I downvoted the grandparent for making unintuitive claims about the money:happiness relation without presenting evidence (my understanding is that subsistence-level income does have a significant and negative effect on happiness, although the plot of happiness over income levels off quickly after a basic level of financial security is achieved), for making sketchy claims about adaptation without evidence, for conflating approval with preference (particularly glaring because the point about happiness/income above only works without conflating the two), and for the entirely unnecessary swipe at perceived LW norms in the last sentence.
Oh, and by way of disclaimer, I didn’t find the original story especially compelling as a vision of utopia.
I downvoted the grandparent for making unintuitive claims about the money:happiness relation without presenting evidence (my understanding is that subsistence-level income does have a significant and negative effect on happiness, although the plot of happiness over income levels off quickly after a basic level of financial security is achieved), for making sketchy claims about adaptation without evidence, for conflating approval with preference (particularly glaring because the point about happiness/income above only works without conflating the two), and for the entirely unnecessary swipe at perceived LW norms in the last sentence.
Oh, and by way of disclaimer, I didn’t find the original story especially compelling as a vision of utopia.