Is the Gallop Happiness Index a Psychological Construct?

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U.N agencies use the gallop happiness index to gauge where societies are at. It asks all kinds of soft questions, do you feel respected? Do you have hope for your children's future? All these cindsvery subjective questions. And they've seen time and again that plummeting happiness index periods presage huge disruptions or political upheavals,. The approach to peace building has evolved a lot over the last forty years. You outline change institutions, change social morms, change market forces to build sustained peace. Technology now is sitting upstream of even our social norms and culture. If it tilts the playing field such no hate has an advantage, then we want to be sn

How many technologists have traveled to Niger, or the Balkans, or Rwanda, to learn the lessons of peacebuilding? Technology and social media are creating patterns and pathways of conflict that few people anticipated or even imagined just a decade ago. And we need to act quickly to contain the effects, but we don't have to reinvent the wheel. There are people, such as this episode’s guest, Shamil Idriss, CEO of the organization Search for Common Ground, who have been training for years to understand human beings and learn how to help them connect and begin healing processes. These experts can share their insights and help us figure out how to apply them to our new digital habitats. “Peace moves at the speed of trust, and trust can’t be fast-tracked,” says Shamil. Real change is possible, but as he explains, it takes patience, care, and creativity to get there.