[dlwdlw]

I think you're missing something fundamental about wanting and it's that we are wired to always want more. I think it's useful to accept this as something universal so we can understand why others and ourselves act the way we do.

One is that it accepts the imperfect was of others instead of deriding that others are not perfect from a moral high ground. The other is that it prevents ourselves from playing the victim.

It acknowledges the common strengths in each human by also acknowledging the common weaknesses.

At each level of the "game" , whichever game you playing, there always exists a master/slave winner/loser relationship. A pseudo happiness is achieved when comparing with other games and works both ways. "I'm glad I'm not a minimal wage monkey" and "I'm glad I'm not a souless sellout."

The games can be stratified into economic divisions but in terms of striving and human drama they are quite similar. The poor person who has never tasted really expensive food gets the same pleasure from something more simple than a rich person who has numbed his palate does from the most expensive things.

Acknowledging this constant suffering by everyone is the most humane thing you can do and is the only way out of the game of dehumanization others for the purpose of humanizing the self.

[lsc]

>The games can be stratified into economic divisions but in terms of striving and human drama they are quite similar. The poor person who has never tasted really expensive food gets the same pleasure from something more simple than a rich person who has numbed his palate does from the most expensive things.

My argument is that this is not true. there's a threshold below which not having enough causes significantly more suffering. having to wait two generations before buying the latest apple gadget is not the same level of suffering as having to delay a medical procedure because your job doesn't give you insurance until you've been there 6 months.

I don't know where the line is, but I am saying that going from $20K to $40K a year in total resources available to you makes more difference to your quality of life than going from $100K to $200K. - By a lot.

I mean, your description of being poor as eating plain foods sounds like you might have had a life like mine. Yes, there were times in my life where I had to eat inexpensive food, and yeah, it really wasn't so bad. But... I really think that's a fundamentally different kind of problem than having times in your life where there wasn't enough food at all.

Having times when you might have to get a smaller apartment or even roommates is also unpleasant... but I don't think it compares at all to having times where you might become homeless.