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No one who didn't have a philosophical axe to grind in the other direction is surprised by this. I think probably this and the original article it's countering

by anm89 6y ago

No one who didn't have a philosophical axe to grind in the other direction is surprised by this. I think probably this and the original article it's countering are both essentially junk science and represent a serious problem though. We have become used to having strong binary statements about nuanced socio/economical/physcological phenomenon throw out as capital S Science. And then the obvious second paper comes out with the opposite conclusion which is also presented as "Science". Think of all the stuff online "Science says this is the beset way to fold your clothes" and they link to some weak paper that mentions that there is some benefit to doing something maybe in some constrained situation. Is it any wonder we have a society of people half of whom think it's all bullshit? Yes, these studies use the same scientific process regarding hypotheses and data collection as a physics or chemistry experiment but the nature of that data is VERY different and conflating the two is a mistake in my opinion.

travisjungroth 6y ago
I’m a very scientifically minded person, but also hang out in some circles that have an anti-science crowd. My attitude after getting to sort of see things from the outside is pretty similar to yours. I believe in the power of repeatable observations. I’ll pass most science allegiance tests you throw my way. But I’m also pretty damn disappointed in the world of science today. Academic incentives are whack. Journalistic incentives are worse. Then throw some social media on top and it’s just a mess.
wazoox 6y ago
Yes, the immediate problem I see with this new study is that it presents the relation between happiness and income as almost linear, which is, on the face of it, almost unbelievable at lower income levels. Can you really believe that going from dirt poor to OK doesn't make more difference than going from very rich to very, very rich? I myself can't without further evidence. I can believe there is no plateau as such, but a linear progression requires explanation.
- cbozeman 6y ago
  Scale does indeed matter. The life you can live at $35,000 a year is going to be dramatically less pleasant than the life you can live at $350,000 a year, just as the life you can live at $35,000,000 a year is going to be dramatically more pleasant than at either of those, but eventually you reach a point where even if you were to make $35,000,000,000 a year, it cannot dramatically change your life. At some point, you become so wealthy that the only difficulties that life can present to you are difficulties from which no person has immunity.
- jcheng 6y ago
  Just want to point out that the abstract says the relationship is linear with log(income). And Fig 1 shows an x-axis range of 15,000-500,000; even if their conclusions are true, I wouldn't be surprised if the relationship breaks down beyond those limits.

by anm89 6y ago

travisjungroth 6y ago

I’m a very scientifically minded person, but also hang out in some circles that have an anti-science crowd. My attitude after getting to sort of see things from the outside is pretty similar to yours. I believe in the power of repeatable observations. I’ll pass most science allegiance tests you throw my way. But I’m also pretty damn disappointed in the world of science today. Academic incentives are whack. Journalistic incentives are worse. Then throw some social media on top and it’s just a mess.

wazoox 6y ago

Yes, the immediate problem I see with this new study is that it presents the relation between happiness and income as almost linear, which is, on the face of it, almost unbelievable at lower income levels. Can you really believe that going from dirt poor to OK doesn't make more difference than going from very rich to very, very rich? I myself can't without further evidence. I can believe there is no plateau as such, but a linear progression requires explanation.

cbozeman 6y ago
Scale does indeed matter. The life you can live at $35,000 a year is going to be dramatically less pleasant than the life you can live at $350,000 a year, just as the life you can live at $35,000,000 a year is going to be dramatically more pleasant than at either of those, but eventually you reach a point where even if you were to make $35,000,000,000 a year, it cannot dramatically change your life. At some point, you become so wealthy that the only difficulties that life can present to you are difficulties from which no person has immunity.
jcheng 6y ago
Just want to point out that the abstract says the relationship is linear with log(income). And Fig 1 shows an x-axis range of 15,000-500,000; even if their conclusions are true, I wouldn't be surprised if the relationship breaks down beyond those limits.