Bhutan, after prioritizing happiness, now faces an existential crisis (discussed on Hacker News) was a fascinating read. I’ve barely heard about the country before, but it’s certainly a remarkable one: very closed, poor and underdeveloped, mostly living off farming, but it sounds like it’s at-least a somewhat conscious decision: they want to prioritize happiness and not wealth.
Of course, it looks like many people would rather have their iPhones, and 9% of the country’s population has left to live eg in Australia. So I’m not sure how well that’s going.
A comment on Hacker News points out that social media is probably not doing them any favors:
Social comparison theory is the idea that our satisfaction with what we have isn’t an objective measure, but is actually based on what we see other people have. Young people generally seem to have an innate desire to leave their hometowns and seek out what else might be waiting out there for them. When you add in globalization and media influence exposing them to what looks like a “better” life with more things, it’s not surprising that they’ve seen ~9% of young people leave Bhutan.
A funny side-note about Bhutan is how many countries of the world they don’t recognize. Their world map looks wild!