Maybe it's just me, but it seems as though it's always the no-kids side of this question that goes ga-ga over such studies. There's something exceedingly self-defeating about one's impulse to prove quite so empirically that one is happier than others.
I was very, very happy through my 30s and 40s childless, able to travel on a whim. Being childless allowed me to retire very early without having to worry about finances again in my life. However, now at 56, I now understand the true price of that previous happiness and realize what I missed out on. I am not unhappy now, but I understand fully that I would be happier now if I had children and grandchildren around me.
On skiing: My wife and I took up alpine skiing in our early 60s, when most skiers are putting their equipment up for sale. The resort at which we ski has childcare for very small children. But there is nothing more astonishing than watching parents take their young children, I mean 2 yrs. old and up, onto the slopes. I have seen them with a child in a backpack, or between their legs, or with a harness in front of them, gliding down the slopes. They take them on the lifts. And they put them in ski classes. I've seen them encouraging a child who has wiped out to get up, dust off, and get going. We were on a lift with a class gliding on the snow beneath us. I heard a young girl, maybe four or five years old, call out, "Can I go down backwards?" So this notion that one must choose between skiing and parenting is nonsense. Probably the skier who says this was taught to ski between the legs of their parents. And when you get back to the lodge and see all the kids, guess what? No obesity!
Sounds like Bryan Caplan needs to read this book. Might help him revise the simple models of other people that lead him to conclusions like "alcoholics just prefer drinking" and "poor people are poor because they just prefer having kids out of wedlock"
"We have a good dog and a bad one fighting each other all the time. Feed the good dog"
The dogs, like wolves, are fighting for your heart, in your heart. Feed the good one; decide, with your head, to feed the good one in your heart.
Alice Temnick should perhaps be on the short list for the panel. Her review includes 5 questions (not answered there), like:
4- To what extent do you agree or disagree with Roberts’ borrowed claim, “Until you’re married, you’re an idiot”? ...
Marriage and having kids is very much at the heart of a "good happiness" trade off with "good meaningfulness".
Given my life full of small pleasures and few big sufferings, I'm far more interested now in living a more meaningful life. For many years in my 30s I was a happily unmarried man - looking for daily pleasure AND to find a wife to love and to love me and help me be more love-worthy ("lovely" from Adam Smith?) - and to feed the love oriented good wolf in my heart.
For the panel Michael Munger: "one of the interesting concepts that [Russ invokes] repeatedly is the process of becoming, rather than the process of deciding."
The cost/benefit analysis process is much more suited to deciding: do, or do not. 'There is no try' Ha! sure there is - lots of folks try to do many things they fail to do... In fact, they want to be the kind of person who tries to be do good, to be good, daily.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems as though it's always the no-kids side of this question that goes ga-ga over such studies. There's something exceedingly self-defeating about one's impulse to prove quite so empirically that one is happier than others.
I was very, very happy through my 30s and 40s childless, able to travel on a whim. Being childless allowed me to retire very early without having to worry about finances again in my life. However, now at 56, I now understand the true price of that previous happiness and realize what I missed out on. I am not unhappy now, but I understand fully that I would be happier now if I had children and grandchildren around me.
On skiing: My wife and I took up alpine skiing in our early 60s, when most skiers are putting their equipment up for sale. The resort at which we ski has childcare for very small children. But there is nothing more astonishing than watching parents take their young children, I mean 2 yrs. old and up, onto the slopes. I have seen them with a child in a backpack, or between their legs, or with a harness in front of them, gliding down the slopes. They take them on the lifts. And they put them in ski classes. I've seen them encouraging a child who has wiped out to get up, dust off, and get going. We were on a lift with a class gliding on the snow beneath us. I heard a young girl, maybe four or five years old, call out, "Can I go down backwards?" So this notion that one must choose between skiing and parenting is nonsense. Probably the skier who says this was taught to ski between the legs of their parents. And when you get back to the lodge and see all the kids, guess what? No obesity!
Sounds like Bryan Caplan needs to read this book. Might help him revise the simple models of other people that lead him to conclusions like "alcoholics just prefer drinking" and "poor people are poor because they just prefer having kids out of wedlock"
"We have a good dog and a bad one fighting each other all the time. Feed the good dog"
The dogs, like wolves, are fighting for your heart, in your heart. Feed the good one; decide, with your head, to feed the good one in your heart.
Alice Temnick should perhaps be on the short list for the panel. Her review includes 5 questions (not answered there), like:
4- To what extent do you agree or disagree with Roberts’ borrowed claim, “Until you’re married, you’re an idiot”? ...
Marriage and having kids is very much at the heart of a "good happiness" trade off with "good meaningfulness".
Given my life full of small pleasures and few big sufferings, I'm far more interested now in living a more meaningful life. For many years in my 30s I was a happily unmarried man - looking for daily pleasure AND to find a wife to love and to love me and help me be more love-worthy ("lovely" from Adam Smith?) - and to feed the love oriented good wolf in my heart.
For the panel Michael Munger: "one of the interesting concepts that [Russ invokes] repeatedly is the process of becoming, rather than the process of deciding."
https://www.econtalk.org/russ-roberts-and-mike-munger-on-wild-problems/#audio-highlights
The cost/benefit analysis process is much more suited to deciding: do, or do not. 'There is no try' Ha! sure there is - lots of folks try to do many things they fail to do... In fact, they want to be the kind of person who tries to be do good, to be good, daily.
Great idea!