Poverty is clearly one source of emotional suffering, but there are others, like loneliness. A policy to reduce the loneliness of the elderly would certainly reduce suffering.
Interpretation
Emotional suffering can stem from various sources, not just poverty. Addressing loneliness among the elderly could alleviate a significant amount of this suffering.
Daniel Kahneman highlights that emotional suffering, such as that experienced by the elderly, is not solely caused by financial hardship like poverty, but also by social factors such as loneliness. He suggests that developing policies to combat loneliness could have a meaningful impact on reducing emotional distress, emphasizing that a holistic approach to well-being should include social connectivity and mental health support.
In practice
In a speech addressing social welfare, one could reference this quote to advocate for programs that support elderly individuals.
We think, each of us, that we're much more rational than we are. And we think that we make our decisions because we have good reasons to make them. Even when it's the other way around. We believe in the reasons, because we've already made the decision.
The average investor's return is significantly lower than market indices due primarily to market timing.
Banks are run by executives, and executives protect themselves, and that does not always mean that banks are going to behave rationally.
Laziness is built deep into our nature.
Through some combination of culture and biology, our minds are intuitively receptive to religion.
You are more likely to learn something by finding surprises in your own behavior than by hearing surprising facts about people in general.
Once one concedes that a single world government is not necessary, then where does one logically stop at the permissibility of separate states? If Canada and the United States can be separate nations without being denounced as in a state of impermissible βanarchyβ, why may not the South secede from the United States? New York State from the Union? New York City from the state? Why may not Manhattan secede? Each neighbourhood? Each block? Each house? Each person?
Fear of the future is worse than one's present fortune.
Tell her this And more,β That the king of the seas Weeps too, old, helpless man. The bustling fates Heap his hands with corpses Until he stands like a child With surplus of toys.
The imaginations which people have of one another are the solid facts of society.
Imperfection is not our personal problem - it is a natural part of existing.
This my goodness does to endow the souls of the just more fully with spiritual riches when for my love they are stripped of material goods because they have renounced the world and all its pleasures and even their own will. These are the ones who fatten their souls, enlarging them in the abyss of my charity. Then I become their spiritual provider. The Holy Spirit becomes their servant.
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