Is there any chance we could persuade you to clarify this a bit? What is the actual problem you are trying to solve here?

Sure, you can persuade me. Let's define "health of human society" as the aggregated ratio of actual happiness to total possible happiness of all humans, in terms of % of time that an individual perceives their state of being to be "happy". Is this ratio larger or smaller now, than it was in the past. It's like a historical analysis or something. And I'm not even sure my criteria is correct. I'm not expert at this -- but I am an expert at programming. Let me add that if we closed all vague programming questions like you do here, there would be far less value to the other stack sites.

Please consider updating your question to reflect these clarifications. Just in passing, the question is currently not constructive here because it lacks theoretical context; please consider telling us about the actual problem you are trying to solve, what you have found out so far, etc.

Ok, I'll try. I have a BFA and never took a philosophy class, so it's a new way of thinking.

Ok, did my best with the time I've got. Thanks for the help.

Thanks, definitely an improvement. Perhaps you could provide a little more context/motivation here? You say, "I'm trying to find a way to measure the aggregated happiness of a group of people" -- why are you trying to find this out? What are you expecting from an answer, and how does somewhere here explaining this to you help you become a better student of philosophy? What are the criteria for a good definition? And what is the theoretical context -- what are you reading, etc.?

Just in passing the Happy Planet Index may be worth looking into: "The HPI is an innovative measure that shows the ecological efficiency with which human well-being is delivered around the world. It is the first ever index to combine environmental impact with well-being to measure the environmental efficiency with which country by country, people live long and happy lives." happyplanetindex.org/learn

Very interesting link. I'm afraid I'm not committed enough to being a student of philosophy with the rigor you seem to require, so I'll leave it. But, to answer your questions personally:

I'm trying to find the language to discuss the general theme of "state of the world" with other regular folks. I'm trying to form some logic around my "sense of things", which is acute, but non-specific. I have opinions and feelings, but not thoughts, so to speak. Anyway, I'm on the job, and I guess this Stack is too pro for me, so I'm going to stick with Drupal.

I guess I feel a malaise emerging in the world. People tell me "it's always been that way" -- I feel we're entering into something unique, massive and disruptive. Just trying to make some sense ...

Thanks for the link -- I'll give that a look. Interesting that the ecological aspect figures prominently in their figure.

You've been patient though, and I appreciate it :)

I appreciate your willingness to modify the question -- I really don't think we are that far from something constructive here, and I certainly don't want to discourage well-meaning participation.

I guess one of my points here would be that there are any number of metrics which try to evaluate 'human wellbeing' in one form or another -- without a more specific motivation it's just very difficult question to answer meaningfully.

That makes sense. I'm going to delete the post, but I might re-post and think on it some more myself over the weekend. There are so many metrics -- I think I need to look at that more carefully I guess, and do a bit of research, as you've suggested.

Oops -- I can't delete. Oh well, I guess my obsessive housecleaning will have to wait a few days :)