Idealism all over the place
Just finished reading Deep Economy, where author Bill McKibben, among other things, challenges the notion that growth is a desirable measure for success. As we’re living larger and are more blinged than ever, we’re still more unhappy than we’ve ever been.
In the book it’s argued that happiness tend to increase up to $10 000 of annual income after that limit happiness slides and start to decrease. Basically after that it’s not lack of money that makes you unhappy, it’s your expectations.
This is one of the reasons why the our whole economic system is flawed and why I’m to an extent ashamed of voting for a conservative government in Sweden.
It will never be about the individual, it’s always about community and what we can achieve together.
On the same subject but with a totally different approach Malcom Gladwell pointed out that how we rank individuals, in this example, in sports might be very much flawed as well. The basket player Allen Iverson is considered among the top players of the NBA, however when ranked on a different measure than just points, rebounds and assists, called WinScore, the story is quite different. During his best season, in points, he was ranked 36th in the league according to WinScore.
Gladwell argues: It could mean that he’s selfish and takes shots rather than passing the ball… maybe his success reflects the fact that everyone else on his team excels at getting rebounds and forcing the other team to turn over the ball.
Sorry for the idealistic post, had to go there eventually.
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