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Comment by boeingUH60 | Hacker News Reader

Frankly, Bhutan is a backwater with a GDP per capita of around $3,000. I don’t think it’s a country people should be imitating despite all their marketing around happiness.

Sure, the citizens might be happy, but people can be happy even in dire circumstances.

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> people can be happy even in dire circumstances.

Luckily the population of western countries know better, they do the reverse!

To clarify, my intention is to add to the measurement of value - not replace it.

The current measurements not only ignore but also contribute to the massive devastation of our irreplaceable biosphere, to the immense suffering caused by normalizing a barbaric, insensitive, cruel treatment for everything and everyone in the context of maximizing extraction and downright fraud of short term gains.

Donut (sustainable) economics is another model to consider.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doughnut_(economic_model)

Bhutan’s implementation of GDH aside. What matters more than happiness? Surely any other metric is just an (often misguided) approximation.

I mean, people can be happy out of ignorance, and that ignorance can include things that contribute to high child mortality.

I'm not sure we should be ok with high child mortality, just because people are happy.

No one is suggesting that and no one is suggesting that happiness is somehow the result of this.

I'm the comment I'm reply to said "What matters more than happiness?".

The point is, plenty of stuff matters more than just happiness.

I see, thank you for clarifying.

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