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Bianca Dămoc's avatar

I think it was Daniel Pink in his book Drive that said, human beings perform best and experience greatest satisfaction when

1. We see in control of our lives

2. We learn create master new things

3. We contribute to improving the world.

Autonomy, mastery and purpose together.

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Michel Justen's avatar

This is a great post, and we probably agree on a lot about the value of technology, wealth, and self-determination.

However, I'm not fully convinced by the shift from happiness/subjective experience to value-fulfillment as the primary measure of well-being. While I understand your point about happiness being relative and adaptive, I still believe conscious experience is where everything bottoms out. If achieving values doesn't ultimately make us feel better in some meaningful way, why should we care about achieving them?

Value-fulfillment matters, but it matters because it affects our subjective experience.

Maybe the two concepts are complementary—value-fulfillment providing the structure and direction for a well-lived life, with the resulting subjective experiences providing the ultimate reason why we care about that structure and direction in the first place.

(Note: I read this post in a hurry so may be missing aspects of your argument)

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