Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Happiness report: Norway is the happiest place on earth

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 168 posts

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

#91

Post by Someone1234 »

openasocket wrote: post #74

I'm wondering how this squares with the fact that Norway has the 13th highest suicide rate in the world ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/suiciderate.html ). I know that suicide is often the product of mental illness rather than general unhappiness, but clearly Norway has a large number of people with some sort of depressive disorder, which I figured would lower them in terms of general unhappiness. In fac…

You claim that they have the "13th highest suicide rate in the world." Do you have a source for that claim? The linked table only contains 26 countries out of 196 countries in the world; so you cannot conclude what you conclude based on that table alone.

PS - What I find interesting about that table is, countries where it is socially acceptable to complain (and to "be sad") there is less suicide than in countries where the expectation is to be positive/happy all the time. Just kind of the inverse of what you'd expect, the UK having a low suicide rate is hilarious given how self-deprecating of a society we are.

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

#92

Post by olavk »

klausjensen wrote: post #53
tazjin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Janteloven is more about not assuming you are better than others. Being happy is perfectly compatible with that.

I don't think that paints a very good picture of what Janteloven / Law of Jante is. In many other cultures, success is celebrated. Janteloven is the opposite of that, ensuring that success is criticized an seen as undeserved or lucky. I find it to be one of the worst aspects of Scandinavian culture, which is full of other good things, that I love.

The Law of Jante is not about success as such, and not really about criticizing success either. It is a law that says you should not pretend you are better than your peers. If success makes you act as if you are actually better than other people (bragging, acting arrogant, or just publicly suggesting that you actually deserve the success) you are met with disapproval. But the disapproval is not towards the success itself, but towards acting differently because of it.

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

#94

Post by dagss »

sametmax wrote: post #37
larsiusprime wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a dual Norwegian/American citizen, I would posit that a lot of that has to do with scale (ie, scale is necessary, though certainly not sufficient). The Norwegian government is on the same scale as many American municipal governments! And then you have local governments under that, that are obviously much smaller and thus even more hyper-local than many of their American counterparts. The larger your state gets, th…

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.

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

#95

Post by openasocket »

Someone1234 wrote: post #91
openasocket wrote: post #74

I'm wondering how this squares with the fact that Norway has the 13th highest suicide rate in the world ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/suiciderate.html ). I know that suicide is often the product of mental illness rather than general unhappiness, but clearly Norway has a large number of people with some sort of depressive disorder, which I figured would lower them in terms of general unhappiness. In fac…

You claim that they have the "13th highest suicide rate in the world." Do you have a source for that claim? The linked table only contains 26 countries out of 196 countries in the world; so you cannot conclude what you conclude based on that table alone. PS - What I find interesting about that table is, countries where it is socially acceptable to complain (and to "be sad") there is less suicide than in countries whe…

Wow, I feel really dumb right now. I didn't bother scrolling down on that page and didn't realize how short that list was! Looking at the wikipedia page it's clear that Norway has a much lower suicide rate in comparison to the rest of the world.

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

#97

Post by avar »

prodikl wrote: post #90
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...

i doubt it. japan and south korea are pretty homogeneous and they have some of the highest suicide rates in the world

That would be an argument against it being the sole factor, but has little to do with whether it's a contributing factor.

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

#98

Post by fergie »

sn41 wrote: post #18
mistermann wrote: post #8

1. Norway 146. Yemen 2. Denmark 147. South Sudan 3. Iceland 148. Liberia 4. Switzerland 149. Guinea 5. Finland 150. Togo 6. Netherlands 151. Rwanda 7. Canada 152. Syria 8. New Zealand 153. Tanzania 9. Australia 154. Burundi 10. Sweden Will be interesting to see how spots 7, 8, 9 hold up going forward as many/most middle class people in these 3 countries increasingly find they cannot afford even a very modest home wit…

I am an Indian who have lived for a while in NZ. Please do not chug on this Kool-Aid that NZ is not corrupt. Part of the reason why real estate in Auckland is overpriced is because the government deliberately does not formulate a legislation that forbids non-residents from buying up property. Please petition for this reasonable legislation. Who does the current policy enrich? It is your country. I think you should fi…

Property bubbles are basically created by social policies that encourage speculation on residential property.

It's worth noting that Norway and Denmark have pretty strong restraints on "buy-to-let"

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

#99

Post by charlesdm »

mistermann wrote: post #65
charlesdm wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corruption does come in all shapes and sizes, but what you just described doesn't sound like corruption to me. Selling off properties to foreign owners isn't necessarily bad policy (it can bring in foreign capital, that is then transferred to a local owner or resident)

When it gets to the point where locals can't afford to place to live, what would be the correct word to use?

Capitalism + globalisation

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

#100

Post by anothercomment »

One of the most depressing things I ever read is about Norwegians not having good ideas for spending their money, so the tend to opt for buying second and third holiday homes. I mean I am sure having holiday homes provides a certain degree of happiness, it was just the mundaneness and banality of the human condition that depressed me about it.
Post reply on HN