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Comment by op03 | Hacker News Reader

Most of the big traps society sets up is built on top of loss aversion.

The chimp brain is unreasonably terrified of loosing status, cash, relationships, health, housing etc etc. That fear is used to setup all kinds of traps to keep the chimp in chains.

So lot of people have got trapped in costly social/professional status arm races, multiple alimony/child support payments, multiple mortgages, endless credit card bills etc etc etc.

If you want to retire. Know the traps. Avoid the traps - https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/loss-aversion/

The world is not static. More people understand the weaknesses of their own brain the less things can stay the same.

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Loss aversion is perfectly reasonable. Being indifferent to losses makes sense in a world of risk, where costs are known and chances repeat, and where a cushion exists large enough to catch you. (this is the video game like world of the upper-middle class where everyone gets 10 shots)

But most of us don't live in a world of risk, we live in a world of uncertainty, and people who make decisions under uncertainty have to consider that loss isn't that good if you lose so hard that you're dead (literally or metaphorically), or you don't get to see the payoff.

The chimp brain is the way it is for a reason, if the tiger gets you that's it, doesn't matter how tasty the fruits on the tree are.

>Loss aversion is perfectly reasonable.

Is your claim that the disproportionate level of aversion is reasonable? It's my understanding this is the actual heart of the claim, not simply "people don't like losing things" but rather "people hate losing things even more than they like gaining the same thing."

Related: the endowment effect. "The endowment theory can be defined as "an application of prospect theory positing that loss aversion associated with ownership explains observed exchange asymmetries."[1]. The asymmetries as evidence that it is actually not reasonable/rational.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect

Tempered loss aversion is the better way to approach things when there is no upper limit to winning, but the lower limit to losing is getting kicked out of the game. It's why "the house always wins" is true even for fair casino games.

The hard part is getting the right balance.

Human is weird. On one hand, they hate loss.

On the other hand, they are so vulnerable to gamble-alike activities, which make the minority rich and majority poor, which always drastic decrease of the happiness in total (because those who gain money are slightly happier but those who lose money suffer).

Pensions would be funded by everyone including me, "but I can gamble better than you"

Wow. This speaks to me. What led you down thinking that it's ok to downgrade all aspects of social status and comforts? I know some friends that are routinely starting from zero again and again. One of them is having some remorseful on not building anything lasting, like having kids or long term building on a single career

I think a start is getting to a point where your well-being isn't primarily based on social status and comforts. Stoicism and Buddhism have a lot to say on this but much of it is counter to American cultural norms.

You make "comforts" sound like a sin that we should not pursue but I am here to tell you that I'd be much healthier if I lived in a house by the beach and not in the middle of a noisy city with dirty air and barely any nature around.

Would that include your definition of a "comfort"? Namely simply not wanting to live in a place that's slowly killing you?

I think the "comforts" idea sounds cool at first -- hey, look at me, I gave up my earthly desires, I am enlightened! -- until you squint your eyes and recognize that most of us are living in conditions that, again, are literally slowly killing us.

Wanting to avoid that is not "comfort". It should be a fundamental human right but what can you do, that's not the world we live in.

Apologies if I projected. Not attacking you, just explained which neurons got triggered in my head.

>Apologies if I projected. Not attacking you, just explained which neurons got triggered in my head.

No worries, and I probably didn’t take the time to explain my perspective better.

I don’t think any comforts are “bad”, assuming they aren’t built upon oppressing someone else. And there’s nothing wrong in my view with pursuing them. But there’s a needle to thread between pursuing comforts and needing comforts to be happy. The hedonic treadmill really seems to limit the latter.

There’s nothing wrong in pursuing good nutrition as an example, but I don’t want to be the person who can’t enjoy a good meal because I can’t ensure every ingredient is organic. The obsession with comforts can pull us out of the present because it’s rooted in subjective comparison.

Avoiding discomfort as a primarily goal doesn’t seem particularly healthy to me. Avoiding intense exercise because it’s discomforting or avoiding tough choices regarding climate change because they are uncomfortable don’t seem to me as particularly enlightened.

> The hedonic treadmill really seems to limit the latter.

We're in a full agreement.

But I really do mean things that with time I started to consider basic needs. Hedonism I don't endorse in general -- or at least, as you said, not when it's at the expense of someone else. If you made your money fairly and without screwing over others then sure, splurge as much as you like.

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