My thoughts

A brief categorisation of relative poverty  This being in response to the ideas that there will always be poverty, in the sense that it is relative, and that in reality the relatively poor are not actually poor, objectively speaking. Relative poverty, in the ordinary sense, derived from differing incomes or costs - inevitable and in some sense desirable, in that it is the only alternative to total equality of outcome. (NB: Inheritance, being unearned, is not justified by this logic.) Competitive poverty - The difficulties created by experiencing "relative" poverty in an economy where others can dominate your life choices and possibilities by being richer. Accommodation and education are good examples of areas where this can occur. Transport is a partial example.In many countries, healthcare could be added as another example. Insertional poverty - It depends on your view of human nature I suppose, but I think it very reasonable to include social ins...

Brief thoughts. They may or may not become longer one day... Education Knowledge of pollination, cell nuclei, sound waves, atomic structure, ionic compounds, transition metals, auxin and phototropism is useful for humanity as a whole and perhaps fascinating, but education takes place in limited time and the overwhelming majority of children will never use or need to know these things as they go through life.  The same could be said for glaciers and oxbow lakes. French or Spanish verb forms are not useful to the majority of children that will never speak the language competently anyway. On the other hand, every child without exception will need to live among other human beings, and the overwhelming majority will be involved in the events that define the direction in which millions will move, that is to say, elections (whether voting or choosing not to). If the school system is to produce humans to live among humans, then philosophy, religion, po...

Before I even get going: a) It is often not even clear what exactly is being discussed when people talk about happiness In this case, I am really talking about long-term happiness when asked to view one's current life-situation as a whole. b) I have found sources that ask people about their happiness do not seem to come up with the same results, e.g. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11362246/Just-three-in-10-people-feel-happy-with-their-lives.html versus https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/15/british-people-nearly-twice-happy-think/ I should really do more research on all this if I get time, but anyway... I am not sure that maximising average happiness is a very good aim, for various reasons: 1) Cultural and social factors are pretty big in all this. For example... As far as I can seen, there is a strong tendency for French people to consistently  express  themselves less satisfied while  appearing to   demonstrate  ...