In this blog post, we will look at how the increase in wealth and the progress in understanding happiness will affect the happiness of humanity.
Humankind has long strived to lead a happy life. People think that they enjoy happiness in the process of setting goals for themselves and achieving them. As such, the word “happiness” is a concept that people always keep in mind, whether consciously or unconsciously, but it is difficult to define it specifically due to its abstract nature. Google’s dictionary defines happiness as “feeling sufficient satisfaction and joy in life and being pleased.” However, concepts such as “sufficient satisfaction” and “pleasure” cannot be defined based on objective criteria either. The standard of happiness can vary depending on the cultural, historical, and social environment in which a person has lived and their personal values. For example, in the United States, “excited” and “happy” are often used interchangeably. As such, the value of happiness is a topic that is not easy to discuss even for us in the modern age. However, future generations of humanity will be even happier than the current generation thanks to increased wealth and progress in understanding happiness.
First of all, happiness is closely related to the wealth that humans enjoy. When discussing happiness, the first thing that comes up is whether the value of happiness can be objectively measured. Those who claim that happiness can be determined by objective standards often present “wealth” as the standard. In modern society, there is a clear correlation between wealth and happiness. According to Yuval Noah Harari, wealth and happiness are positively correlated to some extent. This is because there is definitely convenience that can be enjoyed through wealth in a capitalist society. Of course, it cannot be concluded that “happiness is determined only by wealth.” As Easterlin’s paradox says, it is well known that infinite wealth does not lead to infinite happiness. However, if the overall amount of wealth increases, the overall level of happiness will also increase as people who were unhappy due to poverty will be able to enjoy basic living conveniences. In fact, looking at the scatter plots showing the GDP per capita and the happiness index of each country, we can see that there is a clear correlation between the total amount of wealth and happiness. If the total amount of wealth increases in the future and everyone can enjoy wealth above a certain level, the total amount of human happiness will also increase proportionally.
So, will future humans be able to enjoy more wealth? When comparing the past and the present, it is undeniable that the total amount of wealth enjoyed by humanity has increased exponentially. Yuval Noah Harari explains that the total value of goods and services produced by humanity in 1500 was about 250 billion US dollars in current US dollar terms, but now the total annual output is 60 trillion US dollars. This represents an increase of about 240 times. Even taking into account population growth, the average per capita wealth has increased by more than 10 times compared to the past. Since humanity’s science, technology, and industry are still developing rapidly, it is likely that future humanity will enjoy much more wealth than it does now. Therefore, as long as the increased wealth is properly distributed, the lives of humanity will become more affluent and the overall level of happiness will improve.
Second, progress in understanding happiness will make future humanity happier. As mentioned earlier, defining happiness is very difficult. However, humanity has been trying to understand the nature of happiness for a long time. Research on happiness is being conducted in various fields, including the humanities, philosophy, and natural sciences, and people have also quantified happiness, which was an abstract concept, through surveys. It also helps people to be mentally healthy and pursue happiness through education. Scientific research is revealing the biological and chemical substances and phenomena that make people feel happy. Yuval Noah Harari says that it has already been discovered that human emotions are determined by the interaction of nerves, neurons, and synapses, and biochemical substances such as serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin. The medical community is attempting to treat mental illness by regulating hormone secretion. By the same principle, if the amount of biochemical substances that make us feel happy is artificially increased, we will be able to feel happy even in unhappy situations using scientific methods. Of course, one may question whether this happiness is truly happiness. However, from a mechanistic perspective, humans are ultimately just organisms that operate according to a specific algorithm. If the process of a human feeling happy is implemented by biochemical substances, it will not be much different from the happiness we usually feel.
Some point out that biochemical happiness may cause moral problems. Yuval Noah Harari, for example, uses Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World as an example to question whether it is desirable for governments to artificially make people happy. However, this novel is fiction, and the possibility of a phenomenon like Brave New World actually occurring is very low. Of course, there is a risk that drugs that induce happiness will be misused. However, just as people with depression find peace of mind through medication, there will be no moral issues if people who feel unhappy find peace of mind through medication.
As such, the progress in the understanding of wealth and happiness will make future humanity even happier than it is now. Of course, we cannot say with certainty that a society in which everyone is happy will come. To truly achieve a society in which everyone is happy, we need to continue researching happiness and resolving the gap between the rich and the poor. However, there is a high possibility that future humanity will be happier than it is now.
