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World Happiness Report, 2019

kyso.io

51–60 of 67 posts

Re: World Happiness Report, 2019

#51

The 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.

I think they're using data from 2008.

Re: World Happiness Report, 2019

#52
post #4

The 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…

Based on your paragraph on children never seeing their fathers etc. Japan does seem terrible - perhaps Canadians, underneath all that complaining, are in fact happier; whereas Japanese don't complain but suffer silently? The scores may in fact be accurate..

Re: World Happiness Report, 2019

#53

There 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.

It looks like they only look at numbers from 2008. Not sure why...which was well before the current economic issues there started.

Re: World Happiness Report, 2019

#54

There 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.

The number is wrong. They're using data from 2008. It's fallen to 5.00 in 2018 according to the report.

Re: World Happiness Report, 2019

#56
we're likely all aware this is an incredibly difficult thing to quantify; indeed this represents a respectable effort.

it's not that i am not interested in raw data over interpretation. usually we don't have access to such data, or we don't know exactly what said data should be.

so this to me is a sort of data pornography that i enjoy with a grain of ky jelly.

Re: World Happiness Report, 2019

#57

Interesting 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…

I'm guessing you live in sydney :-)

Re: World Happiness Report, 2019

#58
post #18
post #5

Interesting 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…

I strongly disagree. People will always find something to complain about, and something so quantifiably "unfair" as income/wealth inequality will always be among them.

Even if 99% of people earned 200k and 1% earned 250k, there would be talk about how unfair the elite class is and how we need to tax those rich people so much more.

Re: World Happiness Report, 2019

#59

Interesting 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…

I'm guessing you live in sydney :-)

Perth... but I see the same everywhere. Currently in Port Macquarie and the same strange subdued anger is here.

Re: World Happiness Report, 2019

#60

There 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.

Do you have any details on the US driven sanctions regime in effect on Venezuela and its impact? Here is the official UN release [1] on the results of illegal US sanctions on Venezuela and an interview with the UN rapporteur for Venezuela.[2]

So these conditions are being artificially created by the US and its allies in another brazen regime change operation. How can commentators talk about 'suffering' without mentioning the sanctions? It's absurd to claim to care about 'suffering' while actively implementing sanctions at the same time.

Here is the latest UN resolution on the sanctions and their impact on the people of Venezuela. [3] And here is US National security advisor Michael Bolton openly orchestrating regime change and admitting its about oil. [4]

The same regime change playbook driven by greed cannot be executed everytime with the same results of millions of people suffering and entire countries destroyed and people playing 'innocent' everytime affecting 'concern' for ordinary people.

[1] https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii5MlQgGXyk

[3] https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/NewsDetail.aspx?...

[4] http://time.com/5516920/inside-john-boltons-month-long-p-r-c...

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