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In every country people think others are less happy than they themselves say (2017)

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Re: In every country people think others are less happy than they themselves say (2017)

#61

Post by brabel »

p-e-w wrote: post #47
zuppy wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found a book a while ago, that made me change my perspective about how I see the world as a whole. This is the book, it's called Factfulness: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37850908-factfulness There are a lot of bad things that happen around us (war, hunger, discrimination, etc), but we are at the best time in the entire human history, even with that. Compared with every metric in history, we are better. Even…

> Compared with every metric in history, we are better. That claim alone should immediately make you doubt the metrics being used. In fact, it's easy to find dozens of metrics for which this isn't true. Housing affordability being a very obvious example. And the average democracy index has been going downwards for 15 consecutive years IIRC. Environmental pollution also most certainly isn't "at the best time in the en…

Don't throw around accusations like that willy nilly. It causes "propaganda" to become a trivialized term that everyone can just throw at anyone making any statement they don't agree with after 1 minute of consideration.

This book was written by Hans Rosling, a man who was an expert in data analysis and whose mission was to show actual world data to people in fantastic visualizations they could clearly understand. If there's anything that's far removed from propaganda, it's Rosling's data-based approach to what the situation of the world really is.

About house affordability: do you have statistics for that for every country in the world, or you only care about your neck of the woods (which is not what Rosling cared about at all)? But even if that's true, it doesn't contradict the fact that almost every metric, if not every single one, is better today, please don't succumb to the strawman fallacy.

I will leave his quote here, from his Wikipedia entry:

"People often call me an optimist, because I show them the enormous progress they didn't know about. That makes me angry. I'm not an optimist. That makes me sound naive. I'm a very serious "possibilist". That's something I made up. It means someone who neither hopes without reason, nor fears without reason, someone who constantly resists the overdramatic worldview. As a possibilist, I see all this progress, and it fills me with conviction and hope that further progress is possible. This is not optimistic. It is having a clear and reasonable idea about how things are. It is having a worldview that is constructive and useful."

Re: In every country people think others are less happy than they themselves say (2017)

#62

Post by hpaavola »

Kbelicius wrote: post #56
hpaavola wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index shows that average democracy index has not been going downwards for 15 consecutive years.

Where? It says that world average in 2006 was 5.52 and in 2022 it was 5.29. That is clearly a downward movement.

"has been going downwards for 15 consecutive years" that was the claim. It's not been going down for 15 consecutive years as there has been ups and downs during the past 15 years. The overall trend is down, but going downwards for 15 years in a row is not true.

Re: In every country people think others are less happy than they themselves say (2017)

#63

Post by inexcf »

Kbelicius wrote: post #56
hpaavola wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index shows that average democracy index has not been going downwards for 15 consecutive years.

Where? It says that world average in 2006 was 5.52 and in 2022 it was 5.29. That is clearly a downward movement.

You ignored the "15 consecutive years". Not that it matters much, but it went from 5.52 to 5.55 to 5.46 to 5.55 and then down to 5.29 since 2016. It was a bit of a pedantic point but it's 6 consecutive years.

Re: In every country people think others are less happy than they themselves say (2017)

#64

Post by Retric »

brabel wrote: post #61
p-e-w wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Compared with every metric in history, we are better. That claim alone should immediately make you doubt the metrics being used. In fact, it's easy to find dozens of metrics for which this isn't true. Housing affordability being a very obvious example. And the average democracy index has been going downwards for 15 consecutive years IIRC. Environmental pollution also most certainly isn't "at the best time in the en…

Don't throw around accusations like that willy nilly. It causes "propaganda" to become a trivialized term that everyone can just throw at anyone making any statement they don't agree with after 1 minute of consideration. This book was written by Hans Rosling, a man who was an expert in data analysis and whose mission was to show actual world data to people in fantastic visualizations they could clearly understand. If…

Propaganda is about showing just the right data in the right way to make an argument. As such his backstory is perfect for a propaganda piece.

> almost every metric

That’s exactly the kind of thing that’s both misleading and false. Take global divorce rate, it’s one metric but you can easily turn it into several others if you’re trying to support a given narrative. Average length of marriage, percentage of the global population married, etc.

You can even swap positive metrics for negative ones or do the reverse. Average lifespan after cancer diagnosis increasing is good but more people with cancer sounds bad. More treatment options is good, but spiraling cost of new treatments is bad

Re: In every country people think others are less happy than they themselves say (2017)

#65

Post by fragmede »

shafyy wrote: post #58
zuppy wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found a book a while ago, that made me change my perspective about how I see the world as a whole. This is the book, it's called Factfulness: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37850908-factfulness There are a lot of bad things that happen around us (war, hunger, discrimination, etc), but we are at the best time in the entire human history, even with that. Compared with every metric in history, we are better. Even…

I've heard this book cited many times, and people saying that the "bad" things we see are just the news cycles and very temporary, and in general we're better off (e.g. "The richest person has the same iPhone as you and uses the same kind of toilet"). Sure, some things are "objectively" better, like lower child mortality and so on. But happiness is so subjective. It's entirely possible that when we were hunter gather…

Not to nitpick, but if you haven't used a $700 bidet toilet, no, rich people actually do have a better kind of toilet. $700 isn't all that much in the grand scheme of things, but heated seats are niiice.

Re: In every country people think others are less happy than they themselves say (2017)

#66

Post by hpaavola »

inexcf wrote: post #63
Kbelicius wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where? It says that world average in 2006 was 5.52 and in 2022 it was 5.29. That is clearly a downward movement.

You ignored the "15 consecutive years". Not that it matters much, but it went from 5.52 to 5.55 to 5.46 to 5.55 and then down to 5.29 since 2016. It was a bit of a pedantic point but it's 6 consecutive years.

Actually, the index went up last year. So 0 consecutive years of downwards trend.

Re: In every country people think others are less happy than they themselves say (2017)

#67

Post by jvanderbot »

Retric wrote: post #64
brabel wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't throw around accusations like that willy nilly. It causes "propaganda" to become a trivialized term that everyone can just throw at anyone making any statement they don't agree with after 1 minute of consideration. This book was written by Hans Rosling, a man who was an expert in data analysis and whose mission was to show actual world data to people in fantastic visualizations they could clearly understand. If…

Propaganda is about showing just the right data in the right way to make an argument. As such his backstory is perfect for a propaganda piece. > almost every metric That’s exactly the kind of thing that’s both misleading and false. Take global divorce rate, it’s one metric but you can easily turn it into several others if you’re trying to support a given narrative. Average length of marriage, percentage of the global…

Don't get uppity about "almost every metric". It's quite possibly true, after all. But then again we're defining the metrics aren't we, with all our recency bias and modern philosophy on life.

A high divorce rate is a positive thing if it means people are getting out of bad marriages and living poverty free independent lives. We have a lot of civil law around divorce that makes it expensive and painful, but not Henry 8th.

Re: In every country people think others are less happy than they themselves say (2017)

#68

Post by asah »

reminder: "happiness" is a construct that varies wildly from one culture to another, and even from one family or person to another.

By contrast, happiness as "less misery" is generally more agreed-upon, where misery is deep physical pain, starvation, serious disease, early deaths of friends/family, etc. Pain caused by loss is greater than pleasure gained by attainment.

Examples:

- some people crave variety/stimulation/entertainment/excitement, others could care less.

- some people care about living a long life, others care about living a fulfilling life.

- some people crave social standing, others could care less.

- some people value education and knowledge, others do not.

- some people value "freedom," others prefer to make fewer decisions.

...

Re: In every country people think others are less happy than they themselves say (2017)

#69

Post by wincy »

fragmede wrote: post #65
shafyy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard this book cited many times, and people saying that the "bad" things we see are just the news cycles and very temporary, and in general we're better off (e.g. "The richest person has the same iPhone as you and uses the same kind of toilet"). Sure, some things are "objectively" better, like lower child mortality and so on. But happiness is so subjective. It's entirely possible that when we were hunter gather…

Not to nitpick, but if you haven't used a $700 bidet toilet, no, rich people actually do have a better kind of toilet. $700 isn't all that much in the grand scheme of things, but heated seats are niiice .

I bought myself one of these fabled toilet seats about six years back and yes, it’s cured all the unpleasant health issues I had previously assumed were just a sad inevitability of having a butt.

Also sitting on a cold toilet seat is now particularly jarring. What a luxury! I highly recommend!

Re: In every country people think others are less happy than they themselves say (2017)

#70

Post by [deleted] »

fragmede wrote: post #65
shafyy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard this book cited many times, and people saying that the "bad" things we see are just the news cycles and very temporary, and in general we're better off (e.g. "The richest person has the same iPhone as you and uses the same kind of toilet"). Sure, some things are "objectively" better, like lower child mortality and so on. But happiness is so subjective. It's entirely possible that when we were hunter gather…

Not to nitpick, but if you haven't used a $700 bidet toilet, no, rich people actually do have a better kind of toilet. $700 isn't all that much in the grand scheme of things, but heated seats are niiice .

[deleted]
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