Dan Gilbert: Exploring the frontiers of happiness

http://www.ted.com Dan Gilbert presents research and data from his exploration of happiness -- sharing some surprising tests and experiments that you can also try on yourself. Watch through to the end for a sparkling Q&A with some familiar TED faces.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Watch the Top 10 TEDTalks on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

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[mithars]

It was funny to see Jay Walker trying to justify a gambling dollar as a well spent one . His company " Walker Digital" manufactures gambling machines.

[tristramshandy3]

@KemaTheAtheist intelligence is worth more than money.

[treeternal]

........ that's not a bigmac....

[ScionAscendant]

@mrgaltasae And what is "adequate subsistence"? What most would define as such is far more now than it would have been in the past. Of course, expectations shift with the times, but are we not now living longer? Do we not have more? Failure to appreciate and utilize what we have is a detriment to our own happiness, but I don't think that it follows that redistribution is a moral course of action. Longer life means nothing to an unhappy person, but that doesn't mean that longer life is wrong.

[mrgaltasae]

@MrPrankmastergeneral Nope, it would actually be the exact same thing...

[mrgaltasae]

@ScionAscendant Surveys have made clear that people in rich countries are happier than people in poor countries, so obviously money matters....but not as much as one would think. Once a society's level of per capita wealth crosses a threshold from poverty to adequate subsistence, further incresases in national wealth have almost no effect on happiness. You'll find as many happy people in Poland as in Japan, even though the avarage Japan is almost ten times richer than the avarage Pole.

[mrgaltasae]

@ScionAscendant Money doesn't buy happiness, there's plenty of research telling us that money doesn't produce a lasting feeling of happiness. Initially, winning the lottery would make you very happy and if you were to ask accident victims recently becoming paraplegic how happy they were, they would be at the other scale of happiness. But due to hedonic adaptation, winners and accident victims get used to their new circumstances and both groups are becoming much more like the population at large.

[billmichae]

The author is plain wrong about Bernouli????? The scientist in question is Englishman Thomas Bayes!!!! The speaker has to do his homework better. Another word smith, funny but without depth.

[renzoalvau]

@MrPrankmastergeneral how can you possibly tell?

[tristramshandy3]

@MrPrankmastergeneral I respectfully disagree; in fact, I would argue being sad on a big yacht is much worse than being sad in a small apartment. The person in the small apartment at least has something to blame their unhappiness on; the sad person on the yacht has a much deeper existential crisis that is not so easily solved.

take care.

[MrPrankmastergeneral]

@tristramshandy3 It is true. But being sad on 100ft yacht is much more plesant then being sad in a small flat.

[ScionAscendant]

Saying that money doesn't make you happy is such a foolish thing to say, and a complete strawman I might add. Money can buy you education, health, time, and new experiences. The same applies to your friends and family. Now try and tell me that those things don't play a large part in our happiness. Money is power, and power can make you either happy or unhappy, it all depends on how you use it. Find a less childish saying to mindlessly repeat please.