Bhutan, after prioritizing happiness, now faces an existential crisis

Despite the headline CBS gave the article, it seems the problem is not with happiness, but with the seductive appeal of materialism and the effects of exposing one culture to another.

Social comparison theory is the idea that our satisfaction with what we have isn't an objective measure, but is actually based on what we see other people have. Young people generally seem to have an innate desire to leave their hometowns and seek out what else might be waiting out there for them. When you add in globalization and media influence exposing them to what looks like a "better" life with more things, it's not surprising that they've seen ~9% of young people leave Bhutan.

The other question is, what will happen if Bhutan does increase their financial wealth as well as their happiness? Will they then see a net influx of people through immigration, looking for the lifestyle Bhutan promises? And will those new people be able to maintain the culture Bhutan has cultivated?

It sounds like the concept of Gross National Happiness is a successful one, on its own, but it brings new challenges that couldn't have been forseen originally. That doesn't mean they can't solve them without giving up their core values.

Nah, the issue is the one that many developing countries suffer from: brain drain.

The best people leave the country because the can earn orders of magnitude more money in the developed world. This is why countries like the US keep being so successful while developing countries stay poor.

It is just the rational best decision for a young people to try their luck abroad and earn more money that they could ever dream of in their home country. Why shouldn't they? Idealism? There is nothing wrong with striving for a better life, it is what moves humanity forward.

Offering great and free education will always backfire for developing nations.

The solution is to either keep the population ignorant, hamstringing their education so they are less useful abroad and implementing a strict censorship regime so they don't get "corrupted" by the West or well force them to stay.

We saw that all play out in the Soviet Block. There is a good reason there was a wall.

I think the fairest solution is to NOT make education free but instant offer a deal of having to stay in the country and work for X-years in the profession one has been trained in by the state. Once they get older and settle down they are less likely to leave anyway.

Being a developing country just sucks. There is a reason most never break the cycle of poverty.

> striving for a better life

the problem here is that you're directly equating earning more money with a "better life"

once you have enough to have your needs met, then earning multiples times that doesn't make your life better; at that point, "better life" is much more impacted by other factors than money

Nearly everybody does when it is there own money. Sure you can show studies that more money doesn't make you happy, but almost everyone regularly has times they don't buy something just because they can't afford it and all think that thing would make them happier. I've know people making minimum wage, and people making nearly $million/year and both find money tight at the end of the month despite the vast difference in income. My personal wish list of things to buy totals more than my likely lifetime income, and your probably does too.

> My personal wish list of things to buy totals more than my likely lifetime income, and your probably does too.

I dunno, I'm really more bottlenecked by time than by income. >50% of my household income goes to savings, so I could comfortably buy more things, but I'm already backlogged on dealing with the things I've already purchased.

I guess the obvious answer would be to turn some of the money into more free time, but I've already picked all the low-hanging fruit there, so the remaining options are considerably higher effort/cost.