the population that has a partner, is in the top half or third of the income percentile, who enjoy their work, and who have good physical and mental health must be 15-30%.

That seems like a strange use of the word minimal. Of the 40 people in my life I know close enough to know if they meet this definition only 4-8 meet it. And I'm probably close to the best age for finding all of these items, my mid 30s. Old enough for people to make money, and find a fulfilling career but before mental and physical health starts knocking out a bunch of people.

This sounds more like maximal requirements.

Using the definition of “minimal” you seem to be applying, I’d add children and family, and some sort of communal religion. Tons of people all over the world in places like Bangladesh who have few of the things on your list, but derive happiness and satisfaction from their family and their faith.

(Like 90% of the people in the entire world would agree with the above statement and find the omission from the list above perplexing. During the Cold War, Sting actually had a song about how kids was one of the things Americans and Soviets can are on. The fact that people are downvoting it here is an indication of the outsized cultural influence of a set of views that are held by an extreme minority.)

Things done in the name of religion are a net negative on my life. It's not the fault of all religious people, but the people doing it are hard to avoid if I get involved, even if I were inclined to try.

While that may be the case, 84% of the world identifies with an organized religion, and that number is growing (as the Christian population in China, the world’s largest putatively atheist country, grows rapidly). Religion is a bedrock for social organization nearly everywhere in the world. And actively religious people in nearly every country are much more likely to report being “very happy” compared to inactively religious or irreligious people: https://www.pewresearch.org/ft_19-01-31_wellbeing_activelyre...

None of the things in OP’s list are universals. Most people are happier if they have financial security, but some people find happiness in an ascetic and minimal lifestyle for example. And many poor people are very happy. The list therefore seems to reflect major factors that reflect happiness for the population in general. And, worldwide, participation in religion and having kids are to such factors. For much of the world that’s financially or politically insecure, they are two of the most important factors. Overlooking them completely is quite misanthropic.

Sorry, but there is plenty of happiness research that contradicts most of what you say. There are world-wide studies about it every year in nearly every country of the world. Just look up "World Happiness Report", for instance, but there are many more studies. You can barely find a topic with less empirical research in psychology, sociology, and economics.

You're right that religion and community also play a role in happiness. That should be in the list. However, the rest of what you say is just wrong, or at least very misleading. People in very poor countries are overall less happy or satisfied with their life (according to their own reports) than people in richer countries.

There is a basic level of welfare that anyone who wants to be happy needs to attain. If you don't have that, then there will be all kinds of worries, e.g. you're worried about losing your income when you get sick or how to get enough food for your children. In that case, you cannot be happy. The basic needs and any existential worries associated with them cannot be substituted with religion or anything else.

You’re thinking of happiness as a binary, but the surveys you list describe it as a scale. Most people in Bangladesh don’t meet many of the criteria in OP’s list, particularly income security. (They can feed themselves but that’s about it, and that’s not guaranteed.) So why do they rate themselves a 4.5 out of 10 on global surveys instead of 0? Because family and faith is an important source of happiness. Having kids and being able to feed them (which is a condition short of “income security” as postulated by OP, and is one that even most people in Bangladesh achieve) and participating in your religious community produces a certain baseline level of happiness. Those people would be happier if they also had income security and a fulfilling job. I agree with you on that. But their families and faith are a main source of what happiness they do have. Omitting those things from the list therefore overlooks a huge swath of the human condition.

You usually really like to use Scandinavian countries in your arguments but "somehow" you miss out on doing so now since they blatantly disproves your point in this argument.

I don’t see how it disproves anything: https://happiness-report.s3.amazonaws.com/2020/WHR20.pdf. The United States is among the top 20 happiest countries in the world, happier than France, Spain, or Italy. Seeing as how the US is always portrayed as a dystopian hellhole with no income security, no healthcare, etc., and certainly France, Spain, and Italy fare better on those metrics, that would imply that something, perhaps our religiosity, is doing a lot of work boosting our happiness rankings.

At least like 5 of the top 10 countries in that report are also among the least religious countries in the world.

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