The Easterlin Paradox: The Hedonic Treadmill (2D)

A grid of household agents each earns a growing income, but their sense of "enough" — their aspiration level — climbs right along with it, adapting to their own past earnings and to what their neighbours make. This 2D model renders that treadmill directly as a pannable, zoomable isometric bar grid: income growth is exogenous and steady, aspiration chases it with a tunable lag, and happiness depends only on the gap between the two. A scrolling three-line chart plots national income, average happiness and average aspiration side by side so the paradox is visible in real time — the green line climbs, the red line flattens.