Things Probably Matter

Responds to Scott Sumner on whether economic growth raises happiness. Marshals happiness-survey data: US flat-then-rising, African-Americans' large post-1970 gain, women's relative decline, and cross-country trends, to argue AGAINST a pure hedonic-treadmill ('conservation of happiness') model, concluding happiness DOES track social conditions (freedom, stability) even over decades, but China's growth genuinely didn't raise it, so 'intangibles are way more important than money.' Thoughtful and honest about the data's noisiness. REPLICATION CAVEAT: the argument leans on subjective-wellbeing surveys and the Easterlin-paradox / happiness-set-point literature, which is contested and methodologically shaky.

Quality 64 · Strong. Strong (64): a careful, data-driven exploration with a sensible synthesis, but exploratory and admittedly inconclusive ('it all seems very noisy... Okay, I guess').

Claude’s paradigm shift 44 · Moderate. Moderate (44): modest novelty; sharpens an existing happiness-economics debate rather than reframing it.

Real-world impact 2 · Minor. Minor-plus (2): within-blog/niche contribution to the happiness-and-growth discussion; no durable real-world effect.