61–70 of 129 posts
This to me is the nub of it. Where is our humanity when people lie homeless and lifeless in stupor on the streets as Waymos glide by?
Some countries do better. Many don't. But we should always seek to model off those that put welfare of all people above welfare of one.
Maybe worth checking the data first... https://ourworldindata.org/happiness-and-life-satisfaction
I wouldn't say they're meaningless, but there's a lot of studies suggesting they don't really change much over time, and my sense is they don't change in tandem with events that should change well-being, except in extremes like widespread genocidal war.
There's even researchers who have kind of taken them seriously to suggest that people have social cognitive biases about the past, and societal changes. I respect them and think what they're suggesting is reasonable (in the sense that they're taking the measures seriously) but the other way of looking at it is to flip it around and raise the possibility that the aggregation-level measurement isn't tracking what we want it to.
I admit I don't have an alternative, and don't think they're worthless per se, I just feel like (as someone who does vaguely related research) like they're tracking something more akin to perceptual sets or world schemas than psychosocial functioning.
I guess at some level I always have the "everything is fine" dog meme in the back of my mind when I see these kinds of well-being or mood analyses.
I used to travel to the U.S. every year or two for this or that and I always left thinking about just how stressed out I'd be if I had to live there. There's a sense of having to have your "guard up" so much. That someone or something is always out to screw you. That you need gates on your communities. That your kids' school is going to get shot up. That cops might be the enemy. That you'll depend on someone in a mom…
Nearly everything you said is inaccurate for the vast majority of the US, and it's obvious you have projected a lot of vaguely accurate online news reports across the nation as a whole.
“ By and large, we’re fat, lazy, poorly educated, and blind to the state of things. It’s embarrassing.” 100% wrong. Didn’t even bother reading after that
It’s the capitalism, stupid. Here’s a little blog post I penned a while back on the topic: https://www.ianwelsh.net/capitalism-as-mental-illness/
Calling everyone stupid is a surefire way to get them to read your post.
>We don’t care for our children, our elderly, or our communities This to me is the nub of it. Where is our humanity when people lie homeless and lifeless in stupor on the streets as Waymos glide by? Some countries do better. Many don't. But we should always seek to model off those that put welfare of all people above welfare of one.
We've decided that those people have agency, and are not willing to force them into a facility against their will.
You can disagree with it, but that's the current choice the nation has made and it's not an invalid one.
Also, most people do care for their children, elderly, and communities. The US is not a failed state because not 100% of people or munipalities do.
> But we should always seek to model off those that put welfare of all people above welfare of one.
No thanks.
There are millions of happy, good people in America. Grass is always greener. You see novelty when you travel.
Many of the rest of us are aware of this and worried we won't be allowed to vote our way out of it. If that ends up being the case millions of us might die.
Of the 50% of us who didn't vote for this the overwhelming majority are cowards who won't do anything.
We aren't good people collectively. We are in a word garbage.
Then why doesn't the author just leave?
I’m too lazy to go back and find your Biden era bitching and tell you to do the same, but if we all followed your advice the place would be empty.