> I see many problems with these suggested measures
> Lifespan can be extended in all sorts of authoritarian ways. Ban
> smoking is an obvious one.

The law of unintended consequences.

This sort of discussion is largely an attempt to anticipate those
consequences.

> Is there any way to measure the value of
> free choice in GDP+?{1}

Or, is there a way to measure unanticipated consequences as a whole?
This was one reason I propose a satisfaction metric: it covers the whole
territory, anticipated or not. Rather, I should say it covers the visible
territory; it does not cover unseen dangers and it might be distorted by
factors like media coverage that distort what's visible.

> Subjective comparisons with the past. Many people think that the past
> there was no crime and the health care was much better. Almost all
> evidence(2) I have seen seems to show these beliefs to be not very
> accurate. If people do have rose tinted hindsight how can you
> counteract this bias?

I anticipated that objection and answered it. Perhaps you found my answer
unconvincing. If so, could you say why?


> I am not saying your suggestions are bad. They are much better then
> the ones I did not make. But I do think it is worth examining these
> ideas to see what happens.

Definitely. It is important to "beat hard on these new ideas".


> 1. It may be that choice has very little value
> http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/93
> http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bschwar1/Sci.Amer.pdf

FWIW, I recently read Schwartz' book _The paradox of choice_ on the same
theme. I found it only half convincing.

> (2) http://www.isteve.com/abortion.htm
>
>
> On 27/03/2008, Tom Breton (Tehom) <tehom@...> wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>> I would include a component to measure self-reported satisfaction.
>>
>> Now, self-reported satisfaction ("happiness") is notoriously
>> problematic. Good fortune doesn't make people as happy as they
>> predicted it would, and ill fortune doesn't make them as unhappy as
>> they predict. Healthy, rich people aren't that much happier. And so
>> on.
>>
>> To counter this, I would explicitly indicate the baseline for
>> comparison and I would make it clear to survey respondents that
>> personal circumstantial well-being is what's being asked about. So
>> the survey question would be something like "Are you better off than
>> you were N years ago?" (to nearly paraphrase a certain political
>> slogan)
>>
[...]

Tom Breton (Tehom)