The Fourth of Six Facts With Which to Humble Oneself

The Fact: Individual pursuit of measurable extremes (like pleasure, power, security, and prestige) backfires by escalating desire/competition.

How It Works: This is a paradox for people who aim for consequences. Any such aim is selfish--for example, trying to collect money for charity is a grab at control over how money gets distributed. I certainly don't want to knock the idea of seeking more accurate predictions and using them to guide one's behavior--this is a practical necessity--but the more you study prediction, the more you realize that competition and hedonic adaption are the predicable consequences.

This is the least well established of the six humbling facts in this set. Its scientific proof is obscure, and religions downplay it so much that Pascal's wager, the argument that one ought to be religious for selfish reasons, is taken seriously. Furthermore, one can envision "end" situations in which one might expect the backfire to occur too far into the long-term to hurt the actor, unless there is an afterlife or legacy. On the other hand, faith in an afterlife or legacy seems unique to homo-sapiens, so I wonder how much the relative success of homo-sapiens is due to acceptance of this particular fact, to mustering the humility required to balance consequentialist vs. non-consequentialist approaches.

Diverse Citations:
The eyes of man will not be sated. Mishlei 27:20

Whoever loves silver will not be sated with silver, and he who loves a multitude without increase—this too is vanity. Kohelet 5:9

If one ponders on objects of the sense, there springs attraction; from attraction grows desire, desire flames to fierce passion, passion breeds recklessness; then the memory — all betrayed — lets noble purpose go, and saps the mind, till purpose, mind and man are all undone. Bhagavad Gita 2.62-63

Surrendered to desires insatiable...they trust this lie which leads to death: Finding in Pleasure all the good which is, and crying "Here it finishes!" Bhagavad Gita 16.11

If everybody knows what beauty is, then beauty is not beauty anymore; if everybody knows what doing work well is, then doing work well is not doing work well anymore. Laozi 2

Not to quest for wealth will bring that the populace won't be fighting. Laozi 3

To pursue beautiful colors makes people's eyes blind, to pursue appealing music makes people's ears deaf, to pursue delicious flavors makes people's mouth numb, to indulge in hunting makes people's heart wild. Laozi 12

Victory breeds hatred, for the conquered is unhappy. He who has given up both victory and defeat, he, the contented, is happy. Dhammapada 201

If a man is tossed about by doubts, full of strong passions, and yearning only for what is delightful, his thirst will grow more and more, and he will indeed make his fetters strong. Dhammapada 349

Ji Kangzi was concerned about the prevalence of robbers in Lu and asked Confucius about how to deal with this problem. Confucius said, "If you could just get rid of your own excessive desires, the people would not steal even if you rewarded them for it." Lun Yu 12:18

If your Majesty say, "What is to be done to profit my kingdom?" the great officers will say, "What is to be done to profit our families?" and the inferior officers and the common people will say, "What is to be done to profit our persons?" Superiors and inferiors will try to snatch this profit the one from the other, and the kingdom will be endangered. Mengzi 1A:1

Then the lord recalled the man, said to him, “You evil servant! I forgave you all your debt because you asked me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant too, just as I had for you?" His lord became angry and handed him over to the prison guards until he repaid all the debt. Matthew 18:32-34

Beware. You might destroy one another if you bite and devour each other. I say: if you are walking by the Spirit there is no way you will fulfill the desires of the flesh. Galations 5:15-17

But they that are minded to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdition. 1 Timothy 6:9

Those saved from the covetousness of their own souls, they are the ones that achieve prosperity. Quran 59:9

The seventh Imam, Musa ibn Ja'far a, said: "The likeness of this world is as the water of the sea. However much water a thirsty person drinks from it, his thirst increases so much so that the water kills him." Bihar-uI-Anwar, vol. 78, p. 311

For scientific evidence of hedonic adaption, see Lykken, D., & Tellegen, A. (1996). Happiness is a stochastic phenomenon. Psychological Science, 7, 186-189, and Diener, E., & Fujita, F. (2005). Life Satisfaction Set Point: Stability and Change. Journal of Psychology and Social Psychology, 88 (1), 158-164

For scientific evidence that greed corrupts societies, see Fehr, E., & Gachter, S. (2002) Altruistic punishment in humans, Science, 415, 137-140, and Wilson, D.S., & Wilson, E.O. (2008). Evolution "for the good of the group." American Scientist, 96(5), 380-389

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