Can someone give or link to a convincing argument, possibly in the form of a lesswrong post, that having fun is beneficial? It seems intuitive, but that intuition doesn’t answer:
How much fun should one have?
What kind of fun should one have?
etc.
Sex is probably the ideal form. It encompasses social connectedness, physical exertion, flow and physical coordination. Each of those are important, in approximately that order.
I thought I specified this with “as often as you need”.
Although, after reading your comment it now occurs to me that it could be possible that others might not know how much fun they need. Is that true?
If so, I recommend you explore having an “unlimited” amount of fun without ceasing for days on end (think cliches of “spring break”) until you can naturally feel the inflection point at which adding more hedonistic experiences on top of your current pleasure no longer improves your happiness and you long for “relief from recreation”. If I’m remembering correctly, this is how I actually calibrated how much fun I need. Once you know this point, you can more naturally feel the bend of your own hedonistic pleasure curve and keep yourself in a state of content, disciplined happiness or slide yourself up towards bliss or down towards more subdued states depending on what’s appropriate for the situation.
What kind of fun should one have?
Sex is indeed the correct answer. In some ways, I feel like a chicken-shit for not finding the right way to say this directly in my article. I guess I didn’t want to point out sex as an ideal form of recreation since, based on reading comments here on LW, I perceive it as being relatively scarce among some readers. Now that I think of it, my mind actually estimates it as so low that it effectively rounds it down to zero unless I think it through consciously and realize that it can’t possibly be that divergent from any other community. Still, I know the pain of being someone who has had sex before, and then being reminded of how awesome sex is without having an outlet for it at the time, and having it leave me feeling unbelievably miserable. I didn’t want to leave even a single person reading my article in a place like that.
[ OTOH, if they’re down here reading the comments, sorry about that. ]
I guess normally just avoid mentioning sex to people unless I know they’re in an abundant sexual situation in life. This heuristic is probably overkill. How do other people deal with this?
Cuddling with people who are willing to accept it as just cuddling might be a good place to start.
Another avenue to explore is, imagine you had enough resources that neither physical health and safety nor status contests presented any challenge to you, but not quite enough for world-shattering extravagances. Beloved king of a small, peaceful city-state, maybe, with a staff of wise and dutiful ministers who can handle all the routine administrative drudgery. What would you do with your time? Appeal to the senses with fine food and music, perhaps, or explore mathematics?
Once you have a list of things, you’ll probably notice at least a few of those diversions don’t actually require regal-level assets to dabble in and enjoy, so try the practical stuff for real and explore different variations until you find something you like. Then, for each of the ‘sweet spots,’ go find a community of hundreds of people on the internet who have been obsessing about that particular sort of enjoyment for longer than you’ve been alive, and mine them for ideas, bearing in mind always that the only wrong ways to have fun are the ones that either a) have unacceptable long-term consequences for yourself and/or people you care about or b) don’t actually result in fun.
Exercise, socialise and do things that are challenging without being frustrating. If you can combine more than one of these into one activity then so much the better.
I know the pain of being someone who has had sex before, and then being reminded of how awesome sex is without having an outlet for it at the time, and having it leave me feeling unbelievably miserable. I didn’t want to leave even a single person reading my article in a place like that.
Everyone is embedded (Buss 2004) with a model of the interpreter when we speak in language. This model prevents us from saying imoral things in presence of selfs we are well acquainted with in their concept of morality.
I assume for speaking, just remind people of sex as much as your mind naturally allows. In the case of writing, where readers are many and do not have a model in your mind, shut up and calculate. That is, just talk about the pleasure of sex if you are using it in an argument about something else.
This is also helpful because it avoids Status Promotion bias, the bias that you have to pretend to have an awesome sex life so that people become attracted to you.
There are so many kinds of fun to be had, I suggest sex is overrated. Take great movies, roller coasters, conversations with friends, swimming, watching fire burn, pic-nics and hiking as prime examples which do Not last very long (as opposed to videogames, that simply exaust your minutes away).
What fun would you say is optimal for preserving mental health? Seems like that would be social contact, but it’s not clear whether that intuition is correct.
This intuition is correct if you take mental health to highly correlate health in general.
Except for Ageing, and Tabagism (also called slow motion suicide), not having a deeply rewarding and intrincate social life is the most important factor determining your health.
“People with strong social relationships were 50 percent less likely to die
early than people without such support, the team at Brigham Young University
in Utah found.
They suggest that policymakers look at ways to help people maintain social
relationships as a way of keeping the population healthy.
“A lack of social relationships was equivalent to smoking up to 15 cigarettes
a day,” psychologist Julianne Holt-Lunstad, who led the study, said in a
telephone interview.
Her team conducted a meta-analysis of studies that examine social
relationships and their effects on health. They looked at 148 studies that
covered more than 308,000 people.
Having low levels of social interaction was equivalent to being an alcoholic,
was more harmful than not exercising and was twice as harmful as obesity.
Social relationships had a bigger impact on premature death than getting an
adult vaccine to prevent pneumonia, than taking drugs for high blood pressure
and far more important than exposure to air pollution, they found.
META--: Will someone Please create a way in which comments can use italicized text so I don’t have to do This to emphasize a word!
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Well, if you believe in a utilitarian theory of morality, then the most ethical thing to do is to maximize utility (happiness) for everyone, including yourself. So basically, you should have as much fun as you can, except in cases when you could devote that same effort to increase someone else’s happiness by a greater value.
In that case, I would just mention that if you improve your own mood, that is likely to improve the mood of people close to you and in your social network in general. Both happiness and sadness are contagious.
Also, maintaining a positive mood is likely to make your more efficient at other tasks.
Can someone give or link to a convincing argument, possibly in the form of a lesswrong post, that having fun is beneficial? It seems intuitive, but that intuition doesn’t answer:
How much fun should one have? What kind of fun should one have? etc.
if one wants to save the world.
Sex is probably the ideal form. It encompasses social connectedness, physical exertion, flow and physical coordination. Each of those are important, in approximately that order.
I thought I specified this with “as often as you need”.
Although, after reading your comment it now occurs to me that it could be possible that others might not know how much fun they need. Is that true?
If so, I recommend you explore having an “unlimited” amount of fun without ceasing for days on end (think cliches of “spring break”) until you can naturally feel the inflection point at which adding more hedonistic experiences on top of your current pleasure no longer improves your happiness and you long for “relief from recreation”. If I’m remembering correctly, this is how I actually calibrated how much fun I need. Once you know this point, you can more naturally feel the bend of your own hedonistic pleasure curve and keep yourself in a state of content, disciplined happiness or slide yourself up towards bliss or down towards more subdued states depending on what’s appropriate for the situation.
Sex is indeed the correct answer. In some ways, I feel like a chicken-shit for not finding the right way to say this directly in my article. I guess I didn’t want to point out sex as an ideal form of recreation since, based on reading comments here on LW, I perceive it as being relatively scarce among some readers. Now that I think of it, my mind actually estimates it as so low that it effectively rounds it down to zero unless I think it through consciously and realize that it can’t possibly be that divergent from any other community. Still, I know the pain of being someone who has had sex before, and then being reminded of how awesome sex is without having an outlet for it at the time, and having it leave me feeling unbelievably miserable. I didn’t want to leave even a single person reading my article in a place like that.
[ OTOH, if they’re down here reading the comments, sorry about that. ]
I guess normally just avoid mentioning sex to people unless I know they’re in an abundant sexual situation in life. This heuristic is probably overkill. How do other people deal with this?
I’m not interested in sex, what’s the next best thing?
Cuddling with people who are willing to accept it as just cuddling might be a good place to start.
Another avenue to explore is, imagine you had enough resources that neither physical health and safety nor status contests presented any challenge to you, but not quite enough for world-shattering extravagances. Beloved king of a small, peaceful city-state, maybe, with a staff of wise and dutiful ministers who can handle all the routine administrative drudgery. What would you do with your time? Appeal to the senses with fine food and music, perhaps, or explore mathematics?
Once you have a list of things, you’ll probably notice at least a few of those diversions don’t actually require regal-level assets to dabble in and enjoy, so try the practical stuff for real and explore different variations until you find something you like. Then, for each of the ‘sweet spots,’ go find a community of hundreds of people on the internet who have been obsessing about that particular sort of enjoyment for longer than you’ve been alive, and mine them for ideas, bearing in mind always that the only wrong ways to have fun are the ones that either a) have unacceptable long-term consequences for yourself and/or people you care about or b) don’t actually result in fun.
Exercise, socialise and do things that are challenging without being frustrating. If you can combine more than one of these into one activity then so much the better.
For me, being the center of (positive) attention. For example, performing for an audience gives me a HUGE rush.
For me, it’s sugar. YMMV.
Dancing is mine.
This thought is very much appreciated.
Everyone is embedded (Buss 2004) with a model of the interpreter when we speak in language. This model prevents us from saying imoral things in presence of selfs we are well acquainted with in their concept of morality.
I assume for speaking, just remind people of sex as much as your mind naturally allows. In the case of writing, where readers are many and do not have a model in your mind, shut up and calculate. That is, just talk about the pleasure of sex if you are using it in an argument about something else.
This is also helpful because it avoids Status Promotion bias, the bias that you have to pretend to have an awesome sex life so that people become attracted to you.
There are so many kinds of fun to be had, I suggest sex is overrated. Take great movies, roller coasters, conversations with friends, swimming, watching fire burn, pic-nics and hiking as prime examples which do Not last very long (as opposed to videogames, that simply exaust your minutes away).
One reason is that if you attempt to be an optimized world-saving robot, your mental health will deteriorate.
Mine did, at least. Now I’m in therapy. Take your mental health seriously, don’t think you can sweep it under the rug.
What fun would you say is optimal for preserving mental health? Seems like that would be social contact, but it’s not clear whether that intuition is correct.
Yeah, profound isolation is definitely my #1 problem. Apart from that, I couldn’t say. I have the problem, not the solution.
This intuition is correct if you take mental health to highly correlate health in general.
Except for Ageing, and Tabagism (also called slow motion suicide), not having a deeply rewarding and intrincate social life is the most important factor determining your health.
“People with strong social relationships were 50 percent less likely to die early than people without such support, the team at Brigham Young University in Utah found. They suggest that policymakers look at ways to help people maintain social relationships as a way of keeping the population healthy. “A lack of social relationships was equivalent to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day,” psychologist Julianne Holt-Lunstad, who led the study, said in a telephone interview. Her team conducted a meta-analysis of studies that examine social relationships and their effects on health. They looked at 148 studies that covered more than 308,000 people.
Having low levels of social interaction was equivalent to being an alcoholic, was more harmful than not exercising and was twice as harmful as obesity. Social relationships had a bigger impact on premature death than getting an adult vaccine to prevent pneumonia, than taking drugs for high blood pressure and far more important than exposure to air pollution, they found.
Paper is here: http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000316
We use markdown. Click the “Help” link at the bottom right of the comment box. Use either asterices or underscores around a word or phrase that you wish to emphasise. Two of the same on each side for bold.
I made this same mistake, and ended up being significantly less optimized at world-saving as a result.
Yes, Will’s intuition is right. The literature is clear on how important social connectedness is to human health and well-being.
Well, if you believe in a utilitarian theory of morality, then the most ethical thing to do is to maximize utility (happiness) for everyone, including yourself. So basically, you should have as much fun as you can, except in cases when you could devote that same effort to increase someone else’s happiness by a greater value.
That’s not relevant. The claim being made is that the best way to increase other’s happiness is to have fun yourself, at least some.
Fair enough.
In that case, I would just mention that if you improve your own mood, that is likely to improve the mood of people close to you and in your social network in general. Both happiness and sadness are contagious.
Also, maintaining a positive mood is likely to make your more efficient at other tasks.