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Happiness report: Norway is the happiest place on earth

bbc.com

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Re: Happiness report: Norway is the happiest place on earth

#151

Post by dgudkov »

senior_james wrote: post #75

Most of the time, people that have more freedom are less happy. I remember stories I heard about people moving from Soviet Russia to the United States back in the early 80s. They were unhappy and stressed out because in the soviet union, they were assigned a job and the government took care of them. Here in the United States, you had to fend for yourself. Freedom isn't always pleasant and happy, but it's better for t…

It's not a very good example. The USSR was a totalitarian paternalistic state that deprived people of many basic freedoms and opportunities. The state guaranteed job and housing only because it took everything else. To an extent, the Soviet people had modified behavioral patterns and mentality. When migrated to the States, they brought all the thinking patterns they were taught in the USSR without having proper survival skills. They did have hard times adjusting to the West civilization, but I wouldn't rely on their opinion when it comes to freedom and happiness. In their case freedom and happiness were not correlated.

Re: Happiness report: Norway is the happiest place on earth

#152

Post by sametmax »

larsiusprime wrote: post #60
sametmax wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, and this is why natality is an important topic for democracy. It's not just a matter of resources. Everything is easier to manage with less people, meaning more transparency, fairness and equality. The fact that we are not over populated doesn't mean we should not think seriously about decreasing our population size. It's probably a requirement to make the system evolve.

An alternate interpretation is that devolving political control to the smallest possible unit is an available option regardless of a land mass' total population size.

Then you stack levels of indirections, which is another source of problems.

Re: Happiness report: Norway is the happiest place on earth

#153

Post by sametmax »

dagss wrote: post #94
sametmax wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, and this is why natality is an important topic for democracy. It's not just a matter of resources. Everything is easier to manage with less people, meaning more transparency, fairness and equality. The fact that we are not over populated doesn't mean we should not think seriously about decreasing our population size. It's probably a requirement to make the system evolve.

However well Norwegian government works, it cannot do much about profits increasingly escaping to multinational megacorps who are taxed in a tax haven. Since corporations are global and sometimes more powerful than states, there are real disadvantages with going for more power to local governments.

A more just society means a harder life for profit driven structures. That's just the way it is : the more you want to benefit all, the less you can concentrate resources.

Re: Happiness report: Norway is the happiest place on earth

#154

Post by asavadatti »

doc_gunthrop wrote: post #125
erelde wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aka more simply as H2G2, "the" and "to" aren't required in an acronym.

Except nobody ever refers to it as "H2G2". Using acronyms already adds some degree of ambiguity; shortening a commonly used acronym makes it basically unrecognizable, even when used within the proper context.

H2G2 is a pretty common acronym. In fact I've only heard it referred to as H2G2 or Hitchhiker's Guide.

Re: Happiness report: Norway is the happiest place on earth

#155

Post by erelde »

doc_gunthrop wrote: post #125
erelde wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aka more simply as H2G2, "the" and "to" aren't required in an acronym.

Except nobody ever refers to it as "H2G2". Using acronyms already adds some degree of ambiguity; shortening a commonly used acronym makes it basically unrecognizable, even when used within the proper context.

On its wikipedia page its referred throughout as H2G2.

H2G2 9 times

HG2G 2 times

HHGTTG 2 times

Re: Happiness report: Norway is the happiest place on earth

#157

Post by sn41 »

synicalx wrote: post #156

> It is your country. I think you should fight for it. Uh oh, those words are verboten on HN! You mustn't like your country nor should you ever do anything that benefits it because that's racist.

Which is why I prefixed a sentence saying that I am not a citizen of NZ. Despite that, I feel sad for the people in the country who believe that the economic system must not be questioned even when it is clearly working against them.

When the housing prices are clearly out of the pockets of the average earner in a country, it is just economic fanaticism to not do something about it.

In the US, I've heard that you can be eligible for a home-loan for up to 3 times your annual earning (someone can correct me if I'm wrong on this.) This gives a quantitative measure. Take the number of houses which are priced more than 3 times the median earning of a neighborhood. If too many of these houses are owned by foreigners who are not residents, then legislation is called for.

I know it's not free market economics, but I do not believe in needless misery.

Re: Happiness report: Norway is the happiest place on earth

#158

Post by [deleted] »

fergie wrote: post #101
zdean wrote: post #58

I wonder if the lack of ethnic diversity in the "happier" countries is a contributing factor: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16...

Other people have mentioned Japan, but you could look at basically any eastern european state to see lots of ethnically pure, yet miserable populations. EDIT: those countries are getting better, but still...

[deleted]

Re: Happiness report: Norway is the happiest place on earth

#159

Post by [deleted] »

fergie wrote: post #101
zdean wrote: post #58

I wonder if the lack of ethnic diversity in the "happier" countries is a contributing factor: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16...

Other people have mentioned Japan, but you could look at basically any eastern european state to see lots of ethnically pure, yet miserable populations. EDIT: those countries are getting better, but still...

[deleted]

Re: Happiness report: Norway is the happiest place on earth

#160

Post by dang »

synicalx wrote: post #156

> It is your country. I think you should fight for it. Uh oh, those words are verboten on HN! You mustn't like your country nor should you ever do anything that benefits it because that's racist.

Please don't make things up about HN for rhetorical purposes. Also, please don't post unsubstantive comments.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13913656 and marked it off-topic.

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