I'd rather my kids be happy throughout life than "successful", however that is defined (wealth? prestige?). Of course, some success is necessary for happiness, but happiness should be the primary indicator.
Yeah, but then you’re into utility weighting functions. It’s simpler to just reify wellbeing/happiness because the others are all essentially subsidiary. I think there is probably a Pareto optimum for wellbeing which is not a simple function of health and monetary prosperity.
But yeah, there are way more dimensions along which to measure success. Almost every one is more important, in my view, than how much money you have when you die.
No, money is only one parameter (a very influential one) but looks and fitness and power and fame and health and temperament are also involved in the success equation.
What about preventing the study and discussion to be myopic or monocultural?
What about a study with several cultures ranked by country? The successful criteria could be measured by how the status ladder is composed in each country and making the cultural cosmovision of each country explicitly defined.
By this logic, fathers should be somewhat emotionally absent or abusive in order to produce an adult that is just broken enough to work hand over foot towards being very successful.
What I love about these types of questions is that they come completely out of the blue
Like someone will rock up and ask for some stat that's completely irrelevant to the story, just "to make a point", without looking it up first themselves, just to imply something
And then later backtrack with "I WAS JUST ASKING" or something
Nah, go look it up yourself. Define successful for yourself, look up the statistic
Look for things like "happiest countries in the world", "GDP per capita", "life expectancy" or even "Big Mac index". Heck, make up your own index from a mix of them
Do you mean money-wise? What's the point if you're not happy?
The only thing I want for my kids besides them being happy, is that their happiness does not depend on the misery of other human beings. Funnily enough, "success" is often used as a synonym for "being a sociopath born with a silver spoon who does not give a damn about not making others miserable".
I think the point is that - rather than deliberately wishing misery on others - our society is set up such that success often or always implies creating misery for others.
I've never much wanted my kids to be happy. I'd shoot them up with heroin if that's all I cared about. Instead, I want them to make and build things, to repair and improve already-made things. To be productive in a plainly measurable way. And if that means their lives are filled with doubts or misgivings, if they aren't ever quite satisfied, if there's never any time to indulge in ennui and existential navel-gazing... so what? I think the word "happy" as used in the present day is at best problematic, but maybe even profoundly pathological.
People who chase happiness seem to do so poorly at seizing it. I can't really imagine the shitshow that would result from an entire country pursuing it as some matter of policy, but if the results are what we see from one fraction of the country whining that we should pursue it to a far higher degree, then god help us all.
>unnily enough, "success" is often used as a synonym for "being a sociopath born with a silver spoon who does not give a damn about not making others miserable".
Perhaps. But I'm still working on getting the silver spoons ready for my grandchildren, and when my kids are old enough they'll work towards that goal too.
