Last non-fiction book?

I think people are every bit that competitive, if you put a group of strangers in a room it won't be very long at all before they're sorting themselves into a pecking order. Perhaps subtle things like judging the car you drive, the fashions you wear, asking what neighbourhood you live in, what job you do, where you were educated, etc. The point of politics is precisely because people are competitive: to subvert the Prisoner's Dilemma that arises in an anarchy. People generally vote for the party they think is acting in their own best interests.

You have to ask why people keep consuming more and more, but not getting any happier, especially now that we can see the environmental damage that is making it contrary to the common good. I think Miller has it about right: a combination of status competition and the denial of habituation.

Habituation
The brain has evolved an ability to adapt to it's environment, therefore the nervous system will generate a response when the stimulus is changing, but not with an unchanging stimulus. A simple example is to hold a tinted cellophane sweet wrapper over your eye, and watch the way that the colour you see gradually fades after a few minutes. Take it away, and you see the complementary colour until that fades too. Or watch this. It's the reason why people may feel suicidal after an accident puts them in a wheelchair, but not after they've had time to adjust, and why people can't smell their own BO, for example. But it's also why an elated lottery winner doesn't still feel elated a year or two later, why people aren't still excited by new purchases a few months after they've bought them, and why the poor aren't impressed when they're told that they're better off than their grandparents were. They judge their wealth relative to that of the peers who live in the society they're habituated to, not that of previous generations.

When you drive to the car dealers to trade your car in for a new one, you are full of excitement imagining how much better your commute will be in the new car, but you have completely forgotten that you felt the exactly the same way about the car that you're sitting in when that was new. Habituation means that the satisfaction of a new purchase doesn't last, which is why increasing wealth produces no more happiness in the long run.

Not everybody is as competitive as you imply, crun. Some of us do think of the common good as opposed to the good of the individual. Otherwise there would be no point in politics.

Political psychology. Scarcity of money reduces the bandwidth of your mindset. If you are poor you cannot think beyond that. That is how the government controls people.
The Spirit Level is definitely political.

Gracesgran: " I think "getting the message" means clear thinking and we don't educate for that; perhaps the Scandinavian countries do.”

I have been increasingly taken by the idea of status competition as a way of looking at economics recently. I started out reading evolutionary biology, and then moved on to evolutionary psychology.

In essence people compete for status because higher status individuals obtain access to higher status, better quality mates. Now there are many ways of competing for status, but a consumer society is one in which the main method is consumption of goods. People are trying to consume more than their peers because that earns them more status, but the problem is that status is what is called a zero sum game; you only get more at the expense of someone else getting less. The Ford Sierra that satisfied when the neighbours all had Cortinas, looks a lot less appealing when everyone else has a Mondeo. The Smiths are only happy when they have more than the Jones’, but the Jones’ are only happy when they have more than the Smiths, so they’re locked into a competition to consume more and more, and wrecking the environment in the process, when no amount of wealth can ever make them both happy at the same time.

The term conspicuous consumption refers to whether the value of a good is judged in absolute terms or relative terms. Something like a central heating system for example is judged by how well it heats the house, and not whether it’s bigger than the neighbours, so that’s an example of inconspicuous consumption. A house or a car, however, are conspicuous because their value is determined by whether they’re bigger than other people’s. Since it is the conspicuous items which contribute to status, people will always tend to preferentially spend on these in favour of inconspicuous ones, even if it’s not in their objective best interests to do so.

This is why people get so irate about public spending: public spending elevates the wealth of the collective community, whereas private spending elevates your own wealth (and status) relative to that of others.

Conspicuous leisure is another canon of status competition: having enough wealth not to have to spend time on the vulgar process of earning a living is a status symbol, as is the wealth to pay others to do menial jobs for you. This then results in useful jobs and skills having low pay and status (plumber, builder, engineer etc.), whilst less useful jobs and skills assume very high status (pop star, footballer etc.).

Another method of status competition is conspicuous outrage, which derives from the psychology of conformity. In society people are under huge pressure to conform to what others do and expect, the price for not doing so can be dire. Therefore high status individuals can demonstrate their status by doing something outrageous to show that they don’t need to conform. This is what leads to fashion. A social elite will assert their status by doing something that is different, and then people beneath them will copy that behaviour in the attempt to acquire some of that status. However, the name of the game is to look like those above you and different from those below, so as fast as someone is copied, they will change their behaviour for something new. In this way fashions ripple their way down through the social strata from top to bottom, one after the other. The more wealth people have the faster fashions can change.

The problem with status differentials is that if they become too large, they lead to all sorts of social ills as Wilkinson and Pickett show in The Spirit Level. Famous research by Marmot has shown how low status leads to higher morbidity and higher mortality, quite independently of wealth. This is something that the Scandiavians appear to understand, but not us. If Wilkinson and Pickett’s work interested you, try reading some of these:

Marmot
Miller
Pinker
Veblen
Frank
Schwartz
Diamond
Kahneman

I did reply crun but seemed to lose it somewhere. What I tried to say was that I think "getting the message" means clear thinking and we don't educate for that; perhaps the Scandinavian countries do.

We do not teach reflective thinking until ordinary degree level and we do not ask students to look at the influences on their judgements until even later. We teach learn and repeat followed by learn and apply up to school leaving age. Some teachers will certainly try but this is not part of their remit. This is the system and not the teachers and the universities are trying to push back into the schools as they have to start from scratch when students arrive at university.

I love marginalia by the way. If you buy books second-hand it is fascinating to see what people have written.

onmyown: " I am a humanist. I found a talking books reading by Christopher Hitchens of his book "God is not great - How religion poisons everything". "

I haven't read that one, but I've read these in a similar vein:

The End of Faith
Breaking the Spell
Religion Explained
The God Delusion

Gracesgran: "The Spirit Level; Why Equality Is Better For Everyone. A really interesting view backed by useful stats."

Yes I've read that one, it's one of those books that leaves me feeling exasperated that others can't see it. It seems they've got the message in Scandinavia, and are happier for it.

Grannyknot, I find I can remember books better if I have a debate about them.

Does anyone else make notes? I find I'm very erratic, I often start off making notes, and then get weary of keep stopping, so the notes get thinner and thinner as the book progresses.

Not sure why the italics didn't work - sorry

I wouldn't say "Scarcity" is a political book Durhamjen although I am sure we could both see a political angle.

On my wish list I have:
The Establishment: And how they get away with it
^The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State
Capital in the Twenty-First Century^
War and Gold: A Five-Hundred-Y​ear History of Empires, Adventures and Debt
Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy: Brutality and Compexity in the Global Economy
The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism

If anyone has read anyone of them I would love to know what they make of them.

I have just looked on my bookshelves and realise that they are full of cookery, gardening and sewing/crafting books - all non-fiction of course.

If you read the Falklands one, it gives the lie to that, but there were decisions made by one or two very senior officers that had dreadful repercussions for both officers and men on the ground.

I've got quite a few of the Forgotten Voices, Lindylou. They are very interesting and harrowing. The ranks and the officers have very different ways of telling their experiences, don't they?

Lyndylou, my dad was at Dunkirk, too, but he never talked about it. He was unharmed, but it must have been horrific for them all, so it's not surprising many of them did not talk about it. He then had the honour of being sent to Burma, which he talked even less about.

I didn't say it, onmyown, it was Giles Frazer. I'm not clever enough to think of that.

durhamjen - God as the first humanist? - sounds crazy theology to me.

U R winding us up?

Fact or fiction?

Surely myth embraces both fact and fiction and deserves to be treated as a third level of understanding (maybe there are more?)

1. fact?
2. fiction?
3. myth?

[I am sure there are other levels of understanding but I'm not into philosophy or theology - anyone want to expand on these matters? (or not, and just lets enjoy a and a and a - - happy days - - - )

Sorry if I am being too un-literary. If so, please ignore me.

Yes I understand the reason for the decision, I'm ex-military myself, durhamjen, but if Dad hadn't got on that last ship, he definitely would have bled to death on the beach and I would not be here, so I'm just interested in the background around a pivotal point in his life.

Have just started reading 'A Soldier's Way' by Colin Powell.

They've always done that, lindylou. It's called triage.

Forgotten Voices of Dunkirk by Joshua Levine. My father was wounded at Dunkirk and he always said he was on the last First Aid ship home. Apparently Churchill said resources should be concentrated on getting the fit men home rather than the injured and I've been trying to find out more about it.

The Bible question surely depends on the individual as to whether you think of it as fact or fiction.

Haven't read it, onmyown, but Giles Frazer had a good article about God being the first humanist when he sent Jesus as a baby. " There's nothing more human than changing God's nappy."

Queen Victoria's Daughters a cheapo on Kindle. Very interesting that a couple of her daughters were very keen on the benefits of breast feeding and she was not amused. Very apropos re Claridges and Farage

Ninathenina - yes of course a Freddie Mercury biography counts. I've remembered in recent days that I read Edwina Currie's autobiography which linked into my own growing up experience - I think it was called "She's leaving home" - a Beatles reference - - - bye bye.

And Aka - of course the Bible counts. For me its one or our ancient, historical myths and legends - which I respect and acknowledge as part of my own culture, but do not subscribe to - see what follows:-

Yes, I mostly read non-fiction, but have less and less inclination to plough, diligently, through worthy tomes on subjects that nonetheless interest me.

So, well, I sometimes take out a talking book from my large, town-centre library. I am a humanist. I found a talking books reading by Christopher Hitchens of his book "God is not great - How religion poisons everything". I found it very long-winded but enjoyed listening to the 7 or 8 recording tapes, and as a humanist I totally agree with his basic arguments.

Has anyone else read it? Any feedback would be great.

Thought nobody else was reading political books, gracesgran.
I am reading Enough is Enough, building a sustainable economy in a world of finite resources.

I like a mix of fiction and non-fiction with a sight bias toward fiction but my wish list has certainly grown reading this thread. Let me tell you about a few I have enjoyed.

From way back when, one that has been on my shelf for years is James Laver's A Concise History of Costume. I love learning that nothing is new under the sun in the way we dress and, of course, these things always include a view of social history.

Newer, and one to pick in and out of is The Spirit Level; Why Equality Is Better For Everyone. A really interesting view backed by useful stats.

Currently I have just started on Scarcity - Why having too little means so much.

Again, you asked the question, but you don't really want to know. I am, at this very moment, reading "Electric Round the Pole Flying" by Peter Bullivant, published 1975.

There, I said you didn't want to know

Danny Baker Going Off Alarming, the second volume of his autobiography. Both this and Going to Sea in a Sieve are very funny and written just has he speaks. I love the way he uses language so richly.