People want the right to die at a time of their own choosing. Too many families have watched helplessly as a relative dies slowly, longing for death.

Most people come to fear not death itself, but the many terrible ways of dying.

My mother begged doctors to end her life. She was beyond the physical ability to swallow enough of the weak morphine pills she had around her. When she knew she was dying I promised to make sure she could go at a time of her choosing, but it was impossible. I couldn't help.

So what really works? Treatments in jail do some good, but it's mostly too late: finding a family and a job or just growing older make most prisoners eventually give up crime.

Happiness is a real, objective phenomenon, scientifically verifiable. That means people and whole societies can now be measured over time and compared accurately with one another. Causes and cures for unhappiness can be quantified.

How do you make any sense of history, art or literature without knowing the stories and iconography of your own culture and all the world's main religions?