Controlling your environment makes your happy

According to Joel, the more you control your environment and the more things just work the way you expect them to, the more you are happy. He paraphrases Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman as follows – a great deal of depression grows out of a feeling of helplessness: the feeling that you cannot control your environment.

Political implications:

  • People are happiest in countries which follow the principles of free market with low-profile socialist policies. Socialist policies work best when they strive to insure people against risks, which they cannot control themselves.
  • There is high suicide rate of youths in very socialist countries, like Scandinavian countries, because of violation of the above principle. They are not in control of their lives and are not held responsible for their lives.
  • Moslems say “everything is from Allah”, abdicating control over their lives. Then they glorify the explosive belt method of committing suicide.

Author: Omer Zak

I am deaf since birth. I played with big computers which eat punched cards and spew out printouts since age 12. Ever since they became available, I work and play with desktop size computers which eat keyboard keypresses and spew out display pixels. Among other things, I developed software which helped the deaf in Israel use the telephone network, by means of home computers equipped with modems. Several years later, I developed Hebrew localizations for some cellular phones, which helped the deaf in Israel utilize the cellular phone networks. I am interested in entrepreneurship, Science Fiction and making the world more accessible to people with disabilities.

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