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A Sick People

householderkarl.com

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Re: A Sick People

#91

Post by SomaticPirate »

If your only experience with other countries are 2-3 week vacations then yes, those people will always be exceedingly kind to you. They are more than happy to be kind to you since A, you will be leaving soon and B, you are paying a good chunk of $$$ to be there.

The fact the author was able to take a multiple day vacation to several top Mexican resorts is exceedingly ironic. The meals he ate and the resorts he stayed at are probably on accessible to 10% of the entire Mexican population. Those around him made around $750 USD per month. A night at any of those resorts probably runs around that amount.

If you visit a small town in the USA and stay in a nice bed and breakfast, you will find the country has the same quaint charm as several places abroad.

Re: A Sick People

#92

Post by paytonjjones »

derbOac wrote: post #62
paytonjjones wrote: post #25

Maybe worth checking the data first... https://ourworldindata.org/happiness-and-life-satisfaction

I agree with the need for an empirical reality check, but have grown really skeptical about these kinds of cohort-level well-being measures. 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…

As someone who does _very_ related research, I'd push back on your skepticism.

I recommend Gilbert's "Stumbling on Happiness". It very accessibly addresses almost every point you raised.

In particular, people have very bad intuitions about trauma and loss. Humans are shockingly adaptable and bounce back to full functioning and happiness almost all of the time. Provided you don't have a biased sample (such as people seeking care) this is equally apparent when talking to victims of trauma as when doing empirical research.

Re: A Sick People

#94

Post by comrade1234 »

MyHonestOpinon wrote: post #14
comrade1234 wrote: post #4

I'm American but moved to Europe years ago where I am definitely happier. I like the superstitious idea that the American continent is cursed from the deaths of 55 million native Americans since the discovery of the western hemisphere. I mean, I do t believe it but it does make a good story.

Sure, horrible things happened. But a big part of those deaths was the new diseases that people had no developed immunity to. It was bound to happen sooner or later.

It's not a literal concept.

Re: A Sick People

#95

Post by inigyou »

tqi wrote: post #53
Webstir wrote: post #2

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/

The irony hopping into a popular post to promote your own tangentially related blog post where you rail against "advertising" is papable.

Self promotion is allowed on HN.

Re: A Sick People

#96

Post by smcg »

dudul wrote: post #89
smcg wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the "fat" part is true, the US is #2 in obesity among developed countries. In many education metrics we are average or below average compared to the OECD countries (despite spending more than others) - let's round it out to "average". The others are less measurable.

The author is beaming about Mexico where the obesity rate is on par with the US. The US rank 9th in terms of tertiary education in the world, so no, not "average'. And even average wouldn't translate to "uneducated".

tertiary education is just one metric. And yes Mexico is #1 obesity but that doesn't mean that the US being #2 is good. We are horribly overweight compared to Europe and Asia.

Re: A Sick People

#97

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe »

david927 wrote: post #44

> I think a part of it is the individualism we’re raised to embrace. > We don’t care for our children, our elderly, or our communities. It’s all me me me. How do I get mine and fuck the other guy. Capitalism, I'm looking at you.

Why don't you look at your own individualism instead?

Re: A Sick People

#98

Post by mostlysimilar »

delichon wrote: post #85

There is a whole genre of videos on YouTube where Europeans in the U.S. for the World Cup rave about how happy and friendly the locals are. Click on one and your feed fills up with them. These mostly start with saying that this is in rural America, away from the big cities. As a rural American that is my impression too. The people I bump into at the local one-horse town gas station are routinely more open and friendl…

> These mostly start with saying that this is in rural America, away from the big cities.

I'm not sure I follow here. Which rural parts of the US are home to stadiums, let alone big enough to host the World Cup? A cursory search shows we hosted in Seattle, SF, Boston, NYC, LA, Miami, Dallas, etc., which are our biggest and most prosperous cities.

There are plenty of friendly, happy people in American cities.

Re: A Sick People

#99

Post by piloto_ciego »

EagleEdge wrote: post #30
mattrighetti wrote: post #10

> Every time I leave the US, I’m always struck by how happy other people seem to be. Every time I visit a place I get the impression that people are happier, but it's just an impression based on something you notice and experience for a very short amount of time. You'll see happy and desperate people anywhere, I don't think it has to do with the place. > Actually, I think I say that about everywhere I travel. That's…

I try not to make any judgement about people, their life and other things based on a few days or at most a few weeks of travel in that place. It is tempting to say things based on a very limited experience on a very limited people in a very limited place.

I can sympathize with the viewpoint in the article. Indeed, I agree with many of the points of the article.

But also, when I didn't speak Spanish very well, Spain felt magical and whimsical and all the people seemed so happy. A few years later I came back and spoke Spanish at a much higher level (pretty easy to improve when your initial level of capability was counting to 100 and ordering beer) and noticed that the situation was much more nuanced. I'd over hear the same sorts of conversations I'd hear at home.

Re: A Sick People

#100

Post by nozzlegear »

thataccount wrote: post #27

Every time I don't live somewhere, I notice that in the place I don't live, everyone is happier. Common denominator there?

Reminds me of that advice where we're warned not to compare ourselves to other people on social media, because we're only seeing their highlight reel.
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