Been thinking about this! I think there's a lot to it. Trying to play devil's advocate and figure out my strongest argument against the model, but I end up just quibbling about the specific ingredients. I asked Chat GPT and it did not think of any counter-arguments I found convincing.
I guess I would argue that our economy probably does "see" quite a bit of the non-market ingredients, since the actions people take in striving for them are expressed through actions that do take place on the market. (Eg, if I am lacking peace and quiet I might buy a vacation home). In other words their price signals are not entirely absent, but are folded into others.
On the other hand, that only goes part of the way. In fact I think the way this model explains the fact that GDP doesn't capture everything about human thriving is one of its key insights. That's where I updated my priors the most.
I do wonder a bit about this "Positive Experience Index" — I've basically never heard of it. Why is that? What makes it a better measure of thriving than something else? (It does seem like a good measure intuitively, but I want to be suspicious.)
Another thought I had while reading this is that I recently came back from a trip to Colombia and I remembered my main take-away from having once visited years ago — everyone seems so freaking happy, though it's not a particularly rich place. Talk about thriving. I met villagers who didn't wear shoes and seemed happier than I was. In combination with this essay, makes me upgrade the importance of, simply, weather — and how it interacts with culture. Latin America does REALLY well on your chart.
Also I very much admire that you didn't go in any predictable left/right (pro/anti-market) direction with the way you wrote this. Seriously, one of the most interesting posts I've read in a long time.
Been thinking about this! I think there's a lot to it. Trying to play devil's advocate and figure out my strongest argument against the model, but I end up just quibbling about the specific ingredients. I asked Chat GPT and it did not think of any counter-arguments I found convincing.
I guess I would argue that our economy probably does "see" quite a bit of the non-market ingredients, since the actions people take in striving for them are expressed through actions that do take place on the market. (Eg, if I am lacking peace and quiet I might buy a vacation home). In other words their price signals are not entirely absent, but are folded into others.
On the other hand, that only goes part of the way. In fact I think the way this model explains the fact that GDP doesn't capture everything about human thriving is one of its key insights. That's where I updated my priors the most.
I do wonder a bit about this "Positive Experience Index" — I've basically never heard of it. Why is that? What makes it a better measure of thriving than something else? (It does seem like a good measure intuitively, but I want to be suspicious.)
Another thought I had while reading this is that I recently came back from a trip to Colombia and I remembered my main take-away from having once visited years ago — everyone seems so freaking happy, though it's not a particularly rich place. Talk about thriving. I met villagers who didn't wear shoes and seemed happier than I was. In combination with this essay, makes me upgrade the importance of, simply, weather — and how it interacts with culture. Latin America does REALLY well on your chart.
Also I very much admire that you didn't go in any predictable left/right (pro/anti-market) direction with the way you wrote this. Seriously, one of the most interesting posts I've read in a long time.