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Happiness is on the Wane in the US, UN Global Report Finds (theguardian.com)
From a report on The Guardian, shared by five anonymous readers: Happiness in the US is declining and is expected to continue on a downward path, with Donald Trump's policies forecast to deepen the country's social crisis. The US has slipped to 15th place in the World Happiness Report 2017, produced by the United Nations. The world's economic superpower is well behind top-ranked Norway, although it remains above Germany in 17th place, the UK in 19th, and France in 32nd. Norway knocked Denmark off the top spot as the world's happiest country, with Iceland and Switzerland rounding out the top four. The report's authors stress, however, that the top four are so close that changes are not statistically significant. The next tier of countries are regular leaders in international happiness surveys: Finland is in fifth place, followed by the Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Sweden. The world's "unhappiest" countries are all in the Middle East and Africa: war-stricken Yemen and Syria feature in the bottom 10, with Tanzania, Burundi and Central African Republic making up the final three.
I'd expect this trend to continue for at least the next 4 to 8 years, depending on how the 2020 elections go. Perhaps even longer than 8 years, depending on how much damage is done to the average citizens' lives due to selfish and thoughtless policy decisions and legislation.
As a moderate conservative, I was happy with Obama and would've been happy with Hillary. None of the 16 Republican candidates in 2016 made me happy, which was why I switched my political registration to Democratic in late 2015. Now we're stuck with sore loser Donald Trump, who is neither a conservative nor Republican, and, until a few short years ago, was a Clinton Democrat. Sad!
Friend, we don't have time for an 'amusing' Leader of the Free World; not anymore. It's not Amateur Night on Planet Earth anymore, things have gotten terribly, horribly real, and we really, really needed someone responsible, experienced, respectable, and capable of making thoughtful, insightful decisions on big and little issues alike. Sadly, we were not offered any such Candidate, not from any political party. So now we're stuck with this disgusting clown who is taking a chainsaw to just about everything. I'm not laughing. Neither are a lot of people who voted for the sonofabitch, either, and neither are a whole bunch of the GOP. Oh and by the way if you didn't figure it out, I am also not a Hillary or Trump supporter.
Oh and by the way I'd like to point out that Angela Merkel was called 'Leader of the Free World' by the press last week; that's about the worst black-eye the U.S. could possibly get so far as I'm concerned; the destruction of the credibility of the U.S. is now more or less complete. We're right down there, now, in the muck with so many African and South American countries, that seem to have a regime change every other week. It'll likely take many decades for us to fix our reputation, if it's even possible to do anymore.
If you read the actual report (figure 2.3, Changes in happiness from 2005-2007 to 2014-2016), you see that pretty much every first world nation except Germany and South Korea, and Norway and Switzerland (barely - within the confidence interval) have gone down in happiness, not just the U.S. The U.S. isn't even the first world nation with the biggest drop (Italy is, with Spain close behind).
A more fitting headline would've been "Happiness is on the wane in developed nations. Which might actually help explain the rise of nationalism in recent elections.
but he makes me really, really happy to be Canadian!
Or, maybe they just found a nice balance between capitalism and socialism, unlike the rest of the world.
Here in the USA, we are taught to "work hard and play hard", which is a recipe for getting worn out both physically and mentally. We have to keep up with the Jones' both at work and at home.
The "work hard and play hard" mantra could be said to be from the "protestant work ethic", or could be from plutocrat propaganda, being that working hard and playing hard gets the plutocrats the most profits: employees that work their asses off, then get home and spend their asses off on the plutocrats' hyped products and fashions.
Table-ized A.I.
"It's not Amateur Night on Planet Earth anymore, things have gotten terribly, horribly real,"
Poor people are living longer, earning more, eating more, all over the world. There are fewer large wars.Sure there's a few existential problems around, but you are living in a very successful century so far as homo sapiens is concerned.
Dude, you're on an aging, mostly white discussion board devoted to technology: If you want to troll slashdotters, say something about how it's important to cut research funding.
"I'll be so sad when they cut funding for useless nuclear fusion research, LOL, we don't need another chernobyl. We should spend the money on copyright protection instead, crack down on linux ripping off windows!"
Rather than argue about which side is the most evil/bad/mean/incompetent, let's agree the culture war in the USA is intensifying, which is a big source of tension in the USA for both sides. Remember, Texas talked of secession after Obama's election win.
Progressives want bigger gov't-backed safety nets and education opportunities, and conservatives believe that the private sector will make everyone's boat float higher if the gov't gets out of the way such that they don't need a safety net. (And there's also climate change, abortion, pollution, etc. etc.)
I believe heavy-trickle-down is kaflooey* in modern times, but realize I'm not going to change conservative minds on that such that both sides are stuck at an impasse, thinking the other side is getting in the way.
Perhaps it's time to split the USA rather than waste resources and anger on gridlock and seesaw politics.
* The benefits of increased economic activity from lower taxes and deregulation almost always have flowed UPward since about 1980, not outward. Automation, offshoring, and the death of unions changed things toward the 1% compared to pre-1980. Trickle down ain't work anymore; the TD model is broken and leaking oil.
Table-ized A.I.
There's NO evidence they commit more crimes than the average population, and even less by some estimates. Most come here to work; they can commit crimes in their home country better because they know the language, if crime were their goal.
The crime angle on that is a Fake Problem. Bad Trump.
Table-ized A.I.
No, average population, period.
If T wanted to reduce crime in general, which should be the logical goal, he should ask, what's the best way to reduce crime per federal dollars spent? I've seen no evidence that spending more fed dollars on JUST illegal immigrants is more effective than spending on it on general law enforcement, such as more FBI staff, systems, and/or more cops.
He's just obsessed with "outsiders" as a personality quirk. It's not based on any sound crime-solving monetary/resource allocation logic or model. I don't think he'd have the patience to review any such study or model with a critical eye. By all appearances, it's his gut tribalism instinct driving his decision process, not math, models, and logic. You are welcome to demonstrate he has given crime-fighting resource allocation some real thought...
Table-ized A.I.
he's actually putting the interests of the USA before those of foreign nations
Sure, if our interests are cutting education funding, cutting the EPA, cutting elderly food programs, cutting women's rights, cutting healthcare, and increasing racism and military spending. Nothing will make America great again like a generation of stupid kids, sick and hungry people, and weapons.
Or, maybe they just found a nice balance between capitalism and socialism, unlike the rest of the world.
For very socialist values of balance, at least here in Norway. According to the world bank we have third lowest Gini coefficient in the world, meaning our income is extremely evenly distributed by international standards. There is not a lot of really poor nor very wealthy people, with notable exceptions of course but looking at income stats if you divide into 10% slices the 80-90% slice make just under twice as much as the 10-20%. The best paid executives in Statoil, our huge mostly state owned company the CEO makes about $1.7 million a year. If you go to a similar foreign oil giant like say Schlumberger the CEO makes $18.6 million a year. Working at McD you earn ~$15/hour the first four months if you're 18-20, after that or from day one if you're older ~$18.50/hour. And you don't need health insurance or a 401(k) on top of that, the public healthcare system and public pensions are entirely adequate. Granted you can't directly compare prices, but you live okay on one "minimum wage" job. So at McD you make $35k/year and your average doctor makes $95k/year, the tax system makes the difference even less in practice. But we want it. And a very high percent of the population works, that helps. It's still an odd country.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
That's completely and utter non-sense. The U.S. Federal Government's primary reason to exist is to enable the pursuit of happiness. They help build roads which allow you to move from place to place, they create law enforcement frameworks so you have consistency across the union.
In more recent history they cleaned up the rivers and lakes that were so polluted they would catch on f'in fire. This hate of government bs is what got us where we are with our current President. It is stupid, government can does certain things well, there are certainly things it should not do as well. That is why we have a legislature and a Supreme court and even a President.
I hate this I got mine so screw everybody else crap. We are by far the richest country in the world and yet we are gonna make our children go hungry because we somehow can't afford to feed them? We are gonna kick millions off healthcare and discourage younger people from obtaining insurance and penalizing them if they get the balls to get try and get it so we are gonna kill more and more hospitals as uninsured people show up again.
Is that really true though? The report has an entire chapter on "The Key Determinants of Happiness and Misery", and the authors don't seem to think that multiculturalism is something that makes people sad. Why do you think that?
Japan and South Korea are probably the most culturally-homogeneous and highly-developed nations around. They sit at 51st and 56th place, respectively. Meanwhile Switzerland speaks four different languages and are the 4th happiest in the world. Canada, Australia and New Zealand, all of which are just as multicultural as the USA, are in the top 10.
I'd argue that Japan and South Korea's unhappiness comes because of, and not in spite of, their strict cultural homogeneity.