Oh, ok. I knew of “gross national happiness” as (1) a thing the Bhutan government talked about, and (2) a thing some people mention as more important than GDP without talking precisely about how GNH is measured or what the consequences of more GNH vs more GDP would be. (Those people were primarily social science teachers and textbook authors, from when I taught high school social science.)
I wasn’t aware GNH had been conceptualised in a way that includes things quite distinct from happiness itself. I don’t think the people I’d previously heard about it from were aware of that either. Knowing that makes me think GNH is more likely to be a useful metric for x-risk reduction, or at least that it’s in the right direction, as you suggest.
At the same time, I feel that, in that case, GNH is quite a misleading term. (I’d say similar about the Happy Planet Index.) But that’s a bit of a tangent, and not your fault (assuming you didn’t moonlight as the king of Bhutan in 1979).
Oh, ok. I knew of “gross national happiness” as (1) a thing the Bhutan government talked about, and (2) a thing some people mention as more important than GDP without talking precisely about how GNH is measured or what the consequences of more GNH vs more GDP would be. (Those people were primarily social science teachers and textbook authors, from when I taught high school social science.)
I wasn’t aware GNH had been conceptualised in a way that includes things quite distinct from happiness itself. I don’t think the people I’d previously heard about it from were aware of that either. Knowing that makes me think GNH is more likely to be a useful metric for x-risk reduction, or at least that it’s in the right direction, as you suggest.
At the same time, I feel that, in that case, GNH is quite a misleading term. (I’d say similar about the Happy Planet Index.) But that’s a bit of a tangent, and not your fault (assuming you didn’t moonlight as the king of Bhutan in 1979).