Happy Aussies?

[NovU]

Seems like Aussies are the happiest people in the world. Canucks in second.

The index covers 11 areas: housing, incomes, employment, social relationships, education, the environment, the administration of institutions, health, general satisfaction, security and the balance between work and family.

Australia ranked first in the overall happiness scale. The United States finished seventh, and Turkey finished last.

I can see the reasons behind their measurement but I am not so sure about Canada being a great place to have fun. Too many regulations and restrictions for the social security I'd say.

[benji]

How does "material living conditions" = happiness?

I thought money didn't = happiness?

Considering the index, the fact that every single one of these countries didn't fail proves how delusional we are.

EDIT: LOL, I didn't read the qualifier on the graph before. I have no idea why people do these studies, this is literally 100% meaningless.

I should probably explain for people who aren't dealing with this stuff every day because they're not losers who have condemned themselves to a life of failure who desperately would rather work in a mail room looking for Pepe Silvia.

A measure like this is almost entirely meaningless unless you view the variables they chose. And then it only improves to 95% meaningless.

As an example just because you can't fucking escape it is the whole thing about the U.S. ranking "37th" on health care "statistics."

In reality this is determined mostly around infant mortality. Except the U.S., likely because of its large religious and anti-abortion segments of the populace defines this completely differently from every other country on the planet. The U.S. attempts to save and then post-birth defines these deaths, everyone else declares them to not even have been born. Miscarry? Dies during birth? Etc.? U.S. counts it. Europe, Canada, etc.? They don't.

I bring this up to illustrate a point. You can find it in every official government statistic which these are all based on. None of them say much of anything. For many European nations you can't even get proper poverty numbers because of privacy laws which prevent it. The U.S. poverty number is based on a stupid statistical model that the government has refused to fix for 40 years. The CPI is even worse and the government manipulates that on purpose. And not a single poverty measure covers taxes and benefits in any manner that makes sense.

You could run a basketball team better on PER than you could run a nation on these numbers.

We'll pretend the latter is possible.

[J@3]

How does "material living conditions" = happiness?

I thought money didn't = happiness?

Considering the index, the fact that every single one of these countries didn't fail proves how delusional we are.

EDIT: LOL, I didn't read the qualifier on the graph before. I have no idea why people do these studies, this is literally 100% meaningless.

I should probably explain for people who aren't dealing with this stuff every day because they're not losers who have condemned themselves to a life of failure who desperately would rather work in a mail room looking for Pepe Silvia.

A measure like this is almost entirely meaningless unless you view the variables they chose. And then it only improves to 95% meaningless.

As an example just because you can't fucking escape it is the whole thing about the U.S. ranking "37th" on health care "statistics."

In reality this is determined mostly around infant mortality. Except the U.S., likely because of its large religious and anti-abortion segments of the populace defines this completely differently from every other country on the planet. The U.S. attempts to save and then post-birth defines these deaths, everyone else declares them to not even have been born. Miscarry? Dies during birth? Etc.? U.S. counts it. Europe, Canada, etc.? They don't.

I bring this up to illustrate a point. You can find it in every official government statistic which these are all based on. None of them say much of anything. For many European nations you can't even get proper poverty numbers because of privacy laws which prevent it. The U.S. poverty number is based on a stupid statistical model that the government has refused to fix for 40 years. The CPI is even worse and the government manipulates that on purpose. And not a single poverty measure covers taxes and benefits in any manner that makes sense.

You could run a basketball team better on PER than you could run a nation on these numbers.

We'll pretend the latter is possible.

This is why you're only the 7th happiest country.

[rise]

This explains Badger.

[Andrew]

Guess there's something to the whole "She'll be right" frame of mind after all.

[Drex]

Wow, the only South American country

[el badman]

France right in the middle, that sounds about right.
Not surprised to see Scandinavian countries way up there, but I'm actually surprised the US aren't further behind.

Then again, I doubt happiness can actually be measured by those indicators, or measured at all for that matter.

[NovU]

Damn benji! It must be tough being american.

[benji]

Has nothing to do with being born in the United States.

[Martti.]

Estonia right there in the bottom, no surprise there...

[shadowgrin]

More on how Aussies showing how good they have it.

A 22-year-old Australian university student has solved a problem which has puzzled astrophysicists for decades, discovering part of the so-called "missing mass" of the universe during her summer break.

[J@3]

And she doesn't even have an Indian/Asian name

[benji]

Of course Aussies are happy, Andy at the end of Shawshank was happy too.