Eudaimonics

Medium

By now, you might have heard: continuing a long string of jaw-dropping mishaps, Uber lost it’s license to operate in London. Let’s talk about it for a moment, because I think it’s a perfect mini case study in failing at the future.

Uber’s big mistake wasn’t losing it’s license, it was having poor eudaimonics. By eudaimonics, I mean a thing’s effects on life: on well-being, real wealth, and human possibility. And Uber is the poster child for poor eudaimonics, the canonical example of the old paradigm failing.

London specifically said: “a lack of corporate responsibility” caused Uber to lose it’s license. Translation: your eudaimonics are pretty awful, and we don’t want you here anymore, because you contribute little in real terms to our well-being, therefore, sorry, but you’re out.

Now here’s the really big picture. Increasingly, organizations like Facebook and Uber — eudaimonically destructive, not constructive organizations — define America’s exports. And that’s a problem. It essentially means that America is exporting its own alarmingly low quality of life, democracy, and society to the world. Does the world really want that? I doubt it.

He may doubt this, but I am not so sure. Plenty of people, the world over - can tolerate a mediocre life - if that makes their enemies have even less of a life.