Starrfall on 28/5/2009 at 20:21
does it come with clif notes
reizak on 28/5/2009 at 21:37
That's a really interesting read, although I skipped over some parts. Favorite line:
By what standards of reason are you calling people ‘adjusted’ these days? Happy? Contented? Hopeful? If people have adjusted to a society that seems hell-bent on destroying itself in the next couple of decades, just what does that prove about the people?
Ultimately the study seems like a futile exercise to me, as far as scientific value goes. Any life contains so many variables that trying to boil it down to some rules to a good life ends up being either general and obvious enough to be pointless, or too complex to be worth much in any predictive sense. I guess probabilities are something, but then I could've made the groundbreaking claim that healthy relationships, good coping mechanisms, good health, education and lack of substance abuse probably correlate with happiness, without a decades-long study.
If the scientific value is questionable, though, it's still interesting to see our all-important lives reduced to little narrations like that. I think any benefit that might be gleaned from this study is probably more philosophical than whatever was originally intended.
