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[–] pitenius 0 points 5 points (+5|-0) ago 

Poverty is the natural state of man. You can be happy this way. I've seen it in the South Pacific -- few clothes, eating fish and fruit: life is what you make it.

Money is a contract into a social relationship. You have something other people esteem. You can negotiate with them. This can go well or it can go poorly. The trouble is not the money, but the relationship, the miscommunication of desires, deceit, disparate goals. But there's a dark side to this type of social contract: debt.

The debtor is craven and beholden to the esteem of others. If poverty is the natural state of man, debt is the mark of a slave.

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[–] pm_me_or 0 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago 

The society we live in flourishes under innovation, science, foresightedness. These have no value in societies where the only goal in life is to be happy.

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[–] pitenius ago 

English really needs an inclusive and exlcusive "we". I'm assuming you're an urban American.

Also, I can't think of a society in which the only goal is to be happy. I would say this desire for happiness is actually an oddly American phenomenon: the fruit-eating fishermen I referenced above felt man was born with three debts: heirs, learning and religious rituals. Until these were discharged, there could be no happiness.