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Is the well-being a result of a strong economy or vice versa? You seem to assume directionality that might be the opposite. Perhaps workers not fearful of losin

by voisin 4y ago

Is the well-being a result of a strong economy or vice versa? You seem to assume directionality that might be the opposite. Perhaps workers not fearful of losing their healthcare if they leave their jobs are more productive, or do more broad schooling because there is less pressure to immediately start making money to avoid poverty, and this leads to more productivity or innovation.

marcosdumay 4y ago
It certainly goes both ways. But in one direction you have more wealth enabling people to live better, and on the other direction you have people with better lives being able to work better. It is very clear those effects do not have the same intensity.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  What about extractive wealth that relies on the misery of people in other nations, how to factor that into nation specific well-being indexes
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    It is great for a happiness metric. Import happiness and export misery. You improve your position relative to other nations both ways! This is a great example of how focus on metrics can lead to a race to the bottom. Better yet, save money and don't even bother importing the happiness. Just sow misery, and your country will have better and better stats!
    - Silverback_VII 4y ago
      why are we speaking about happiness and not about the colonisation of the solar system or about finding out what truly lies behind our existence? simulation, multiverse or what and if so, why? That said, a good metric obviously mesures power on this planet so it must be something like how fast an economy can build a space station or advanced military equipment.
      - wahnfrieden 4y ago
        drdeca 4y ago
        That’s not really what I associate with EA? With Nick Land, maybe, yeah, I guess. Honestly it reminds me most of how some people try to spin Bitcoin’s power use as a good thing. The comment does have some similarity to a point which I think reasonable, but doesn’t quite capture the thing. Specifically, it questions happiness as a goal. This, I think, has something to it, but not quite in the way they said. For an individual who is neither unhappy nor “feeling nothing”, “being happy” is, I think, a questionable goal, as I think it puts things backwards. But, valuing others being happy, is, I think, very often a rather good heuristic, as “things that make someone happy” are often “things that benefit them” (though not always. Non-voluntarily chemically inducing a euphoria in someone, doesn’t benefit them. ) . Looking at “how happy and satisfied are people generally” is a pretty decent heuristic for estimating how well things are going for people overall, though this heuristic can be goodharted. Perhaps somewhat better than “how happy are you” would be “how well are things going for you? How much do the general states of affairs align with your preferences, and how is the rate of change of the degree to which the general state of affairs aligns with your preferences? How’s it going?”. This combination of things is, I think, closer to what we should ideally want for each-other than “happiness”, but, “happiness” is still a pretty good approximation in most reasonable circumstances. (It is best to avoid the unreasonable circumstances where it ceases to be a good approximation)
        wahnfrieden 4y ago
        Ok
      - s1artibartfast 4y ago
        Fair point. Or alternatively, why not honor, virtue, or beauty as a primary metric?
  - astrange 4y ago
    Nations that practiced colonialism didn't actually benefit those "nations", more like specific people in the nations. It probably made them poorer if anything, though people will sacrifice wealth for feeling proud of being in a cool empire and getting to drink tea. The former colonial nations do always show up high in every index, but that's correlation because they're in Europe. The colonised Finland and Ireland are always in there too. https://www.socialprogress.org/global-index-2022-results https://www.socialprogress.org/global-index-2022-results Looking at US states: https://news.gallup.com/poll/247034/hawaii-tops-wellbeing-record-7th-time.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/247034/hawaii-tops-wellbeing-re... …I have no idea what's going on here. Is this native marketing for Wyoming?
- voisin 4y ago
  A few things worth mentioning: in the countries highest on the happiness indices, taxes are also among the highest in the world, and distribution of wealth less skewed.
  - biomcgary 4y ago
    If more financially homogeneous (i.e., less wealth skew) societies are happier, would you expect more culturally homogeneous (i.e., shared norms/history) societies to be happier?
    - voisin 4y ago
      I would expect this to be true to some degree, with declining marginal returns to homogeneity after some point maybe even tipping negative with too much homogeneity.
    - astrange 4y ago
      Neither of those seem that important at the country level as long as it's true at some level somewhere. If you're in a small country richer people in the neighboring country seem about as likely to have the same effect. On the other hand, if you're in a large country and they live in a different city you're not running into them. An issue with nationalism is that nations are in some ways very real and in some ways fake.
    - brianpan 4y ago
      Maybe we are measuring happiness incorrectly. Instead of most people being happy, what if we made a small number of people REALLY happy? Maybe the 0.1% are so happy that it balances out the sadness of everyone else? /sarcasm
      - mring33621 4y ago
        No, the 0.1% still aren't happy.
      - Smoosh 4y ago
        You have to remember that the happiness will trickle down from that 0.1% to the rest of the population.
xwolfi 4y ago
I lived and worked in both systems: socialist France and laissez faire capitalist Hong Kong, and I can assure you that despite the constant possibility of losing job and healthcare in Hong Kong, the amount of money, the motivation of the people around me, and the success of the state as a whole (economically) sure trumps all the bells and whistles of the tax heavy nanny state breeding a country of uninspired Karens :D Im not saying there arent nice things in France but it s not as fun to be in than HK, anecdotally.
- amrocha 4y ago
  Mate there's literally people living in cages in HK, the only reason you thought it was fun is because it wasn't you
  - voisin 4y ago
    I concur. Ask the Filipino nannies fresh out of the Chungking Mansions what their experience is. Or how they’re hoy every Sunday being a public holiday because otherwise their employers would work them 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.
gmadsen 4y ago
that requires a good economy... It cost money to provide healthcare and broad schooling

by voisin 4y ago

marcosdumay 4y ago

It certainly goes both ways. But in one direction you have more wealth enabling people to live better, and on the other direction you have people with better lives being able to work better. It is very clear those effects do not have the same intensity.

wahnfrieden 4y ago
What about extractive wealth that relies on the misery of people in other nations, how to factor that into nation specific well-being indexes
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  It is great for a happiness metric. Import happiness and export misery. You improve your position relative to other nations both ways! This is a great example of how focus on metrics can lead to a race to the bottom. Better yet, save money and don't even bother importing the happiness. Just sow misery, and your country will have better and better stats!
  - Silverback_VII 4y ago
    why are we speaking about happiness and not about the colonisation of the solar system or about finding out what truly lies behind our existence? simulation, multiverse or what and if so, why? That said, a good metric obviously mesures power on this planet so it must be something like how fast an economy can build a space station or advanced military equipment.
    - wahnfrieden 4y ago
      - drdeca 4y ago
        That’s not really what I associate with EA? With Nick Land, maybe, yeah, I guess. Honestly it reminds me most of how some people try to spin Bitcoin’s power use as a good thing. The comment does have some similarity to a point which I think reasonable, but doesn’t quite capture the thing. Specifically, it questions happiness as a goal. This, I think, has something to it, but not quite in the way they said. For an individual who is neither unhappy nor “feeling nothing”, “being happy” is, I think, a questionable goal, as I think it puts things backwards. But, valuing others being happy, is, I think, very often a rather good heuristic, as “things that make someone happy” are often “things that benefit them” (though not always. Non-voluntarily chemically inducing a euphoria in someone, doesn’t benefit them. ) . Looking at “how happy and satisfied are people generally” is a pretty decent heuristic for estimating how well things are going for people overall, though this heuristic can be goodharted. Perhaps somewhat better than “how happy are you” would be “how well are things going for you? How much do the general states of affairs align with your preferences, and how is the rate of change of the degree to which the general state of affairs aligns with your preferences? How’s it going?”. This combination of things is, I think, closer to what we should ideally want for each-other than “happiness”, but, “happiness” is still a pretty good approximation in most reasonable circumstances. (It is best to avoid the unreasonable circumstances where it ceases to be a good approximation)
        wahnfrieden 4y ago
        Ok
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      Fair point. Or alternatively, why not honor, virtue, or beauty as a primary metric?
- astrange 4y ago
  Nations that practiced colonialism didn't actually benefit those "nations", more like specific people in the nations. It probably made them poorer if anything, though people will sacrifice wealth for feeling proud of being in a cool empire and getting to drink tea. The former colonial nations do always show up high in every index, but that's correlation because they're in Europe. The colonised Finland and Ireland are always in there too. https://www.socialprogress.org/global-index-2022-results https://www.socialprogress.org/global-index-2022-results Looking at US states: https://news.gallup.com/poll/247034/hawaii-tops-wellbeing-record-7th-time.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/247034/hawaii-tops-wellbeing-re... …I have no idea what's going on here. Is this native marketing for Wyoming?
voisin 4y ago
A few things worth mentioning: in the countries highest on the happiness indices, taxes are also among the highest in the world, and distribution of wealth less skewed.
- biomcgary 4y ago
  If more financially homogeneous (i.e., less wealth skew) societies are happier, would you expect more culturally homogeneous (i.e., shared norms/history) societies to be happier?
  - voisin 4y ago
    I would expect this to be true to some degree, with declining marginal returns to homogeneity after some point maybe even tipping negative with too much homogeneity.
  - astrange 4y ago
    Neither of those seem that important at the country level as long as it's true at some level somewhere. If you're in a small country richer people in the neighboring country seem about as likely to have the same effect. On the other hand, if you're in a large country and they live in a different city you're not running into them. An issue with nationalism is that nations are in some ways very real and in some ways fake.
  - brianpan 4y ago
    Maybe we are measuring happiness incorrectly. Instead of most people being happy, what if we made a small number of people REALLY happy? Maybe the 0.1% are so happy that it balances out the sadness of everyone else? /sarcasm
    - mring33621 4y ago
      No, the 0.1% still aren't happy.
    - Smoosh 4y ago
      You have to remember that the happiness will trickle down from that 0.1% to the rest of the population.

xwolfi 4y ago

I lived and worked in both systems: socialist France and laissez faire capitalist Hong Kong, and I can assure you that despite the constant possibility of losing job and healthcare in Hong Kong, the amount of money, the motivation of the people around me, and the success of the state as a whole (economically) sure trumps all the bells and whistles of the tax heavy nanny state breeding a country of uninspired Karens :D Im not saying there arent nice things in France but it s not as fun to be in than HK, anecdotally.

amrocha 4y ago
Mate there's literally people living in cages in HK, the only reason you thought it was fun is because it wasn't you
- voisin 4y ago
  I concur. Ask the Filipino nannies fresh out of the Chungking Mansions what their experience is. Or how they’re hoy every Sunday being a public holiday because otherwise their employers would work them 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.

gmadsen 4y ago

that requires a good economy... It cost money to provide healthcare and broad schooling