If the parameters are set right, this could potentially increase the overall happiness of the society.
Anyone ever wonders why we earn so much more than our parents and grandparents, yet we're not any happier?
Data shows that inter-generational happiness stays the same, despite the fact that within the same society during the same time period, richer people are actually happier on average.
My hypothesis is that greater material wealth in the recent past comes with serious human toll. Higher competition at all levels. Larger and larger gaps between the rich and the poor, the skilled and the unskilled, the well-connected and the commoner. These effects offset the materials comfort we gain from all these fantastic technological innovations.
Focus on and competition for material wealth does shift us away from certain communal bonds & feelings. To experience an extreme case, try visit a middle- or lower-end shopping mall in China, you can feel the intense greed and competitiveness between sellers. That's hyper-competition at work. We feel it a bit more abstractly in a developed country. But it's certainly there.
I bet many people who has watched Avatar actually want to live as a Navi'. Their lack of material wealth and powerful technologies are more than compensated for by community bonds, closeness to the beauty of nature, and minimal competition for status. Such a community actually exists. Many of them can be found in a more remote part of the world. Bhutan and certain communities of Buddhist monks, for example, come to mind.
Rather than increased competition, I think the reason we are not happier is that wealth levels have risen for all classes[1]. Materially we are better off than our ancestors but relatively speaking we are the same.
Most people would prefer to have higher status than higher wealth. For details, I recommend the excellent book "Choosing the Right Pond: Human Behavior and the Quest for Status" by economist Robert H. Frank. http://www.amazon.com/Choosing-Right-Pond-Behavior-Status/dp...
[1] There is no question that we are all materially better off than previous generations. However considering the 30 years of stagnating middle class incomes, whether this will be true in the future is up for debate. If the middle class starts declining relative to the super-rich expect major unhappiness.
Anyone ever wonders why we earn so much more than our parents and grandparents, yet we're not any happier?
Data shows that inter-generational happiness stays the same, despite the fact that within the same society during the same time period, richer people are actually happier on average.
My hypothesis is that greater material wealth in the recent past comes with serious human toll. Higher competition at all levels. Larger and larger gaps between the rich and the poor, the skilled and the unskilled, the well-connected and the commoner. These effects offset the materials comfort we gain from all these fantastic technological innovations.
Focus on and competition for material wealth does shift us away from certain communal bonds & feelings. To experience an extreme case, try visit a middle- or lower-end shopping mall in China, you can feel the intense greed and competitiveness between sellers. That's hyper-competition at work. We feel it a bit more abstractly in a developed country. But it's certainly there.
I bet many people who has watched Avatar actually want to live as a Navi'. Their lack of material wealth and powerful technologies are more than compensated for by community bonds, closeness to the beauty of nature, and minimal competition for status. Such a community actually exists. Many of them can be found in a more remote part of the world. Bhutan and certain communities of Buddhist monks, for example, come to mind.
For more on this, I recommend this TED talk by Matthieu Ricard on the habits of happiness: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/matthieu_ricard_on_the_hab... and the book Happiness: Lessons from a New Science by a noted British economist Richard Layard http://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Lessons-Science-Richard-Laya...