On Facebook Envy

Russian Joke, from Hedrick Smith's "The Russians", supposedly told by Russians about themselves:

An Englishman, a Frenchman and a Russian rescue a genie and the genie gives them one wish each. The Englishman wishes to be the richest man in the world–and “whoosh!” he is. The Frenchman wishes to be the world’s great lover – and “whoosh!” he is. The Russian thinks hard and says “Most of all I want my neighbour Ivan’s cow to die”.

For anyone who thinks he understands envy, wealth redistribution, or the motivations behind either, that joke is a real knee-slapper....

Here's something about envy from the Reuters News Service.  It's about Facebook and envy:

A study conducted jointly by two German universities found rampant envy on Facebook, the world's largest social network that now has over one billion users and has produced an unprecedented platform for social comparison.

The researchers found that one in three people felt worse after visiting the site and more dissatisfied with their lives, while people who browsed without contributing were affected the most.

"We were surprised by how many people have a negative experience from Facebook with envy leaving them feeling lonely, frustrated or angry," researcher Hanna Krasnova from the Institute of Information Systems at Berlin's Humboldt University told Reuters.

"From our observations some of these people will then leave Facebook or at least reduce their use of the site," said Krasnova, adding to speculation that Facebook could be reaching saturation point in some markets.

Researchers from Humboldt University and from Darmstadt's Technical University found vacation photos were the biggest cause of resentment with more than half of envy incidents triggered by holiday snaps on Facebook....


"Passive following triggers invidious emotions, with users mainly envying happiness of others, the way others spend their vacations and socialize," the researchers said in the report "Envy on Facebook: A Hidden Threat to Users' Life Satisfaction?" released on Tuesday.

"The spread and ubiquitous presence of envy on Social Networking Sites is shown to undermine users' life satisfaction."

They found people aged in their mid-30s were most likely to envy family happiness while women were more likely to envy physical attractiveness.

These feelings of envy were found to prompt some users to boast more about their achievements on the site run by Facebook Inc. to portray themselves in a better light.

Men were shown to post more self-promotional content on Facebook to let people know about their accomplishments while women stressed their good looks and social lives....

That's what I absolutely love and adore about my fellow Libertarians and libertarians.  They don't care how much stuff the other guy has, as long as he got it honestly.  They want everyone to have as much as the other guy has. 
I believe that most Libertarians are bewildered by Facebook Envy, and have little or no experience of the sensation.  They can look at someone else's vacation pics from Greece, and think "Good for him.  He's worked hard.  He's smart.  I hope that one day, everyone in the world can have vacations as cool as that one." 
May the tribe increase !!!
(Hit that Facebook tab to your right if you want to friend me on FB !!)