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Bhutan, after prioritizing happiness, now faces an existential crisis

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271 points nradov | 1 comments | 18 Nov 24 13:53 UTC | HN request time: 0.28s | source
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no_wizard ◴[18 Nov 24 14:29 UTC] No.42172549[source]▶
Bhutan sounds interesting. I would be very curious to know more about how life is there. Its one thing to provide certain things and prioritize happiness, it is another to provide fulfillment, which is what I suspect the countries young citizens leaving are finding to be the case.

Though, with university free, if Bhutan has good, solid universities and produces students in reasonable numbers, since the country appears to be a highly literate english speaking one, I could see them leveraging that to raise the economy by founding outsourcing firms etc.

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1. conductr ◴[18 Nov 24 14:57 UTC] No.42172851[source]▶
I wonder if that would be seen as a net negative on the happiness scale due to the fact that people tend to dislike those jobs.

I think if you’re taught your whole life to seek happiness, a younger generation could largely look curiously out into the world as a source of happiness. In the western world, when you poll any population of people asking what they are “passionate” about Travel is always going to be a top ranked answer. It brings people joy, exploration is an innate curiosity of humans. So, my guess/hypothesis would be they are looking for happiness as they’ve been raised/conditioned to do.