Members Geoff G

1 day ago: Dave rebutted your argument well, but I'd like to focus on your problems with subjectivity, which I just don't understand. Does it really matter whether the same objective external factors have lead individuals to rate themselves as highly happy? Isn't their own opinion of their life the most important thing?-After all who else can measure my happiness but me?
Also, the more you ask a person whether he is happy (say they distributed a yearly census) the more he will develop self-awareness and introspective capability that will improve his accuracy and, given that awareness is rightly listed by Marks as a producer of happiness, will improve his self-appraisal as well.
With data, maybe we can start to look at correlations to infer more causes of happiness, but ultimately what causes each of us to be satisfied with our lives is still going to be a unique and personal responsibility. As a society we can cultivate the conditions for happiness to flourish but it must still grow on its own.

1 day ago: I feel like the narrator makes an illogical jump from describing the monkey's mirror neurons firing while a nearby human cracked a nut and then narrowly defining empathy as a way to experience another's hardship. I mean, nut cracking is not hardship (unless you really want to mince words) it's just a physical activity. I'd like to know more about mirror neurons, but my understanding suggests they don't limit their activity to merely the reproduction of others' negative emotions; seems like they just fire while we watch other people. Why limit empathy to negative feelings then? Can't we also feel other people's bliss? This sort of invalidates the no-empathy-in-utopia argument.
I mean, isn't that what comedy is? A pleasant experience of feeling-with?

Aug 26 2010: As a predominantly visual learner I love Hans Rosling and I loved this talk. I'll probably end up buying the book he's pitching - seems like an interesting and enlightening coffee table item. Lots to learn about human nature and various cultures.

My only criticism of the presentation regards the proposed difference in value between absolute and relative statistics. I have to disagree that one is more informative than the other. They're equally interesting, you just draw different conclusions from them. The absolute statistics are the ones that will count if the next world war ever comes; the relative statistics describe cultural values (like how we prioritize security) and their effect on individuals' inclinations toward violence or nationalistic duty (what percentage of the population joins up).

Aug 20 2010: Better than at least half the cast of last comic standing. Thumbs up.

Aug 20 2010: Pretty rad.
Didn't care for some of the theatrics, but overall I'd nominate that little monologue for a "best of the web" nod.