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The science of well being

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    On the last video I began to explore the issue
    of the utilisation of the scientific method
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    for social concern, comparing it to other
    forms of governance and decision making,
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    such as democracy, technocracy and how the market
    forces influence those.
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    The video received an overwhelming positive
    response from many of you, and I was really
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    surprised. As expected, there were also a
    few questions and critiques, and I thank you
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    for those, we shall explore each of them individually.
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    One of the criticisms raised was that there
    is no universal definition of well being,
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    therefore we cannot possibly address the issue
    in scientific terms.
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    OK, let's examine this statement with the
    help of a graphic. Imagine we have two persons.
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    The one on the left is in the quintessential
    perfect well being. Now, we do not know what
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    that looks like, but we can imagine a hypothetical
    scenario where such a person in such a state
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    exists. On the opposite side, you have a unfortunate
    individual in the worst possible misery, both
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    physical and mental. If you can imagine something
    going bad in your life, it's there. And if
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    you can imagine something worse that, it's
    also there. Between these two conditions there
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    are millions of degrees of variation, from
    left to right.
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    Somebody here, for example, may have the following
    scenario:
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    - she never gets sick
    - she never broke a bone in her body
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    - she can run a marathon and finish up with
    ease
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    - she is generally very happy with her life
    and never displayed signs of depression or
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    mental illnesses
    - she has a stable and balanced diet, as well
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    access to proper nutrition
    - she follows her interests with passion and
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    is intellectually stimulated
    - her social relationships are strong and
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    healthy
    - her sentimental life is more than satisfying
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    and she enjoys it thoroughly
    Clearly, these are not all the best traits
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    one person can have, and it's far from being
    the ideal situation of well being. It's just
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    a point of reference.
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    Similarly, a person here is in the following
    condition:
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    - she was never fed properly, due to a lack
    of access to food. As a result, serious growing
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    deficiencies affected her body and her mind
    - she is crippled and underdeveloped, both
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    physically and mentally
    - she is constantly being abused sexually
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    - continuous tortures and harassment have
    worsen her conditions over time
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    - she is in a constant state of pain. Whenever
    her body adjusts to a level of suffering,
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    new pain is added, and the torture continues
    - due to the enormous amount of physical and
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    psychological abuses, she was never able to
    create any social bond
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    - she developed psychoses and she is mentally
    unstable
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    I could go on, but I think you get the picture.
    Now, it is true that we don't have a univocal
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    and universal definition of well being, but
    that doesn't stop us from recognising that
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    there are certain positions on this line that
    are more desirable than others. And these
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    can be evaluated objectively and scientifically.
    But we still don't understand everything about
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    the human condition, you might say. We don't
    understand everything about aerodynamics,
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    either, but that hasn't stopped us from building
    airplanes and move across the skies of the
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    world.
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    One could make a similar argument about life.
    Nobody really knows what life is. Yet we can
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    safely say that a rock is not alive, but a
    squirrel is. What about corals, and viruses,
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    and artificial intelligences? Yet again, there
    is degree of possibilities within the line,
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    and itâs an open discussion. But when somebody
    stops breathing, grows cold and starts to
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    decompose... well that might be a sign that
    the person is not alive anymore. Surely in
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    the future we might discover that we got it
    all wrong, that rocks are alive and we are
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    not, who knows. But at any given time, we
    have a context and a frame of reference, which
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    we utilise to make an argument. This is not
    a philosophical discussion about the nature
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    of Truth in the realm of platonic ideas. This
    is a very practical argument, where we pose
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    a question: can we try and maximise well being,
    and can we use a scientific approach to achieve
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    this goal? The answer is yes, in both cases.
    And given the disastrous results that politics
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    and modern economics have given us, it would
    be utterly irresponsible not to do so.
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    It really saddens me the fact that, even though
    we have an abundance of food and medicines
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    in the world, millions of people continue
    to die. This is completely unnecessary, and
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    avoidable. We let economics and politics deal
    with this problem for far too many years,
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    and they have failed. On 9-11-2001, 2,966
    died in US soil. People still talk about how
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    this could have been prevented. There is an
    intense debate about that. Today, 23,987 people,
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    mostly children, died of hunger. There is
    not debate about that. We can prevent this holocaust
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    that keeps repeating every fucking
    day.
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    It's time evolve.
Title:
The science of well being
Description:

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Sources cited
Democracy, technocracy, the free market or the scientific method for social concern? http://youtu.be/83LAk3BT7no
Does the world produce enough food to feed everyone? http://goo.gl/tGF64

Music
2 Ghost I - Nine Inch Nails
8 Ghost I - Nine Inch Nails
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Video Language:
English, British
Duration:
07:07

English, British subtitles

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