One way that Buddhism might deconfuse this concept of wealth is to say that it wasn’t “not meeting your needs” that was causing suffering in the first place, it was grasping. The better you get at meeting your needs, the more you think that’s a solution, but it actually causes more grasping.
Hence your realization that wealth doesn’t seem to make people happier. Not only does wealth not make people happier—it’s fairly plausible that e.g. hunter gatherers were actually more happy than agrarians.
I think truly grasping this (and it’s obvious when you look at the decoupling between happiness and wealth, as you do here), really erodes some of the foundations of the humanist/transhumanist philosophy that underpins much of the rationality community.
One way that Buddhism might deconfuse this concept of wealth is to say that it wasn’t “not meeting your needs” that was causing suffering in the first place, it was grasping. The better you get at meeting your needs, the more you think that’s a solution, but it actually causes more grasping.
Hence your realization that wealth doesn’t seem to make people happier. Not only does wealth not make people happier—it’s fairly plausible that e.g. hunter gatherers were actually more happy than agrarians.
I think truly grasping this (and it’s obvious when you look at the decoupling between happiness and wealth, as you do here), really erodes some of the foundations of the humanist/transhumanist philosophy that underpins much of the rationality community.