Comments on: Is the quality of life in Australia getting worse? http://andrewnorton.info/2006/09/is-the-quality-of-life-in-australia-getting-worse/ Observations from Carlton's Lone Classical Liberal Tue, 06 Jan 2009 23:54:53 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: derrida derider http://andrewnorton.info/2006/09/is-the-quality-of-life-in-australia-getting-worse/comment-page-1/#comment-182 derrida derider Tue, 19 Sep 2006 05:59:16 +0000 http://andrewnorton.info/blog/2006/09/16/is-the-quality-of-life-in-australia-getting-worse/#comment-182 I suspect you could have polled the population at any time in the last, say, 10000 years and the majority will say that life ain't wot it used to be. It's our kvetching nature. Certainly I think older people often look back on their youth and think society was better then, but they're mistakenly confusing society with their own experiences. Of course it's better to be young than old - "the days of our youth are the days of our glory". What I fear most from the aging of the population is a society dominated by greedy, whinging, stick-in-the-mud old buggers. I suspect you could have polled the population at any time in the last, say, 10000 years and the majority will say that life ain’t wot it used to be. It’s our kvetching nature.

Certainly I think older people often look back on their youth and think society was better then, but they’re mistakenly confusing society with their own experiences. Of course it’s better to be young than old - “the days of our youth are the days of our glory”.

What I fear most from the aging of the population is a society dominated by greedy, whinging, stick-in-the-mud old buggers.

]]> By: rog http://andrewnorton.info/2006/09/is-the-quality-of-life-in-australia-getting-worse/comment-page-1/#comment-181 rog Mon, 18 Sep 2006 09:25:44 +0000 http://andrewnorton.info/blog/2006/09/16/is-the-quality-of-life-in-australia-getting-worse/#comment-181 Bad news stories sell, you only have to lean over the back fence to hear all you want. Nobody wants to know how much better other people are doing they only want to hear of those that are doing so much worse, its human nature. Bad news stories sell, you only have to lean over the back fence to hear all you want.

Nobody wants to know how much better other people are doing they only want to hear of those that are doing so much worse, its human nature.

]]> By: Guy http://andrewnorton.info/2006/09/is-the-quality-of-life-in-australia-getting-worse/comment-page-1/#comment-180 Guy Sun, 17 Sep 2006 08:57:18 +0000 http://andrewnorton.info/blog/2006/09/16/is-the-quality-of-life-in-australia-getting-worse/#comment-180 It's a very vague question. It's so submerged in subjectivity that I have trouble conceiving of how one could divine anything from the results. Thanks to interest rates, terrorism and oil prices, long-term trend "bad news" stories are also the flavour of the month in the current news cycle. It’s a very vague question. It’s so submerged in subjectivity that I have trouble conceiving of how one could divine anything from the results.

Thanks to interest rates, terrorism and oil prices, long-term trend “bad news” stories are also the flavour of the month in the current news cycle.

]]> By: Club Troppo » The happiness crisis http://andrewnorton.info/2006/09/is-the-quality-of-life-in-australia-getting-worse/comment-page-1/#comment-179 Club Troppo » The happiness crisis Sat, 16 Sep 2006 13:36:02 +0000 http://andrewnorton.info/blog/2006/09/16/is-the-quality-of-life-in-australia-getting-worse/#comment-179 [...] Are things really getting worse? As Andrew Norton explains, it’s often difficult to make sense of answers to these kinds of questions. So the real test will be whether Australians report being less happy and satisfied next time they’re surveyed. So far there’s no solid evidence that Australians are any less happy than they have been in the past. For anti-growth activists like Clive Hamilton, however, it’s the lack of any improvement in happiness scores that shows the failure of the neoliberal project of economic growth and rising consumption. After all, if consumption and growth were the path to happiness we ought to be much happier now than in the recent past. And so far, there’s no solid evidence for that. [...] [...] Are things really getting worse? As Andrew Norton explains, it’s often difficult to make sense of answers to these kinds of questions. So the real test will be whether Australians report being less happy and satisfied next time they’re surveyed. So far there’s no solid evidence that Australians are any less happy than they have been in the past. For anti-growth activists like Clive Hamilton, however, it’s the lack of any improvement in happiness scores that shows the failure of the neoliberal project of economic growth and rising consumption. After all, if consumption and growth were the path to happiness we ought to be much happier now than in the recent past. And so far, there’s no solid evidence for that. [...]

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