Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens • Hacker News Board

Re: Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens

#51

Post by the_mitsuhiko » Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 4:56 PM UTC

yostrovs wrote: post #30

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #19

The US results are strange. A lot fewer worry about healthcare and inequality/poverty than you would expect. In fact only Sweden worries less about the latter.

How many would you expect to worry? In a rich country with ample jobs and cheap food,I don't worry about it much either. I've seen poverty abroad, so maybe I just don't see what Americans call poverty as poverty.

I expect more than half to worry given the number of children in food insecure households, the lack of retirement savings many americans are confronted with.

You might have seem poverty abroad but there are plenty of countries on this list that worry more (like Germany) which much better working conditions for the vast majority of people with little income.

Re: Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens

#52

Post by Fricken » Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

yostrovs wrote: post #29

yorwba wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s no way you can look at the social credit shit they have going on and say “uh yeah everything looks fine!” Social credit is more than just a tool for oppression. (There's also more than one possible implementation currently in trial, but that applies to all of them.) Because the vast majority of Chinese citizens are not anti-government activists, any such survey will be dominated by those who can finally get…

The Uyghurs in prison were not available to participate in study. Nor to comment.

Even after factoring in the worst estimates of those detained in Uyghur reeducation camps, America's incarceration rates are still over 3x China's.

Re: Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens

#53

Post by thejohnconway » Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

lolc wrote: post #13

> online survey Is it representative in some way? > Data are weighted to match the profile of the population. No, just the opposite.

Weighting is done to make the sample more representative, because voluntary samples are always demographically biased. You can argue that the way they weight is wrong in some way, but it’s purpose is exactly to address representativeness of the survey.

Re: Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens

#54

Post by yostrovs » Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 5:33 PM UTC

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #51

yostrovs wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many would you expect to worry? In a rich country with ample jobs and cheap food,I don't worry about it much either. I've seen poverty abroad, so maybe I just don't see what Americans call poverty as poverty.

I expect more than half to worry given the number of children in food insecure households, the lack of retirement savings many americans are confronted with. You might have seem poverty abroad but there are plenty of countries on this list that worry more (like Germany) which much better working conditions for the vast majority of people with little income.

You're equating "food insecure households" and "lack of retirement savings" with poverty. In America, the supposedly impoverished, the "food insecure", are more often obese than not and their retirement, though boring and doesn't involve golf courses and biannual vacations, doesn't involve starvation, lack of electricity, television, heating and air conditioning, and other essentials.

Open up any book from 100 years ago on household maintenance, written usually for upper and upper middle class women. There you will learn that the laundry in the apartment building is an incredible luxury, as is the store down the street, and the fact that you can buy a loaf of bread there for about $1.50.

Re: Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens

#55

Post by zachguo » Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 5:35 PM UTC

ciguy wrote: post #6

No surprise that countries with the most oppressive internet surveillance and censorship also rank highly in self reported satisfaction. Chinese citizens probably got a boost to their social credit score for answering positively on this survey. I was just in Beijing and Shanghai for a few weeks and almost everyone I talked to in private admitted that they expect an economic crash in the near future. So this survey is…

One may also conclude that not all the people around the world care about the things that Westerners care about. People are generally happy if they have growing wages and access to good infrastructure.

Re: Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens

#56

Post by zachguo » Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 5:47 PM UTC

yostrovs wrote: post #29

yorwba wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s no way you can look at the social credit shit they have going on and say “uh yeah everything looks fine!” Social credit is more than just a tool for oppression. (There's also more than one possible implementation currently in trial, but that applies to all of them.) Because the vast majority of Chinese citizens are not anti-government activists, any such survey will be dominated by those who can finally get…

The Uyghurs in prison were not available to participate in study. Nor to comment.

Uyghur population is less than one percent of China's population. Results won't change even if they are able to participate.

Re: Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens

#57

Post by zachguo » Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 5:58 PM UTC

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #19

The US results are strange. A lot fewer worry about healthcare and inequality/poverty than you would expect. In fact only Sweden worries less about the latter.

Among the issues included on the survey, the four major concerns for Americans are:

- Healthcare (41%). This is up from May (36%). - Crime & Violence (31%). This is down slightly from May (33%). - Immigration Control (28%). This is up from May (24%). - Moral Decline (24%). This is up slightly from May (22%).

From the same source(2018 Dec Version): https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/what-worries-the-worl...

Re: Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens

#58

Post by zachguo » Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 6:04 PM UTC

ciguy wrote: post #21

shanghaiaway wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a tourist is far from being an authority on a culture

When did I ever claim to be an authority on anything? I'm making the observation that citizens who know they're being surveilled online are unlikely to respond to this type of poll negatively, affecting the accuracy of the results. I threw an interesting personal anecdote in there as an example but at no time did I make an authority claim. So I don't know what your point is.

He/she is trying to point out your hasty assumption that Chinese people share the same societal and cultural values as you. In reality they may not care much about surveillance and censorship at all.

Re: Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens

#59

Post by yzb » Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 6:40 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #45

As a Brazilian, the one thing that gives me some confidence that things will get better is the low confidence people display on those studies.

You had a radical change of government recently, so I guess it's a matter of time to see if people like it or not.

Re: Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens

#60

Post by pseudalopex » Sun, Jan 13, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

zachguo wrote: post #58

ciguy wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did I ever claim to be an authority on anything? I'm making the observation that citizens who know they're being surveilled online are unlikely to respond to this type of poll negatively, affecting the accuracy of the results. I threw an interesting personal anecdote in there as an example but at no time did I make an authority claim. So I don't know what your point is.

He/she is trying to point out your hasty assumption that Chinese people share the same societal and cultural values as you. In reality they may not care much about surveillance and censorship at all.

Whether someone likes surveillance is one question. Whether it discourages them from expressing certain opinions is another.