CHOICE MAKES YOU UNHAPPY

I have never regretted anything in my life. Every choice I make is beyond reproach. I am a paragon of utter perfection.

Oh shit, was paragon the best word to use there? Would model or epitome have made my point better? Do people even know what paragon means or do they all think it's a type of dwarven ancestor that is worshipped like a saint? Shit, if I used the wrong word, people could misunderstand my post. Oh God but if I edit it now, someone could still quote the old one and then everyone will know I changed it.

...

OK but seriously slaves are not happier than free men. That's what this comes down to, right? There is a reason slavery doesn't exist any more, and it's not because we were jealous of the slaves' happiness and wanted to bring them down to our level.

My initial reaction is to feel repulsed by this article, buuut I can accept its overall premise, within reason. I believe in a general rule of moderation, and I also believe that most anything that can be good can be twisted or turned into something that is harmful. I guess I feel uncomfortable with this research because it seems to make too great a leap from its established premise to a different conclusion than what I wrote- not only that it's hypothetically possible for freedom of choice to somehow hurt people, but that the middle class of the global north is already hurting itself (to some degree) with too much choice, and that public policy as it currently stands should change somehow to curb freedom of choice to prevent this harm. I feel like this is a larger claim that the research article's authors would like to make, and that's why I still am turned off from their research even though its basic premise makes common sense.

EDIT: Also, is anyone else put off by the international policy implications that seem (to me) to be suggested by this article about the research? I don't mind people arguing that Western governments shouldn't try to play World Police just because it overextends nations like the USA while (sometimes) compromising the rights/sovereignty of other individual nations, but I find it unacceptable to start saying that country X, geographic region Y, or ethnic population Z, "as a whole," is "strongly disinclined" to accept 'Western' values like freedom of choice (in whatever rhetoric people choose to spin these ideas). But at this point I'm probably stretching it into a larger issue of human rights, which is outside the scope of the one issue of freedom of (economic?) choice discussed in the research article.

If people are going to make the wrong decision you inform and educate them why it's the wrong decision you don't just make the correct decision for them.

(I haven't watched the video because I feel I'll just get mad so apply this where you see fit)

I find that I can be more creative when I set restrictions on what I can do.