[sublatio]

> There are no great societal paradises where the GDP per capita is ~$500-$5,000.

Ok, not paradise, but a counterpoint I can think of might be Bhutan at around $3,200.

[_aizw]

How is Bhutan a good counterpoint?

[twelve40]

that's a country size of Sacramento. Even if it was a societal paradise (don't know much about that, life expectancy seems not great at 71), a sample of 700k people doesn't seem to crush the predictive power of GDP per capita.