I love it when people

Michael Wolraich — Tue, 26 May 2009 18:21:52 +0000

In reply to Hey Ross Douthat: What’s Your Point?

I love it when people pontificate about happiness. Really (not really).

No one understands how happiness works or even what it is really. I'm curious how those economists measured it. But even if you could truly measure happiness, it's essentially impossible to determine how external factors affect it a macro level.

And I'm not sure that it really matters. Policy should not be designed to increase emotional happiness. For instance, it's arguable whether middle class wealth makes people happier, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't enact policies to eradicate poverty. Policies should be designed to maximize liberty, opportunity, security, education, and satisfaction of basic needs. How people maximize their own emotional happiness within that context is between them and their therapists.

What Orlando said. Universal

acanuck — Tue, 26 May 2009 18:06:32 +0000

In reply to Hey Ross Douthat: What’s Your Point?

What Orlando said. Universal health care rightly being No. 1.

dagblog - Comments for "Hey Ross Douthat: What’s Your Point?"

I love it when people

What Orlando said. Universal