[belorn]

> I've invested significant effort in working and having a job, and, I wouldn't have have done that if I knew I could have still "gotten by" without

I have massive doubt about that statements from a social and behavior perspective.

Imagine you were transported to a society where housing, food health care, and entertainment was free, but you belong to the lowest social economic status group that existed. Everyone else are above you in term of status. While cultural rules and norms dictate that people still treat you nice, they will not see you as their equal. Members of the other sex will, for reason which is not needed to be specified, select others with higher status. Your social circle will be much smaller, possible zero. Siblings and family members might treat you differently than those of higher status. Your stress levels will be on average higher than of other people, and your health lower.

Would you be happy? Housing, food, health care and entertainment is after all still free.

[emteycz]

This never happens (almost) anywhere. We are not living in feudal times.

[belorn]

People who research human health and human behavior are constantly demonstrating the importance of social status.

Take a population and look at those with lowest rate of reproduction, lowest amount of social network, highest risk of loneliness, suicide, and what you get is a correlation to social economical status.

Take a population and measure stress hormones, and the output correlate to social economic status. Take a similar population and look at health outcomes over a large period of time, and the outcome is directly correlated to social economic status. Just a few weeks ago there were a paper showing that the outcome of defibrillation by doctors in hospitals is influenced by the patient social status. The higher the status, the more time the doctors spent in the room and the better the outcome was in shocking the patients heart. Low social status is predictor for slow recovery rate to injuries, and high social status has the opposite effect.

Even in biology we can see the effect clearly. Take a group of female students and their reproductive systems will sync based on social status. There is similar research that links male hormone levels directly with social status changes.

If we compare people in a very rich country with people from a very poor country, the people the share most similarities are those of the same social status, regardless of the actually wealth. It is sometimes refereed to as the paradox of welfare.

[emteycz]

And yet the statistics from dating apps say something absolutely different.