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Last night's debate on happiness
It was Jeffrey Sachs and Betsey Stevenson against myself and Will Wilkinson on the topic of whether America is failing in the pursuit of happiness. The Economist magazine was the sponsor and it was held in Gotham Hall in New York, which yes could have been out of a Batman movie.
As I had expected, Will proved to be the world's best debating partner, or at least in the top two (my previous debate partner was Randall Kroszner, for a year in high school).
The initial tally of sentiment was about 67-33 in favor of the Sachs-Stevenson position that America is indeed failing at the pursuit of happiness. By the end of the debate there was a slight margin in favor of the Cowen-Wilkinson position. The crowd turned, I believe, in part because Sachs pursued attacks on the current administration rather than focusing on the defined topic at hand. He was rendered shrill by the unholy madness of something or other, as Brad DeLong would put it. Will and I don't like current policy either, but we looked happy. We were happy. We are happy. We also had a long array of facts and citations from the happiness literature and some pointed rebuttals to the so-called Easterlin paradox.
Many loyal MR readers were there, so of course your impressions are invited, even if you don't usually leave comments. Who else is to tell this story if not you? Expect to see reports on Will's blog and by Felix Salmon as well.
Addendum: Here is Will, Tyrone may weigh in soon.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 11, 2007 at 07:00 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink
Comments
"but we looked happy."
So, you're saying, style counted over substance? Snark!
Posted by: That Guy at Nov 11, 2007 7:14:12 AM
Any way we can get an online recording? Sounds interesting.
Posted by: JH at Nov 11, 2007 8:24:55 AM
Your divorce rate says you're not happy - or, at least, not happy with each other.
Posted by: dearieme at Nov 11, 2007 9:21:37 AM
And I suppose that your remarriage rate confirms that you're optimistic.
Posted by: dearieme at Nov 11, 2007 9:23:21 AM
Overall, the debate went very well and it was well worth 30 dollars. Some observations....
The topic was too broad. I often found the two sides debating two different topics. "Is America failing at the pursuit of happiness" leaves a lot of wiggle room.
On the debaters:
Betsy Stevenson started off. Her voice was tinny and her rhetorical style seemed like something you would see/read in a highschool debate/paper. I had trouble hearing her all night long - except near the end where she nearly came undone, dropping bottles and even interrupting the other side at one point...
Jeffrey Sachs pulled no punches. He went straight to the jungular like some crazy left wing lunatic. He should write for the Daily Kos. Alas, unlike Betsy, you could actually hear what he was saying and he got some good points in. But overall, his argumentative style was not substantive, he tried to appeal to peoples' dislike of Bush and current politics.
Wil Wilkinson was by far the best debater. The quickest on his feet, most forceful, and most articulate. However, he did make some references that the vast majority of folks did not get, like a reference to cats causing schizophrenia... Also, he admitted that places like Sweden are ok despite the fact that they are nanny states. This seemed to cause tremendous delight to Jeffrey Sachs who spent the rest of the evening pointing out that someone from the Cato Institute said that a nanny state was not so bad.
Lastly, Tyler Cowen. He is much more low key than I thought he would be. Although it was hard to hear him at times because of this, it proved to make him more compelling because he did not seem as rabid as the opposing side. He used several of Betsy's own research points against her which was slick.
I went with a fairly large group of people and afterwards we went to get some beer and food. My final observation is this:
If you were not a rabid idealogue than Tyler and Wil, by far, did a more convincing job. Nearly all those at my table who did not have strong held views at the beginning came away agreeing with Tyler and Wil and even some of those who had strongly held views ended up agreeing with Tyler and Will.
Good Job! Hope to see more debates!
Posted by: RobertV at Nov 11, 2007 9:56:37 AM
Tyler, you and Will were fantastic! You bested the oppositions in every way--by keeping your cool and not resorting to dirty tactics like INTERRUPTING people and accusing them of moral depravity (*cough* *cough* Jeffrey Sachs).
And, of course, you had the facts on your side.
Posted by: Columbia Girl at Nov 11, 2007 9:57:35 AM
Sad to have missed this. Sadder still that you omitted the gory details. Is there not a web video? Podcast? Transcript? Summary story in the Economist?
Posted by: Chris Blattman at Nov 11, 2007 10:07:34 AM
Audio of some past debates is here:
http://www.economist.com/audio/?ps=other
Not sure if they will post this debate or not...
Posted by: Anon at Nov 11, 2007 10:24:33 AM
*sigh*. As a (relative) leftist myself, I have to ask why is it that in these sort of debates, the left side always goes rabid? Do the debate organizers deliberately hire leftists who can only bombast, and not argue incisively?
If I was hiring, the first criteria for rejecting a possible debater would be "do you think the opposition is evil?"
Posted by: Tom West at Nov 11, 2007 11:05:16 AM
I believe there will be a webcast...if so I'll link to it.
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Nov 11, 2007 11:26:20 AM
On the topic of whether America is failing in the pursuit of happiness ... "By the end of the debate there was a slight margin in favor of the Cowen-Wilkinson position."
Does that mean we are only doing so-so?
I have to chuckle that some above seem to take a "slight margin" as a mandate ... what is this, Florida? I, the moderate, wonder what better plans for pursuit of happiness might look like.
Posted by: odograph at Nov 11, 2007 11:32:16 AM
We clearly need a Czar and Department of Happiness in this country. You will be happy, damn it, even you have to be beaten severely to achieve it.
Posted by: Yancey Ward at Nov 11, 2007 11:38:53 AM
Odograph,
Considering the location of the debate, I would have to say that Tyler and Will's slight margin (and the change in predebate sentiment is more significant than it might appear.
Posted by: Yancey Ward at Nov 11, 2007 11:41:28 AM
LOL, feel free to jerk your knee that way Yancey.
I certainly did not suggest that, and even put in the caution that I am a moderate. If I had to chuckle at the "mandate" ... I have to laugh again that they straw men have taken the field.
Posted by: odograph at Nov 11, 2007 11:43:13 AM
Sachs was over the top. Wilkinson came off a touch snarky at times and referred to "The Data" a little reverently, but generally was right on point. Tyler was calm, but also stepped up the intensity in a good way in his closing statement. Will and Tyler really started to win the crowd when they acknowledged that there were problems with America (education, some poverty) but that the answer isn't necessarily to enact Jeff Sach's personal policy agenda.
Posted by: Bob at Nov 11, 2007 11:44:25 AM
Yancy, my 11:43:13 AM was in response to your 11:38:53 AM. Hope that wasn't confusing.
Posted by: odograph at Nov 11, 2007 11:46:44 AM
Though I was on Tyler & Will's side of the argument, *attending* this debate lowered my happiness. I was reminded that the average American views Jeffrey Sachs as some kind of heroic do-gooder whose policy proposals should be implemented as soon as possible.
Remember that public schoolteacher in the Q&A whose question focused on "freedom from debt," "freedom from student loans" and "freedom from health-care costs"? Um, show me those rights in the Constitution, ma'am. (She got a huge applause, of course.)
Posted by: Anonymous at Nov 11, 2007 12:01:37 PM
Odograph,
My first comment was not directed at you (I hadn't even read the comments yet when I wrote it). It was directed at the implied idea of such a debate that government should be creating policies to try to increase people's happiness. Happiness is such a subjective thing that I find the idea of government management of it to be an appallingly bad idea.
Happiness isn't a right to be bestowed.
Posted by: Yancey Ward at Nov 11, 2007 12:22:26 PM
I was there. From my seat, I would say Tyler understates the change. I would guess a good 1/3 of the audience changed its position. This is with what I got away. Betsy-Jeffrey's point: we need government to make us happy. The current government is bad. Therefore we are unhappy. Tyler-Will's point: the diversity and freedom in the U.S. is such that we can be (and are) happy, despite bad policies and problems. Worst argument: relying too much on data. Data tells you what you want it to say (as it was well pointed out). Best argument: Betsy and Jeff claim to be happy, despite their position and their dislike of current policies + immigration flows into the U.S. not out...
It was fun and worthy. If Tyler and Will do it again, go. If you are not a New Yorker, come. You will have a good time. And you may even see Batman peeking out from behind the economist-red lid columns of Gotham Hall...
Posted by: Maria at Nov 11, 2007 1:45:40 PM
I thought the debate was a big success both as entertainment and education, though Sachs being fairly off-topic was disappointing. They should not invite him back unless the proposition is aligned with what he wants to talk about. It was nice to see such a large swing in the audience opinion -- I don't know what's typical for these things, but to me changing the minds of 25% of those that disagreed with you has to be characterized as a knockout. (I enjoyed Tyler trying to characterize the pre-debate poll as 70-30 instead of the moderator's 2/3-1/3 view.)
To me, the most convincing points (against the proposition) were:
a) Sachs saying he was convinced we would succeed in the long run, basically conceding that his arguments were myopic. (How badly can we be failing if there are no serious barriers to long-run success?)
b) Stevenson saying that 17th/200+ is not her definition of success, America should be first. Especially without answering the assertion that the differences between 17th and 1st were noise.
c) Happy-life-years [per lifetime] have increased by 6 years over some horizon.
d) Mexico/Puerto Rico rank very highly, yet 10s of millions of people (net) have moved here.
I thought in something like this it would have been nice to hear which points each side thought were the others' strongest. Or even better, the points they would have made on the other side. There was a lot of "I agree with blah, but blah isn't actually relevant to the proposition." And it would have been nice if more consensus on what exactly the proposition was could have been reached. One of the best things about the blogosphere is watching intelligent & respectful people with different viewpoints engage civilly and occasionally move closer together. (Things like Alex's positive review of _No One Makes You Shop At WalMart_ are very valuable to me.) Maybe Tyrone will comment.
Towards the end there were some heated moments I wish they'd had more time to get into (and would love to hear follow-up from Tyler/Will):
Will asserted that (based on the data) giving more money to unemployed people would not make them happier and Stevenson interrupted (not quite angrily, but astonished that he would say this) to say that that was implausible (the debaters on the whole were excellent at give & take without talking over eachother). Considering the general levels of skepticism Tyler/Will expressed about the data, I guess I'd have to agree that such an implausible result would require pretty strong support. If it doesn't make them *report* higher levels of happiness, that seems much more likely to be the same phenomenon that causes +6 happy-life-years to have no impact on survey results over time.
Tyler, with the last word on some question, observed that those making < $30k (or maybe just "the poor") have high levels of air conditioning, living space, etc. Sachs insisted on a few moments to fairly indignantly say Tyler's comments were "just gross" i.e. that he was trivializing some serious problems that they have.
Anyway, I was very happy to be able to make it.
Posted by: fmb at Nov 11, 2007 2:04:25 PM
I was there. I thought there was an interesting disconnect between the two sides of the debate.
The affirmative took a narrow view of the topic and discussed what the US gov't is doing *right now*, and how these policies would affect the happiness of the nation in the future (clearly if current policies lead to en environmental apocalypse that would have a negative effect on happiness).
The negative, on the other hand, spent much more time discussing long term trends in US governance and institutions and showed (convincingly so) that these have led to a great deal of happiness in the US.
On a separate note, I felt that the audience question part of the debate was the least interesting (as I often do at these sorts of things). I was there to here the ideas of the 4 debaters (experts int their various fields) and not the rambling questions of random audience members.
Topic that wasn't touched on (very much) that I REALLY find interesting: If American's are less happy because they have anxiety about their futures (as the affirmitive claimed), but this anxiety is largely unfounded (see Bryan Caplan), then what (if anything) really needs to change to better promote happiness?
Posted by: harryh at Nov 11, 2007 2:18:13 PM
i felt that the proposition was debating a rather different topic than the one the opposition was... i guess you both won in your own ways.
Posted by: quitacet at Nov 11, 2007 2:39:58 PM
GENUINE HAPPINESS is a state of mind that CANNOT BE REACHED by endlessly acquiring external objects and "improved" relations to the physical world (past the point of basic sustenance of course).
The "need" to acquire objects and status are merely the result of a lack of contentment with oneself. Such a habit pattern of improving physical conditions may support your spiritual practice, but that is the extent of its help. So this debate in a large way was beating around the bush. It did not address the root cause of suffering here in America.
I suggest all those interested in actually being happy read "Genuine Happiness" by B. Alan Wallace and watch this video. Those are available at the following URLs:
http://www.amazon.com/Genuine-Happiness-Meditation-Path-Fulfillment/dp/047146984X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-8277846-1033705?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194810301&sr=8-1
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4613574501335822995&q=b+alan+wallace&total=44&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=6
Another useful resource is the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies.
Best of luck in your endeavors.
Posted by: baiano at Nov 11, 2007 2:57:01 PM
Happiness is such a subjective thing that I find the idea of government management of it to be an appallingly bad idea.
This kind of thing drives me mad. The idea that happiness is this mysterious, unknowable, subjective quality of the human soul is based on a weird, quasi-religious view of human beings.
Human beings are biological and social animals. There's no particular reason to think that life satisfaction is outside the realm of scientific study. There's no reason we shouldn't be able to develop testable theories about the circumstances that are conducive to satisfaction. And while of course government can't and shouldn't "manage" happiness -- a silly straw man -- it seems obvious that to the extent government policy can be geared to producing circumstances conducive to life satisfaction, it should.
For years, we've been using GDP growth as a proxy for happiness, a goal that's "close enough." But accumulating data shows that a) GDP growth is not a very accurate proxy, and b) we're learning enough to be able to aim for the goal directly.
Posted by: David Roberts at Nov 11, 2007 3:43:09 PM
I have mentioned in past MR threads that I like Daniel Gilbert's book, "Stumbling on Happiness." I think it provides a good politics-free, economics-free, and policy-free foundation.
Happiness is (as some say above) biological. It is an internal "how am I doing?" thing. If you think you are doing good, you are probably happy. If you think you are doing badly, you might get sad. (See Glibert's book for interesting limits and feedbacks.)
I guess the frustrating thing, when you start from that foundation, is to see people on the right and left dancing away from happiness. They are literally less interested in being happy than in keeping their beliefs.
Left: If the data does not show that the government can hand out happiness, the data must be wrong.
Right: If the data does not show that ever increasing wealth brings ever increasing happiness, than the data must be wrong.
Both the right and the left (in those extremes) are ignoring the biology as they try to prevent their oxen from being gored (redistribution of wealth, or pursuit of wealth).
The sad bottom line might be that you need freedom (including economic freedom) to pursue personal happiness ... but that freedom does nothing to insure that you go about that pursuit in the right way.
BTW, how strong do you think the evolution vs. creation subtext is in this happiness discussion? My view is strongly evolution based. Perhaps the creationist happiness is common ... no that can't be true. If we were a strongly Christian and faith based nation surely we'd be less materialistic in our pursuit of happiness.
Posted by: odograph at Nov 11, 2007 4:49:16 PM
