Thanks for this clarifying comment. I see your point—and I am particularly in agreement with the need for evaluation systems for cross-species comparison. I just wonder if a scale designed for cross-species comparison might be not very well-suited for interpersonal comparisons, and vice-versa—at least at the same time. Really, I’m more puzzled than anything else—and also surprised that I haven’t seen more people puzzled about it. If we are actually using this scale to compare societies, I wonder if we shouldn’t change the way welfare economists assess things like quality of life. In the original post, the Countries compared were Canada (Pop: 36 mi, HDI: .922, IHDI: .841) and India (Pop: 1.3 bi, HDI: .647, IHDI: .538)
Finally, really, please, don’t take this as a criticism (I’m a major fan of CE), but:
We are not evaluating hunter gatherers, but people in an average low-income country. Life satisfaction measures show that in some countries, self-evaluated levels of subjective well-being are low. (Some academics even think that this subjective well-being could be lower than those of hunter gatherer societies.)
First, I am not sure how people from developing countries (particularly India) would rate the welfare of current humans vis-à-vis chimps, but I wonder if it’d be majorly different from your overall result. Second, I am not sure about the relevance of mentioning hunther-gatherers; I wouldn’t know how to compare the hypothetical welfare of the world’s super predator before civilization with current chimps with current people. Even if I knew, I would take life expectancy as an important factor (a general proxy for how someone is affected by health issues).
Thanks for this clarifying comment. I see your point—and I am particularly in agreement with the need for evaluation systems for cross-species comparison. I just wonder if a scale designed for cross-species comparison might be not very well-suited for interpersonal comparisons, and vice-versa—at least at the same time.
Really, I’m more puzzled than anything else—and also surprised that I haven’t seen more people puzzled about it. If we are actually using this scale to compare societies, I wonder if we shouldn’t change the way welfare economists assess things like quality of life. In the original post, the Countries compared were Canada (Pop: 36 mi, HDI: .922, IHDI: .841) and India (Pop: 1.3 bi, HDI: .647, IHDI: .538)
Finally, really, please, don’t take this as a criticism (I’m a major fan of CE), but:
First, I am not sure how people from developing countries (particularly India) would rate the welfare of current humans vis-à-vis chimps, but I wonder if it’d be majorly different from your overall result. Second, I am not sure about the relevance of mentioning hunther-gatherers; I wouldn’t know how to compare the hypothetical welfare of the world’s super predator before civilization with current chimps with current people. Even if I knew, I would take life expectancy as an important factor (a general proxy for how someone is affected by health issues).