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Comment by aita | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how people of india are so happy when compared to developed nations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Planet_Index

HPI = (Self-reported happiness + Life Expectancy) / (Eco-footprint) ?

Yeah, no. The HPI is not a measure of the happiness of a nation, it's a measure of self-reported happiness per unit of "imposition on nature." And according to that index, we should all strive to be like the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Columbia, and Cuba. No thanks.

Sustainability and environment count for something. Perhaps a lot. Self-reported happiness obviously counts for a lot.

GDP does'nt take any of that into account.

Nor should it try, because it's an objective measure, whereas HPI is completely subjective measure. Apples and oranges.

I'm also not convinced self-reported happiness is accurate across cultures. How do you control for cultural variations in the question "are you happy?" Diverse cultures have deep differences of understanding when approaching that question.

Well what gets measured gets improved.

What's subjective to you is pretty objective to me - the health impact of unhappiness, for example, will reflect in healthcare costs. Which btw makes up 15% of US GDP. Now is that even real GDP or just a manufactured problem - with doctors and lawers and insurance guys all making money off of health problems of consumers.

See this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:International_Comparison_-...

I don't think you understood me.

For the same baseline level of internal well-being, people will respond to the question "how happy are you?" differently depending on their culture. Do you understand how this presents a problem when measuring happiness across cultures? That is why I refer to it as subjective. Cultures change over time, so a change in the HPI might simply be a reflection of that.

That being said, I do not believe that just because a measure is subjective, it is useless. Of course it's useful. It's just important to understand what exactly you're measuring.

My point is that it is culture that affects happiness, not merely internal or material well being.

So taking into account cultural variations is meaningless when what I'm interested in measuring is the end result.

This is quite true and surprising. A european once mentioned that one problem is too many fat people in the "developed countries".

See the distribution of worldwide obesity here - http://wiki.medpedia.com/Image:World_map_of_Male_Obesity,_20...

and

http://www.healthyfellow.com/241/weight-loss-news

Probabaly from driving cars and watching too much tv and computers.

Thats a different dimension. Happiness isn't related to the economy. People seldom realize this.

The culture and workings of the society, the low benchmarks for satisfaction and happiness is what keeps them happy.

The huge number of festivities also plays a part. :)

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