This week I look at how the U-shaped curve of happiness -- how our happiness tends to decline into middle age and then increase again into old age -- is partly explained by our inability to fully understand how our future selves will view our lives. We see our future selves through a sort-of tunnel vision that only considers how part of us will change, and we miss the complete picture.
The same is true for how we imagine our connection to the past. Originalist thinkers make the same kind of mistake, creating a tunnel though which to view whichever issue they seek to bring from the past, while ignoring all of the other changes in culture and technology that should influence our current understanding of laws conceived long ago.
Mentioned this week:
The Economist: "The U-Bend of Life"
The Conversation: A Critique of the U-Shaped Curve of Happiness
Big by Matt Stoller: "The Harvey Weinstein of Antitrust"
Scientific American: "Population Decline Will Change the World for the Better"
