Having a long and shitty life is as good as having a short but satisfying life.
Yeah, I was a little uncertain about the life-expectancy factor as well: not clear at all that it should be used to multiply life satisfaction. But does not higher life-expectancy correlate, in general, with at least a materially more advantaged life, i.e. a life in which a person has more opportunities and "capabilities" (a la Sen) for enriching the quality of their life.
It turns out that the United Nations Human Development Index uses life-expectancy as one of its three "dimensions", the other two being literacy rate/school enrollment and GDP per capita at purchasing power parity.
Also, the ecological footprint doesn't seem as related to happiness as satisfaction and life expectancy, and dividing by it allows them to give advice for reducing your ecological impact disguised as advice for improving your happiness.
Right. That was the point of my fourth question -- (4) If some kind of "life satisfaction""happiness" measure is usable at all, do we want to use it by itself ("life satisfaction"/the first map above), or do we want to go the extra big step that the new economics foundation does by factoring populations' respective impacts on natural resources and the environment (HPI/second map)? -- and to which I tentatively responded: what use is it to be "happy", if that happiness is not sustainable? Put another way, if your means of happiness entails inevitable suffering when that means runs out, is that a kind of happiness that we want to measure "health" and "success" on? That HPI formula is stupid Perhaps the formula for the UN's Human Development Index is more to your liking? ;-) I am not really wed to this particular formula, nor am I convinced by the particular survey approach taken to measure "life satisfaction". But I am interested in the broader question as to if and when we will be able to measure such a notion as "contentedness""satisfaction"/"freedom", etc. I think we both agree that GDP is not a great way to measure the "successfulness" of a society. But how do we improve upon it? Is it still premature to try indexing non-material things such as "happiness" as the NEF tries to do, or "human development", as the United Nations tries? Point n'est besoin d'espérer pour entreprendre, ni de réussir pour persévérer. - Charles le Téméraire
what use is it to be "happy", if that happiness is not sustainable? Put another way, if your means of happiness entails inevitable suffering when that means runs out, is that a kind of happiness that we want to measure "health" and "success" on?
That HPI formula is stupid
Perhaps the formula for the UN's Human Development Index is more to your liking? ;-)
I am not really wed to this particular formula, nor am I convinced by the particular survey approach taken to measure "life satisfaction". But I am interested in the broader question as to if and when we will be able to measure such a notion as "contentedness"
This is an interesting idea, but they have to get their heads out of their myopic British asses.
