The Human Brain Is Optimized to Care About Happiness

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I think something I'm struggling to understand with the perspective that you're bringing is why the human brain would even be optimized to care about like happiness rather than say, you know, genetic survivability. So it's kind of an interesting question here, like what is the nature of someone's values? Like, can they be mistaken about what they value in a specific case? Or is that kind of ground truth about someone's preferences?

What are the best strategies for improving ourselves? How are line managers useful? Why does Rob prefer long-form content for the 80,000 Hours podcast? What are the sorts of things humans value and why? In what ways do research ethics considerations fail to achieve their stated objectives? Why are prediction markets useful?

Rob Wiblin is the Head of Research at 80,000 Hours where he investigates how people can do more good in the course of their career and produces a long-form interview show called the 80,000 Hours Podcast. He studied genetics and economics in Australia before moving to the UK to help develop the emerging field of effective altruism. You can learn more about Rob at robwiblin.com, learn more about his research work at 80000hours.org, and follow him on social media at @robertwiblin.

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