Earlier quoted context omitted.
maybe the unhappy ones are those who left the country.
No, with the record-breaking 2.30 million percent inflation almost nobody is happy there.
Not to mention water and food shortages...
World Happiness Report, 2019
41–50 of 67 posts
Re: World Happiness Report, 2019
#42The World Happiness Report numbers are based only on the Cantril ladder. I don't get why they don't use an average of the Cantril ladder, positive affect, and negative affect. The Cantril ladder asks respondents the following question: "Please imagine a ladder, with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder repres…
I worry about the phrase "possible" in there. If you're in a place with no opportunity, you may genuinely believe that the best possible life for you isn't a very good one, and thus rate yourself near the top even though you're unhappy.
Re: World Happiness Report, 2019
#43Interesting that GINI coefficient doesn't seem to be correlated with happiness (except in Europe, for some reason). Reminds me of Taleb's assertion that people don't resent the rich simply for being rich, they resent rich people who have no skin in the game. Perhaps rich Europeans are perceived as having less skin in the game?
The idea that people resent inequality always seemed incredibly sketchy to me. Imagine a super-wealthy country where 99% of population has a yearly income of $200k, and the 1% has an income of $200m. This society would be very unequal, and yet somehow I can't imagine the 99% there being resentful of the rich, voting for populists etc. So, I think that people resent the rich only if they themselves are struggling to g…
It was interesting to me noticing that Saudi Arabia was pretty high on the list for happiness, but they're also known to be pretty unequal and the royalty has an immense amount of wealth.
Re: World Happiness Report, 2019
#44The visualization is good, IMHO there's a lot of room for improvement though. There's a big issue which undermines the credibility of the whole report: - Venezuela has a Cantril Ladder value of 6.2577. That's very strange to say the least, and it's hard to believe to be honest. Venezuelans are one of the most unhappy, miserable people in the world.
to be clear, is that first-hand experience from venezuela or some other survey?
They lack the basic necessities on Maslow's hierarchy of needs right now, with the state of their ruined economy.
Re: World Happiness Report, 2019
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
to be clear, is that first-hand experience from venezuela or some other survey?
They lack the basic necessities on Maslow's hierarchy of needs right now, with the state of their ruined economy.
yes but happiness perception is subjective and depends on what information they get
Re: World Happiness Report, 2019
#46Interesting that GINI coefficient doesn't seem to be correlated with happiness (except in Europe, for some reason). Reminds me of Taleb's assertion that people don't resent the rich simply for being rich, they resent rich people who have no skin in the game. Perhaps rich Europeans are perceived as having less skin in the game?
The idea that people resent inequality always seemed incredibly sketchy to me. Imagine a super-wealthy country where 99% of population has a yearly income of $200k, and the 1% has an income of $200m. This society would be very unequal, and yet somehow I can't imagine the 99% there being resentful of the rich, voting for populists etc. So, I think that people resent the rich only if they themselves are struggling to g…
This ignores the social implications of status. So long as having status means exclusive access to certain things (Events, vehicles, housing, mates...) people will compete with eachother to be wealthier. When someone fails to compete they often blame the game instead of their own results.
Re: World Happiness Report, 2019
#47There have been 2 million immigrants from Venezuela to Colombia last 4 years escaping from lack of food, money, toilet paper among many other issues but despite that this data shows Venezuela to be happier than Colombia; it doesn't add up; maybe the people wrongly assumed the quiz was a government initiative and decided to save face saying they are happy.
This seems to be a bug. I downloaded the raw data from here
http://worldhappiness.report/ed/2019/#read
"Chapter 2: Online Data"
Also here: https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2019/changing-world-happine... (fig 2.7)
Venezuela scores a 4.7 and Colombia scores 6.125. Or they're using a completely different metric, no idea.
Re: World Happiness Report, 2019
#48The visualization is good, IMHO there's a lot of room for improvement though. There's a big issue which undermines the credibility of the whole report: - Venezuela has a Cantril Ladder value of 6.2577. That's very strange to say the least, and it's hard to believe to be honest. Venezuelans are one of the most unhappy, miserable people in the world.
I took a quick look at the full report (linked in the comments), and I think the data shown in the visualization might not be 100% accurate.
Re: World Happiness Report, 2019
#49Interesting that Australia is so high up, while SE Asia so low. My experience of both (specifically Cambodia) is exactly the reverse.
But I suspect the cultural factors are at play here. Ask an Aussie if they're living the best life and they'll say yes, proud in their Lucky Country and the best beaches in the world (whichever city an Aussie inhabits has the "best beaches in the world").
While in Cambodia they're more humble. Obviously this is to certain extent about poverty. But it's also about the cultural tendency against boasting. And an acknowledgement that life isn't perfect, there are things that need to change and improve.
Yet, in my experience, obviously a limited sample of anecdata, the average Cambodian is happier, quick to find the joy in life, with strong supportive family connections. While Aussies are comparing ourselves to each other, disconnected from our families, suiciding in record numbers, and angry at the world.
Re: World Happiness Report, 2019
#50The World Happiness Report numbers are based only on the Cantril ladder. I don't get why they don't use an average of the Cantril ladder, positive affect, and negative affect. The Cantril ladder asks respondents the following question: "Please imagine a ladder, with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder repres…
Thank you for that! The results make so much more sense to me now. I've lived in Canada, the US, the UK and Japan. One of the reasons I choose to remain in Japan is that people seem a lot happier here. This is in complete contrast with the results (which ranks Canada up near the top).
I'm Canadian and while this is a completely subjective point of view, one of the things I don't like about living there is that people seem perpetually pissed off about one thing or another. The world is just wrong. It's all going to hell in a hand basket. It shouldn't be like this. You can't have a conversation on any topic without people complaining about one thing or another (perhaps it's just the people I hung out with :-) ).
In Japan, people seem happy with their lot. However, it would be completely ingenuous to say that they think they have life easy. They've got stupid bosses and long hours and really low pay and nothing they can do about it other than to go to the enkai, drink a lot and hope that their stupid boss remembers the drunken rant that will save the company. Women and children barely see the father in the family except on public holidays. If women work, they have to put in stupid hours and also do all the house work. Children have lots of stress because your entire career is practically mapped out when you take your entrance exam for high school. If you goofed off when you were 14 or 15, then cut your salary in half for the rest of your life.
But the big difference is that they don't complain about it. It's all "Yeah, it's difficult, but what are you going to do? You can only do your best" and soldier on. And I think that's a common theme in Asia. In the west people seem to act like spoiled brats in comparison -- always in a funk about something, even though by comparison they have it dramatically better than anybody else in the world.
But the key thing is that people in the west do actually realise that they have it pretty good and are very proud of it. While in Asia people are embarrassed about their situation even though they have accepted it.
Anyway, the above contained a lot of very general (and basically outrageous) statements. It was not meant to constrain anyone based on where they are from or what culture they enjoy. I was simply trying to communicate my prejudices and why I was left scratching my head at this report.