Happiness Catch-22: Wanting More Makes Us Unhappy by Nick Kossovan | Canada News Media
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Happiness Catch-22: Wanting More Makes Us Unhappy by Nick Kossovan

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From 2001 to 2004, I worked/lived in India. I saw firsthand heartbreaking poverty. My takeaway from my experience in India is that North Americans have no real problems, just 1st world problems. Our financial stress, feeling unsuccessful, and constantly seeking fulfillment are caused by marketing propaganda’s influences and overabundance. It’s no secret that marketers and advertisers keep us wanting more and more. This manufactured insatiable appetite to consume has eroded our ability to have any gratitude for all we have compared to most of the world. Canadians’ lack of gratitude for living a 1st world lifestyle is truly appalling!

In 2018 almost half the world lived on less than $5.50 a day. According to the World Bank, 3.4 billion people struggle to meet basic needs.

Western society, especially North America, measures happiness and success by comparing oneself with others. For the most part, how we feel about our income, car, and house are moulded by our family, friends, colleagues, neighbors’ income, car, and house. It’s a national pass time to worry about relative status, which is why much of our consumerism revolves around trying to “look rich.”.

Marketing propaganda has made us believe we’re entitled to a certain lifestyle. If you’re not living the lifestyle you’re supposedly entitled to, we’re a failure. Not long ago, when I’d see somebody wearing a $5,000 watch, for example, I’d look at my $200 watch and think, “Maybe I’m doing something wrong.”

Buying a Breitling® watch, an Audi S6 Sedan, or a Lardini single-breasted blazer may make you feel happier. Like with my aforementioned watch example, it has a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses status effect. However, the happiness doesn’t last long, since eventually “the Jones” will either buy what you bought or something regarded as “better.” This makes us want to buy more stuff to one-up “the Jones.” Let’s be honest; we all want to be “the Jones.”

When the latest iPhone comes out, the lineup at Apple stores are people who have a functioning iPhone in their pocket, wanting to be “the Jones.” (FYI, we’re on iPhone13, the first iPhone came out on June 29, 2007.)

Moreover, we tend to compare ourselves to those who appear wealthier than us, an illusion easy to create, given the ease with which credit can be acquired today, coupled with social media. Thorstein Veblen, the 20th-century economist who coined “conspicuous consumption” and “invidious comparisons,” highlighted how people use luxury goods to display their social status, which in 2022 social media amplifies. As early as 1899, Veblen observed that people lived on treadmills of wealth accumulation, incessantly competing with others but not increasing their own well-being. Sounds familiar?

Wanting, and therefore constantly seeking, recognition (READ: validation) is the biggest driver of human behavior, which explains social media’s addictive quality. (Social Media = “Look at me!”) You giving a $2,000 cheque to your favorite charity receives no social applause. However, post a selfie of yourself wearing a $1,500 COBB leather jacket on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter—you’ll receive likes, comments, and ego-stroking. You’ll temporarily be happy, but once the euphoria wears off, you’ll want to buy more recognition. When it comes to ever-changing fashion, marketing propaganda tells you that your clothes will give you the recognition you crave more than your character or actions.

Unfortunately, our society has gotten to the point where we feel recognition, respect, and love are more likely to come from owning a 65-inch flat-screen TV or driving a Tesla Model S than from doing good deeds or just being a good person.

As social animals, status is naturally important to us. We’re anxious to stand out from the crowd—to tower over our peers, gain their respect, and “hopefully” their love, which we believe will make us happy and fulfilled.

For hundreds of years, we’ve inherently known that consumption doesn’t lead to happiness. Every religion and philosophical tradition evangelizes this concept. Karl Marx’s most important insight was his theory of alienation, which he defined as the sense of estrangement from the self that comes from being part of a materialistic society, in which we are cogs in a vast market-based machine.

You don’t need to be religious (or a Marxist) to see how absurd some of the claims our hyper-consumerist society makes. We’re promised happiness with the next pay raise, the next new gadget—even the next sip of soda. In his book The Happiness Fantasy, Carl Cederström, a Swedish business professor, argues that companies and advertisers have promised satisfaction. Instead, they have led people into a joyless production and consumption rat race. As a result, though the material comforts of life have undeniably increased for Canadians, these “things” don’t give our life meaning.

 

We give our life meaning when we:

  • give more than we take
  • help someone in distress
  • share
  • empathize
  • develop meaningful relationships we can count on
  • are a good son, daughter, or friend
  • serve others

 

You could easily interpret this article as a lamentation against modern life and capitalism. For the record, I’m a very public proponent of democratic capitalism with a modern welfare state. My attempt here is to appeal to everyone to remember that material prosperity has both benefits and costs. The costs come when we allow our hunger for the trappings of prosperity to blind us from the timeless sources of true human happiness: faith, family, friendship, and work in which we earn our respective definitions of success and serving others. These have always been, and will always be, the things that deliver the happiness I see so many trying to obtain through their consumerism.

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Nick Kossovan, a self-described connoisseur of human psychology, writes about what’s on his mind from Toronto. You can follow Nick on Twitter and Instagram @NKossovan

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Who will buy Infowars? Both supporters and opponents of Alex Jones interested in bankruptcy auction

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Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars broadcasts could end next week as he faces a court-ordered auction of his company’s assets to help pay the more than $1 billion defamation judgment he owes families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

Or maybe not.

Both opponents and supporters of the bombastic internet show and radio host have expressed interest in bidding on the Infowars properties he has built over the past 25 years. They include Roger Stone, an ally of Jones and Donald Trump, and anti-Jones progressive media groups. If Jones supporters buy the assets, he could end up staying on Infowars.

Up for sale are everything from Jones’ studio desk to Infowars’ name, video archive, social media accounts and product trademarks. Buyers can even purchase an armored truck and video cameras. For now, Jones’ personal social media, including his account on X, formerly known as Twitter, with 3 million followers, are not up for sale, but court proceedings on whether they should be auctioned are pending.

The auctions resulted from Jones’ personal bankruptcy case, which he filed in late 2022 after the Sandy Hook families were awarded nearly $1.5 billion in damages in lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas over his claims that the school shooting was a hoax. Many of Jones’ personal assets also are being liquidated to help pay the judgment.

The deadline to submit bids and nondisclosure agreements on the Infowars assets is Friday afternoon. After the bids are reviewed, prospective buyers deemed qualified will be invited to a live auction that could see multiple bidding rounds next Wednesday. Any items not sold will be put up at another auction on Dec. 10.

Jones has expressed confidence that supporters — whom he did not name — will buy the assets of Infowars and its parent company, Free Speech Systems, allowing him to continue using its platforms. He also appears to be preparing for losing the brand because he has set up new websites and social media accounts and has been directing his audience to them.

“There’s a lot of buyers, people that are patriots that want it and will come in,” Jones said on his show in August. “If not … we’ll work with somebody else, fire something up. And it’ll be a little bit of a hiccup for the crew, and things. But that will just make us bigger.”

Email messages to Infowars and Jones’ bankruptcy lawyer were not returned.

It’s not clear how much money the auctions might bring in. In court documents, Free Speech Systems listed the total value of its properties and holdings at $18 million. Proceeds from the sales will go to creditors including the Sandy Hook families, who have not yet received any money from Jones and his company.

Confidentiality agreements and sealed bids generally are used in auctions to maximize bid amounts while preventing bidders from talking to each other and driving down the offers. The trustee in Jones’ bankruptcy case said in court documents that the procedures for the Infowars auction were designed to attract the highest possible bids.

Christopher Mattei, a Connecticut lawyer representing the Sandy Hook families, called the auctions an important milestone in their yearslong fight to hold Jones accountable. He also said the families will be seeking a portion of all Jones’ future income.

“From the beginning, the Connecticut families have sought to hold Jones fully accountable for his lies and to protect other families from him,” Mattei said. “Stripping Jones of the corrupt business he used to attack the families while poisoning the minds of his listeners is an important measure of justice.”

The families sued Jones and his company for defamation and emotional distress for repeatedly saying on his show that the 2012 shooting that killed 20 first graders and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax staged by crisis actors to spur more gun control.

Parents and children of many of the victims testified that they were traumatized by Jones’ hoax conspiracies and threats by his followers.

Jones, who has since acknowledged that the shooting did happen, is appealing the judgments.

Jones has made millions of dollars from his internet and radio shows, primarily through sales of nutritional supplements, survival gear, clothing and other merchandise.

Stone, the Jones and Trump ally and a conservative commentator, said on his X account and on Jones’ show that he would like to put together a group of investors to buy Infowars. He did not return email and social media messages on Thursday.

“I understand the importance of Infowars as a beacon of the truth, as a beacon of truthful information. And therefore, I would like to do whatever I possibly can to ensure, if possible, that Infowars survives,” Stone said on Jones’ show in September.

People on social media also have urged billionaire Elon Musk, owner of Tesla and X, to buy Infowars, an idea Jones has backed but Musk has not publicly responded to.

On the other side, Jones’ detractors have shown interest in buying Infowars, kicking Jones out and turning it into something else, such as a news site that debunks conspiracy theories or even a parody site. They include officials at two progressive media sites, The Barbed Wire and Media Matters for America.

An opinion piece by The Barbed Wire in September by publisher Jeff Rotkoff had a headline that read, “Let’s Buy Infowars. Alex Jones used these exact materials to exploit his viewers, peddle conspiracy theories, and damage the lives of grieving parents. We want revenge.”

Rotkoff urged readers to donate money to help put in bids, but he said Thursday that The Barbed Wire, based in Jones’ home state of Texas, was now unlikely to make any offers.

“But we have talked to a number of similarly ideologically aligned bidders and we are certain we will be outbid,” Rotkoff said in an email. “We’re thrilled that there appear to be multiple well-resourced bidders who share our interest in undoing much of the damage to our country done by Alex Jones. We’ll be rooting for those folks to be successful.”

He declined to say who the other potential bidders were.

Who exactly has submitted bids so far has not been disclosed. Jeff Tanenbaum, president of ThreeSixty Asset Advisors, which is helping to run the auction along with Tranzon Asset Advisors, would only say there have been a large number of inquiries.

If detractors buy up Infowars’ properties and Jones gets the boot, he should be able to build new platforms fairly quickly, said Melissa Zimdars, an associate professor of communication and media at Merrimack College in Massachusetts.

“As long as there is an audience hungry for his content — and there is — he’ll be able to utilize X and various fringe social media platforms,” she said in an email.



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Australian states back national plan to ban children younger than 16 from social media

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MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia’s states and territories on Friday unanimously backed a national plan to require most forms of social media to bar children younger than 16.

Leaders of the eight provinces held a virtual meeting with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to discuss what he calls a world-first national approach that would make platforms including X, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook responsible for enforcing the age limit.

“Social media is doing social harm to our young Australians,” Albanese told reporters. “The safety and mental health of our young people has to be a priority.”

The government leaders had been discussing for months setting a limit, considering options from 14 to 16 years of age.

While Tasmania would have preferred 14, the state was prepared to support 16 in the interests of achieving national uniformity, Albanese said.

The legislation will be introduced into Parliament within two weeks, and the age ban would take effect a year after it passes into law, giving platforms time to work out how to exclude children. The government has yet to offer a technical solution.

The delay is also intended to allow time to address privacy concerns around age verification.

The main opposition party has given in-principle support to the 16-year age limit since it was announced on Thursday, suggesting the legislation will pass the Senate.

The minor Greens party was critical, saying the ban would prevent the emergence in Australia of future child environmental activists like Sweden’s Greta Thunberg.

More than 140 academics with expertise in fields related to technology and child welfare signed an open letter to Albanese last month opposing a social media age limit as “too blunt an instrument to address risks effectively.”

Critics say most teenagers are tech savvy enough to get around such laws. Some fear the ban will create conflicts within families and drive social media problems underground.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, argues that stronger tools in app stores and operating systems for parents to control what apps their children can use would be a “simple and effective solution.”

The government likens the proposed social media age limit to the laws that restrict the sale of alcohol to adults aged 18 and older across Australia. Children still find ways to drink, but the prohibition remains.

“We think these laws will make a real positive difference,” Albanese said.

But Lisa Given, professor of information sciences at RMIT University, described the legislation as “really problematic.”

“Many of our social networks are actually about the provision of extremely critical information to kids,” Given told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

“There’s no doubt that they’re also facing bullying and other challenges online, but they actually need the social supports to know how to navigate the platforms safely and so they need more support from parents, from care-givers, not less access to a single or multiple platforms,” Given added.

Tama Leaver, professor of internet studies at Curtin University, described the government’s plan to remove 14 and 15-year-olds from their already established social media accounts was “strange.”

“If you’ve already developed that space in that world, to have it taken away really could do as much harm as the harms that are purportedly being fixed,” Leaver said.

“There are so many questions about this that have yet to be answered, but even if we had solid answers about how this might work technically and how this might get implemented socially, it’s still hard to believe that this would actually keep kids safe online,” he added.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said children would retain access to online education and health services.

The legislation would also include strong privacy protections surrounding age verification.

“Privacy must be paramount, including that of children,” Rowland said. “We should also be very clear about the realities. These platforms know about their users in a way that no one else does.”

Rowland said YouTube would likely be included among the mainstream platforms defined under the legislation as age restricted services.

But YouTube Kids could be exempted. Gaming and messaging services would not face age restrictions, she said,

“This legislation would strike a balance between minimizing the harms experienced by young people during a critical period of their development while also supporting their access to benefits as well,” Rowland said.



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Sony reports healthy profits on strong sales of sensors and games

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TOKYO (AP) — Sony’s profit rose 69% in July-September from a year earlier on the back of strong sales of its image sensors, games, music and network services, the Japanese electronics and entertainment company said on Friday.

Quarterly profit was 338.5 billion yen ($2.2 billion), up from 200 billion yen in the year-earlier period, while consolidated quarterly sales edged up 3% year-on-year to 2.9 trillion yen ($19 billion).

Tokyo-based Sony’s latest quarterly results were boosted by healthy demand around the world for image sensors used in mobile products.

Sales also held up in its video games division. During the latest quarter, 3.8 million PlayStation 5 game consoles were sold globally, compared with 4.9 million units sold the same period a year ago.

Demand remained strong for PS5 game software, according to Sony.

The top-selling music releases from Sony for the quarter included “SOS” by SZA, David Gilmour’s “Luck and Strange” and Kenshi Yonezu’s “Lost Corner.”

One area where Sony’s business suffered was its pictures division, including TV shows and movies, which was impacted by production delays caused by the strikes in Hollywood.

Among the recent hit films from Sony was “It Ends With Us,” a romantic drama based on a novel.

Sony, which also makes digital cameras and TVs, maintained its 980-billion yen ($6.4 billion) profit forecast for the fiscal year through March 2025, up 1% from the previous fiscal year.

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Yuri Kageyama is on X:

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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