[badger7]

The following talk is required viewing before any discussion on happiness can take place. It's absolutely and completely vital to understand the points demonstrated in this talk to have an informed opinion on the subject.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_...

Long story short: Choice makes us unhappy, yet we believe that it's what will make us happy and so we strive for it. We actively seek out that which will make us unhappy in the search for happiness.

[akamaka]

I couldn't get halfway through the article, as it's filled with pointless details.

This TED talk, on the other hand, is straight to the point.

Watch it instead.

[ilitirit]

I suppose it depends on how you approach the article. I didn't really expect a concise, scientific piece from The Atlantic, especially one that starts off as a flashback reminiscent of a mild psycho-drama. I didn't expect it to give me the secret to happiness either. I read it more as a collection of non-fictional short stories with a binding theme (life and happiness) I suppose. That's probably why I enjoyed it more than you did.

[silentbicycle]

It's the Atlantic, not a psychology journal, so the expected audience and writing style are going to be different. Coding Horror is usually pretty short on depth and detail, too.

Articles like this are a good way to hear about studies you want to read about further. I don't have time to keep current on neurology, linguistics, psychology, history, archaeology, epidemiology, etc., etc., etc. journals, and I highly doubt I'm the only one. I'm grateful for authors like Oliver Sacks who write about the material in an approachable manner.

(This same point came up yesterday. Some people here seem eager to jump on psychology as being not science, and all writing about it being fluff.)

[timr]

Yes, the "all writing must be clinical and concise" comments are one of those absurd nerd memes that I wish would die. The Atlantic is not the primary literature, and you can't impugn an entire research program based on a pop-science summary written for mass consumption.

If I could teach nerds only one thing about the world, it's that dismissing non-technical forms of communication as useless does not impress anyone with your intellectual skill -- it just makes you annoying and hard to tolerate.

[akamaka]

I posted my comment as a helpful warning to HN readers. People come to this site because they value their time, and want to be picky about what they read. My personal preference is academic-style writing.

But there's a few simple things article writers can do to improve readability. -Summaries (explain what the reader can expect to get out of the article) -Sideboxes (highlight key passages or points from each paragraph) -Descriptive paragraph headings

This article had none of those, and I felt like it was just trying to keep me hooked so I'd keep clicking to get to the next page and find the good part.

[silentbicycle]

> But there's a few simple things article writers can do to improve readability. -Summaries (explain what the reader can expect to get out of the article) -Sideboxes (highlight key passages or points from each paragraph) -Descriptive paragraph headings

Dude, the magazine has a cover story about Spongebob. (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200906/spongebob) Perhaps you're being a tiny bit silly in expecting them to "highlight key passages or points from each paragraph" for you?

[silentbicycle]

It seems like a lot of good programmers have hobbies to help get out of the all-tech, all-the-time mental rut. Balance is healthy.

Also, the information bandwidth of social communication is incredibly high. Much of our mental resources are dedicated to social decisions (friend or foe? are they lying?), which computers tend to handle very poorly.

[greendestiny]

The article truly has nothing to do with the role of choice on happiness, its about the study of entire lives with depth.

[silentbicycle]

I thought this was a good capsule summary, actually:

Yet, even as he takes pleasure in poking holes in an innocent idealism, Vaillant says his hopeful temperament is best summed up by the story of a father who on Christmas Eve puts into one son’s stocking a fine gold watch, and into another son’s, a pile of horse manure. The next morning, the first boy comes to his father and says glumly, "Dad, I just don’t know what I’ll do with this watch. It’s so fragile. It could break." The other boy runs to him and says, "Daddy! Daddy! Santa left me a pony, if only I can just find it!"

His study seems to support the idea that the way people react to problems in their lives affects their overall happiness more than the problems themselves.

[badger7]

Exactly!

[coglethorpe]

If you like the talk, read Gilbert's book "Stumbling on Happiness," which is the long version of the talk.

[tremendo]

or "The paradox of choice: Why more is less" by Barry Schwartz.

[badger7]

Books? You have time to read books? (I jest - 'tis nearing the top of a very long list...)

[badger7]

How is a 'thanks' worthy of down-votes? Because I dared to present it implicitly? Can't you muppets extrapolate anything?

[aoeu]

Gilbert appeared on edge.org..

"You may think that it would be good to feel happy at all times, but we have a word for animals that never feel distress, anxiety, fear, and pain: That word is dinner."

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gilbert06/gilbert06_index.ht...

[derefr]

Well, just the right amount of choice (just enough to occupy your mind, but no more), where all choices lead to situations involving similar amounts of choice, is commonly known as "fun." We're trying to optimize for a specific level of choice (the "fun" level), and we go over as often as we go under—over leads to stress, under leads to helplessness.